We've been hit hard, ya'll. We have been hit so dang hard. We ALL came down with the illness that shall not be named (twice) along with a couple of others. It all started shortly before Christmas and has continued until about this week. Thankfully, we are all on the mend and each of us were lucky enough to recover. I am about 75% as of today. The kids recovered relatively quickly but Eric and I were not so fortunate.
I am not going to drone on and on over this so I will just say a few things about it and move on... Our major complaints were (are) the longevity, the body pain (I cannot express how terrible it is), the fatigue (it's horrid) and the fevers and night sweats. We also got a cold AND the flu. It's glaringly obvious that we have had very limited exposure over the last nearly two years. That being said, I have to be honest and say that we are actually grateful to have gotten these illnesses and were able to recover and start building our immunities. It wouldn't hurt my feelings though, if it would just go away now- all the way away- and maybe not have lasted so long. We did everything in our power to recover super quickly and not spread it around, especially to Gramps; but ALL of us got ALL of the sicknesses. The hardest part about being that ill is that the toddlers could not care less. They did not take it easy on us AT ALL and in fact, if I am still being honest, they were a little more high maintenance and out of control than normal. But they were sick too so I can cut a little slack. Eric ended up needing extra help (antibiotics and steroids) from our doctor because he developed a major sinus infection pretty early on and he also took a bunch of Sudafed. The three things helped him a bunch once they all were able to be picked up (some were out of stock for quite a while). I ended up taking the last three steroids left over from Bear from a while back for a skin infection he had and I had antibiotics for a separate issue I was having simultaneously. We also used shower steamers and I was on ibuprofen around the clock. We used the kids' nebulizer and did breathing treatments in the evening. Many years ago, my doctor told me that if I get sick or am beginning to feel symptoms, brush my teeth extra and gargle a lot and I swear, that helped a bunch. I didn't get quite as sick as Eric and didn't get as severe of the same symptoms because I really stuck with that regimen. I think it helped, anyway. Wal-mart's version of Emergency-C was also a life saver. We drank it daily.
School- We did continue school through all of the sickness but let me tell you, it was not easy and the days were short. I am pretty sure that until this last Wednesday, we didn't have school on Wednesdays for over a month. I couldn't even finish a Magic Treehouse read aloud during my lessons. I normally read one book per day but I could barely finish four chapters without being wiped out. After we finished our Maturation and Sexual Reproduction unit, we had the kids make egg babies to carry around for five days. Nico's baby, Mary, lasted about 4 hours. Lily's baby, Shellie, lasted about 24 hours, Emery's baby, Pedro, is still 'alive' and Tristan's baby, Rusty, lasted about 96 hours (4 days). I didn't get pictures of all of the egg babies because some perished before I had an opportunity to really document the miracle of life that was occurring in our home.
Snow- We have had such a cold winter. I was just commenting to Eric that I am just starting to feel the winter blues but we are starting to notice a teeny, tiny bit of green popping up and out here and there. Our orchard trees are starting to bud too! This winter has been much harder than last, though. The sustained cold temps and amount of snow has been significant compared to last year. I am so tired of the low temps. Today it was nearly 70 degrees but we had major winds so it felt much colder. The kids loved playing in the snow and we did get a little more than a dusting several times. I hate to deal with the animals in the cold and snow, though, so I am a lot less excited when it snows and sticks. That being said, I love the way snow looks as it is falling and covering the ground, trees and buildings and I love how quiet things get when it snows. I also love that we have four true seasons here so I will take the true winter over a drought any day.
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| Harlan took a digger while riding the kayaks down the front hillside in the snow. He really scraped up his eye. |
Calf Watch- I had previously mentioned that we were on calf watch and boy did we have to wait. As many of you know, we love to bet on everything around here. We placed bets on when Petunia would calf based on her signs and symptoms. We ALL lost for three weeks in a row. We finally decided to bet on the gender instead. Finally, she waited until a day none of us had picked, January 30th, and gave birth in the wee hours of the morning to a little heifer calf. Please make welcome, Patty Tilford. Tristan named her. He was being witty- Hamburger Patty. She was supposed to be a meat calf but we decided to trade her as a breeder to someone and get a meat calf in exchange. That won't be for about 18 months, however. She was cleaned and nursing before we even discovered her out there. Gramps came into the house while we were all scrambling about in the morning that Sunday and said "whoever bet on a heifer, won". None of us believed him because he is a trickster, so I went out and checked and there she was, all fuzzy and cute and nursing. I guess he had looked out of his window at 6am and she wasn't there. He looked out again at 7:30am and she was up nursing. He went out and wiped her down with a towel (since it was so cold out) and she was just as content as can be. Ferdinand (our bull) is her daddy. She is 1/2 Guernsey and 1/2 Hereford.
