Busy Busy Busy... Happy Birthday Avenlea!

Happy Birthday Avenlea: My sweet Avenlea turned 2 last week. We had pizza and cake and ice cream with the family to celebrate our tiny happy girl.

 Eating a yummy breakfast of French toast with strawberries and applejuice

 Licking the cake bowl

 cutting her birthday cake

 Opening her present from Jonny and Molly

 Babydoll from Auntie Em and Uncle Ted

Wagon from Mommy and Daddy

First Day of Kindergarten: Chloe started Kindergarten last Thursday. She got to ride the bus home both days and hopes to ride the bus to school tomorrow if we can figure out where the bus stops in the morning. She is enrolled in duel immersion, meaning she does half her day in Spanish and half in English. So far I've gotten out of her that she sits on a square, that "recess" is playground in spanish ;) and that she is happy to have some friends in her class. I don't know why it's so hard to get that girl to talk about her day at school but I'll have to get creative so I can hear more about her day.

 Posing like and little cutie

 First Day of Kindergarten!

Sitting with some friends from her preschool and sunday school class

Zeyta 2 months: Well back on Aug. 19th Zeyta had her 2 month doctor's appointment. She weighed in at 10lb 10 oz.  Zeyta is chubby and cute and getting really good trunk control which might mean sitting in the bumbo soon! She is now smiling and cooing at us and does really well with her tummy time. She sleeps really well at night, usually from about 9 to 5. I love smoothing her baby tummy when getting her ready for bed because she is extra smiley and cute.

 Twinners with Blainy

 I walked in to find Blain feeding Zeyta the bottle I had planned on giving her before a trip to Em's

 Twinners with Avenlea

My 4 cute kiddos!

 Just doing some farm chores

 Mommy and Zeyta

 The Kiss Pic - taken by Chloe

 Almost a smile

 Zeyta fell asleep like this on the couch - what a little angel

Doing some tummy time in the tunnel

Dentist Time: I finally took the kiddos to the Dentist about a month ago. We are going to Dr. Dorius and he has a "kids day" where the staff dress up and there is a theme (summertime flip flops) with the office all decorated. They got fun sunglasses to wear and a bag of little toys and gadgets to take home. Chloe had a cavity that will get filled next week but they are both excited about the dentist now which is a good thing for me!

 Chloe all done with her cleaning

Blain getting some VIP treatment

Garden Update: The garden is doing well, we continue to get plenty of zucchini and we ate a spaghetti squash! There are 3 more squash and 3 pumpkins growing but not much else. We got about 6 cucumbers but they seem to be dying off for some reason now. There are occasional large cherry tomatoes too. Overall doing pretty well (for me at least!). We picked and ate the second peach tree which were just as delicious as the previous ones. I picked the one head of broccoli that we got but we continue to get little side shoots which is fun!

 Blain eating some home grown peaches

 The biggest head of broccoli I've ever grown

Cucumbers, spaghettie squash and zucchini

Betty: Well we have a buyer for Betty! They put down a deposit but need more time to get their place set up for milking. In the mean time we are working hard (too hard...) on weaning Prince Ali, milking twice a day to get her production back up, and even doing oxytocin shots to help encourage let down. I am completely exhausted with all the extra work, but that's probably because I got really sick with a throat virus for about a week. I ended up with an abscess that had to be lanced by the doctor and now I'm on antibiotics for 8 more days. But, overall, I'm excited to be learning more about cow care and this next step of weaning which we've never done before. I hope Betty's next owners appreciate all the work we've done with her (leading, milking, tolerating people... ;) We hope to get a new cow soon after the sale is final so we don't have too big of a break from milk and all it's associated goodness!!

 Not Betty, but Prince Ali and the piggies are pretty much best friends. They hang out together all day, follow eachother around, and even share some food. Nate spent today putting up the orchard fence and moved Prince Ali in there to stay separate from Betty rather than the tiny stall he's been cooped up inside. Much happier little bull.

Cascade Springs: Natural spring just up the mountain!

 Daddy and his Babies

 Family selfie shot - surprised we all fit!