It has been far too long!

I am sorry it has been so long, school and mommy-hood got in the way of blogging. Well my term at LBCC is finished and I don't start again until the 26th of September. The chickens are great and we are starting to get a good hull each day. The pup has a name, Oso, and he is doing great! We also had a dog that was stolen and returned to us thanks to his micro-chip!

You can see the difference in all of his features now. I can't wait to see Oso as an adult! 

This is Alphie who we are ecstatic to have home! He has been great with the chickens and rabbits so that is great! For those wondering he is a papered APBT.. 

J holding two eggs and being a goof! 

Eggs are everywhere, we even have a few double yolks here! 

M and J have gotten bigger! Though M is still super small! 

I think the biggest change is we are trying out pre-school for a year with J. The pre-school we choose has a lot of hands on methods similar to homeschooling. It is also connected to the local charter school here in town and perhaps she may do kinder there too. They use a lot of home school curriculum instead of the main stream ones. Though unfortunately they are a lottery system and it doesn't hold any significance to have attended pre-k there. 

Here is J's lunch system, it is a bento box and is the easiest choice for us for school since we have a child that loves fruits, veggies, and could eat rice for every meal and be the happiest kid in the world! 

While getting J ready for pre-k we have been looking lunches and ideas for her since she will be doing three full days while I am at school and two half days (mornings) for homework and subsequent labs in the following terms. So she will need a packed lunch three days a week! I found a great website Just Bento and it is a great place to start if you are interested. It shows how you can make simple bento boxes with even typical american food or you can get really creative! I know for us since J has started to take a liking to making her own sandwiches will love have the ingredients in there to do herself! 

There is a also a cook book that I ordered from Amazon, The Just Bento Cookbook: Everyday Lunches To Go, by the same author. Perhaps after more followers happen this may be my first give away. 

I also ordered some egg molds to mold hard boiled eggs into stars and hearts! 

(For those of you who are wondering who will have M while J and I are at school she will be with my wonderful MiL) 

I will definitely be checking in a lot more often! 

Our New Addition; The Un-Named Pup! And An Update.

So it has been a good week or so here at home. Our chickens are all doing well and the littles are getting bigger. I'll have to post new pictures here soon of the chicks, turkey, and the big chickens.

So through a friend I got a told about some people that had run out of their dog food for their pups and they said they'd trade an 8 week old lab pup for a bag of food. After conferring with the husband we decided to choose one! I got the one that was out going but not too crazy or too shy; he also happened to be the biggest guy.

We have no name and are in the process of switching his food over from purina to INFINIA Turkey and Sweet Potato and all Oregon Wilco's carry it and they have a buy so many get one free and they keep your card at the register! This is great because it is an all life stages food so all my dogs can eat it.

Also a cat update; the kitten sadly passed away. The vet said it was fading kitten syndrome; J was very sad but unfortunately has dealt with death a bit in her 4 short years so she is doing better now. Bingo has been doing quite well. I am extremely pleased with his health.

And without further interruption here are some pictures of the new pup.

Bingo Update

The stress of the weekend is catching up with me. After Bingo's super low numbers and such on Sunday I have been heavily monitoring him and corresponding with our vet about what to do. We are playing by ear and following Bingo's cues (his blood sugar numbers). He had great numbers today which is great! After adjusting the dosage and getting better numbers he does seem a lot more active than normal which is great.

He decided to sleep in J's room tonight. Sorry for the bad quality photo but it was dark and taken from the cell phone with flash. I am happy all seem to be well in Bingo land.

Here is J and Bingo sleeping. 

Now I am off to diaper laundry. Hasta manana! 

Sunday, Bloody Sunday...

Oy Vey what a day! To tell this story I must go back a few weeks to my dear like a Grandma Paula's funeral. What a crazy day; at her request everyone wore purple. Afterwards the family went back to her house to get belongings they wanted to keep. That is when I got a call and was informed I was given a cat and Bingo was his name(o!). He is 18 years old, diabetic, and 17.5lbs. That is more then J weighed at a year. So that night I picked up Bingo and brought him home. He saw the vet and all seemed well, we switched him from a high carb dry food to a low carb wet food, lowered his insulin dose from 10 units twice daily to 5 units twice daily.

At the advice of his previous vet we had not tried testing his blood glucose at home because apparently he is known for taking down vet techs. UGH. So for the past two weeks I have been loving up on his ears (where you get your blood sample from) whenever I pet him, fed him, and pretty much saw him so he'd associate it with good feeling.

So yesterday afternoon I tested his blood glucose and it was 233 about 4 hours before his next dose of 5 units. The range the Vet wants him at is 100-250 so it seemed like we were doing well. At 10pm I gave him his 5 units of insulin and went to bed.

So now welcome back to today. OY VEY!  I get his insulin ready in the syringe and prior to injecting him I test his blood sugar and it was 25. So I quickly tested again and it was 25. So I had to spring into action to treat hypoglycemia even though he wasn't showing any symptoms. (I didn't give him his insulin this morning for the record since he was so low.) We were able to get his sugar up and he seemed fine so his vet said not to worry and just keep an eye on him. I also was on the feline diabetes forums a lot today getting feedback from them.

So tonight his blood sugar was 333 so I gave 1 unit and we will see how that makes him feel throughout the night. Thought I am happy to report he seems ok with being poked and if anyone wants to follow his blood sugars Here is Bingo's Spread Sheet.

