Here Kitty, Kitty, Kitty!

When Grandpa Pat and Grandma Suzie came to visit a few weeks ago, they brought a Big Surprise with them. Three new kitties have joined our household!

They are growing fast, and getting into everything!

Meet Charlemagne, the littlest kitty with the biggest name.

We mostly just call him Charlie.

This is his big brother, Moriarty. He is the biggest of the three, and the most mischievous.

We call him Mori, usually because he never sticks around long enough for us to get his whole name said.

And this is their sister Irene. She's just a bundle of cuteness.

(I'm looking forward to having fewer mice around here...)

Our Second Batch of Chickens

A few weeks ago, I went to our farm store to get dog food and found out while I was there that it was our last chance to get chicks this year. I went home and told my husband, and asked if he thought we should go back to get a few, since they had the breed I'd been wanting.  "Sure", he said, "get a few of the ones you want, and then get some other kinds too. Get a dozen." So we did.

(chicks in a bathtub, under a red warming lamp)

They grow SO fast! Today was nice and warm, so we locked the big chickens out of their run and let the little chicks run around for a while in it.

Just as we were getting ready to put them back into their crate, one met with a fatal accident when she darted underneath a descending foot, so we're down to eleven already. Life in the country can be tough!

The Two Become One. Kind of.

For years, I have maintained two very similar blogs. Both have been focused on our family, but one was private and one was public, and the public one was slightly more focused on housekeeping and living frugally. I'm finally admitting that it was too much. We got busy living life and I abandoned both of them for a very long time.

Until this weekend.

I spent some time yesterday cleaning up the private one in order to make it public, and changed the blog addresses to simplify things even further. The idea is that if I only have one blog to think about updating, I'll do it more often.

That's the plan, anyway.  In the meantime, please excuse the housekeeping dust!

Reading Record 2013

January: The Dirty Life (Kimball)

February: The Magician's Nephew (Lewis)
                The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (Lewis)

March: Heller with a Gun (L'Amour)
            The Horse and His Boy (Lewis)
            The Politically Incorrect Guide to Western Civilization (Esolen)

April: Queen Without Crown (Polland)
           The Castle of Llyr (Alexander)
           When the Morning Came (Prins)
           In the Footsteps of Jesus (Marchiano)

May: The King's Daughter and Other Stories for Girls (White)

June:

July:

August: Web of Traitors (Trease)
              Ten Thousand Heroes (Barbary)
              The Stolen Oracle (Williams)
              Alexander's Horses (Powers)
              The Counterfeit African (Williams)
              Hannibal: Invader from Carthage (Webb)
              Julius Caesar (Buchan)
              The Golden Hawks of Genghis Khan (Ritchie)
              The Eagles Have Flown (Williamson)
              Message to Hadrian (Trease)
              The Eagle of the Ninth (Sutcliff)
              The Silver Branch (Sutcliff)
              The Lantern Bearers (Sutcliff)
              The Fifty-Six Who Signed (Fink)
              The Prairie Traveler (Marcy)

September: The First Book of Medieval Man (Sobol)
                   Attila: King of the Huns (Webb)
                   Age of Chivalry (Bulfinch)
                   The Horn of Roland (Williams)
                   Legends of Charlemagne (Bulfinch)
                   El Cid (McCaughrean)

October: Owen's Pretty Good Book (Blickensderfer)
               Hereward the Wake (Kingsley)
               Knight's Fee (Sutcliff)
               The Hunchback of Notre Dame (Hugo)
               Son of the Land (Bolton)
               Genghis Khan and the Mongol Horde (Lamb)
               Ironies of Faith (Esolen)
               Men of Iron (Pyle)
               The Brendan Voyage (Severin)

November: Miniatures and Morals (Leithart)
                   No Parachute (Lee)

December:

I Blame My Sponges

I'm sorry to admit this, but blogging is not at the top of my priority list.  Sponges are.

I have four of them.

They soak up knowledge almost as fast as I can write out the lesson plans for the week.  They absorb food quicker than I can prepare it.  And they just will NOT quit getting bigger, so I am constantly on the lookout for bigger clothes and bigger shoes.

Yep.  The shortage of blog posts from me is entirely the fault of my sponges.

(Aaaaand now my kids think I'm nuts.)

Mt. Rainier...Again!

We couldn't help it.

We went back to Mt. Rainier again in August for the third time in four weeks.

This time we took Grandpa Pat and Grandma Suzie!

The kids were determined to climb even higher than they did the first time, 

and Mike and his parents were willing, so climb they did!

While my mountain goats family went up and around (the long way), 

I headed back down the path (the short way).

 They're on that path up there, on their way back down.

What do you mean you can't see them?

They're right there...that pink dot in the middle is Jaela.

Hm.

Just take my word for it.

They're all there.

That was our last trip to Mt. Rainier for the summer.

I wonder what it's like up there in the fall...

Four Days Later

Four days after our first visit to Mt. Rainier, the kids and I went back again,

but this time we took Grandma.

We took an easier one mile hike that had plenty of views like this one.

Our destination was Myrtle Falls,

and this was the view looking up from the top of the falls.

Half of the kids thought the bridge was great

(the other half weren't so sure it was engineered properly), 

and they were all delighted to make a new friend

(from a distance).

Too much fun and way too beautiful to only go twice...