Here is smug look from Bingo

Here is Bingo guarding J's room. 

So now I am going to go to sleep for awhile and hope I am coherent for M's 2 month appointment in the morning. Goodnight Moon. 

Building The Coop and Other Fun!

So much has happened since Tuesday but blogger was being wonky so sorry for the delay. We went and got most of our building supplies today for our coop. Hopefully will be fully done by the end of next weekend. J's plants are doing great and she even bought some from the American Heritage Girls who were having a plant sale.  

We were super lucky and found flooring that was pretty much already made for the chicken coop so it should be relatively quick to put up once we have all the plywood and such cut to our dimensions.

Also a neighbor brought me a small kitten so I am fostering it until it is 2lbs and ready to be neutered. I'll take him to Willamette Animal Guild (a great place to get your animals spayed or neutered for a fabulously cheap price) and get his shots and then get him a great home. I have a friend that may be interested so that would be awesome but if not hopefully a fully vetted and fixed kitten won't hang out with us long.

The bigger guys.. 

The coop (not built) 

The fabulous looking egg plants

The tomatoes that are now too tall for the lid, they are getting transplanted too. 

The bell pepper

The second bell pepper! 

The lone marigold, I think we will be transplanting it soon. 

The sunflower seeds from the farmers market

A better shot of the sunflowers

The lemon cucumber plant that J bought today

Here is the lemon cucumber bud

Here is the kitten from a few days ago. 

I will start taking pictures of our coop progress as we start building! Also we had rabbit and the husband enjoyed it quite a bit so we are a go for raising our own rabbits for meat! I am quite excited about the fact I will know where our food source is coming from at least a little bit! 

The Cycle of Life and The Four Year Old Psyche

So the plants are going good but the front runners, the marigolds, seem to be dying. The soil looks really wet and pressed down. I suspect fowl play at the hands of the four year old.

When I told her that she probably killed two of the plants she claimed she didn't do it and it was princess Alela who poured the water in it. I told her whom ever it was it doesn't matter since now no one can enjoy the ones that die.

Egg Plants

Tomatoes

The marigolds.... 

The lone bell pepper. 

So beware of princess Alela she may pour too much water into your plants... 

Happy Mother's Day and Let There Be Growth!

Well I hope you all had a fabulous day and enjoyed it. We have had phenomenal day full of normalcy and love. I got to sleep in (with the baby of course) and then J cleaned her room without complaint. Then I got my present, I was allowed to go to the farm store and get a turkey, two buff orpington pullets, and we got a cornish cross to try our hand at a meat bird. If that goes well after our coop and run is finished we will keep getting 10 or so and culling them and throwing them in our freezer. 

Our plants are doing fabulously, all plants are sprouting even the peppers and we have two now in the egg plants! I am so glad these are working out and so is J. 

The marigolds are doing great

You can see the bell pepper. 

Egg Plant #1 

Egg Plant #2

The three tomatoes doing great! 

Here are our new additions to the flock. 

This is the Cornish X and you can see how robust it is. 

Here is one of the Buff's

Here is the other

Better shot

Here is the bronze turkey it'll make a fine Thanksgiving dinner. 

So I had a fabulous mother's day and I hope you did too! I need to go do the cloth diaper laundry and go to bed! 

A laid back Saturday

M is 8 weeks old today, my time has flown as it seems like she born only a few hours ago. She is smiling a good handful of times a day now and making some interesting noises out of her little mouth. She is such a content little baby and is just pleased as peach as long as she is fed, dry, and clothed in something comfy and preferably fuzzy.

Taken today at 8 weeks old

Our small garden project is going well we now have three marigold sprouts! They seem to be doing well. There seems like there might be a small sprout starting on the bell pepper, maybe? There is one sprout on the egg plant and now there are THREE sprouts on the tomatoes! J is super excited about it all. I can't wait to see if these actually flower or produce veggies! 

We went to the Farmers Market yesterday and they had a kids area (I wished I had remembered my camera)  and J got to paint a yogurt container and plant some sunflower seeds. So they are now part of our project too!

The three marigolds

The egg plant sprout

One of the tomato sprouts just starting

The second tomato sprout

The third tomato sprout 

The painted tub

The sunflower tub 

I also bought some rabbit meat yesterday and we are going to cook it tomorrow I am hoping it is a real big hit so we can start setting up for rabbits and our food! 

Busy Day Today!

Today we had story time at the library and it was mundane as usual but J adored it. My midwife came by for my last appointment today and I got a clean bill of health. M weighs a whopping 9lbs 12oz up from 6lbs 4oz at birth.  She is fabulously efficient at breastfeeding and obviously doing quite well :D

Here is what I wake up next to every morning! 

Here she is today all snuggled in our moby wrap during swim lessons. 

Today J graduated from level 2 to 3 in swim lessons! She is super proud of herself and now wants to be on the swim team! She has another year before she is old enough so if she stays in swim lessons until then she should be fabulous! So the tail end of her swim class involved starting to learn the torpedo with assistance! 

Here is J learning the torpedo. 

Tomorrow is home school group and J is really looking forward to it! Oh and we have another sprout from the marigold greenhouse but still none of the others have sprouted. Only time will tell!