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| I ended up buying everyone their treat anyway since we all lost so many times. It was a fun surprise. |
Dogs- The dogs are adjusting to the new additions pretty well. Callie and Bear are pretty relaxed and I think disappointed in us for adding more dogs to the pack but they are adjusting well. Missy is regulating everyone and trying to control all of the situations. She is still my barn buddy but she has some competition there now...
New additions- Lola and Stitch are settling in and getting the hang of ranch life. Lola is a chicken killer and runner so we have to watch her very closely. Stitch is afraid of his own shadow and was chasing the cats but has stopped doing that. Both were rescue dogs in the past so they have some separation anxiety and other little issues but they are very loving and well-behaved. Stitch has picked me as his human and I'll admit that I love it. Both of them sleep in Nolan's room each night per his request and Nico is in charge of feeding them. Stitch is turning into my barn buddy and is so playful and even gives some loves. Lola is very loving with the kids (and us) but is a food thief. She was previously the alpha at their old house so the transition has been a tad rough but really seems to have worked itself out. We are very hopeful that they will continue to settle in and get the hang of our lifestyle. I think they both will. One thing I love is that they can all play in the back yard and Callie isn't alone back there now.
Preschool- The twins and Ivy started an online preschool program. It has been wonderful but we need to set up a little more of a structured preschool day for them. Eric and I talked about it and decided to turn the mudroom into a little preschool room for them and we will switch off teaching them. Whoever is not with the older kids will be the preschool teacher that day and vice versa. We are going to use a mix of curriculums and aids. It'll be partly The Good and the Beautiful, partly Playing Preschool (my girlfriend, Jess hooked me up big with some curriculum) and partly things we already have on hand (which is a lot). It should be interesting.
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| Jess does this for her boys and they love it so I thought, lets try it out.... It was a HUGE hit with the toddlers! |
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| Preschool wiped Ivy out on Friday! Lol. |
Updates- Nolan had his eye follow up and we basically got scolded for not making him wear his glasses. If they knew how difficult it is to keep them on him, they'd be a little more understanding. We took our tongue lashing and immediately got more serious about his glasses. He has been wearing them ever since. He did such a good job and is much more serious about it. We even let him pick two new pairs out from an online store and that helped a bunch too. He has been sooooooo good. He broke the originals the first day so we super glued them and he's back in them. They are now so broken that they have electrical tape holding the arm on one side but he still wears them every day, all day. We finally got notification that his others have shipped so we are super excited for them to get here. His eye doctor gave us three months to have him wear his glasses and see if there is any improvement. I am hoping he sees improvement at the next appointment so we can avoid eye surgery.
Projects- Now that we are feeling a bit better, we have completed several little projects. Eric has cleared out a back-log of inventory of projects that had piled up in his shop over the past several months (12 months). He has repaired several items and I am loving seeing the progress. Eric fixed my old pie holder stand (I oiled and stained it), my grandma's old heated footstool and I recovered it with this Quicksilver fabric I have had for about 20 years (or more) and stained it, he helped Harlan finish his wooden car from Christmas, he built coat holders for the twins' rooms (we repurposed old knobs we had from the old dressers and he used those), he fixed this janky dresser that was falling apart in Nico's room and added shelves to it and he did several other things that I didn't photograph. He also hung a bunch more lights in his shop and planed some wood for Gramps. Another thing I did was FINALLY organize my spices. We had them in a cabinet where we couldn't see anything, it was a mess and we had all different sized containers. I cleaned up the baking cabinet and made a shelf for the spices so we could move pots and pans into the former spice cabinet (the cabinet has pull-out shelves).
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| Look how pretty the wood turned out! |
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| 1/2 way through staining/oiling the wood. |
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| See how old and dry the wood is??? |
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| I forgot to take before pictures but the blue fabric is the old fabric and there was a lace ruffle around the outside edge. |
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| This chair is the next thing to recover. Maybe today... |
Cowboying- Since we have a small herd of cattle now, we consider ourselves seasoned ranchers. When I say 'we', I mean the twins do. So Gramps bought them lasso ropes and they have been practicing a bunch on 5 gallon buckets and the calves. Of course, they can't catch any of the calves but it's cute to watch them cowboy. Nolan is super serious about it and truly wants to rope something.
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| You can't tell here but Harlan learned to pedal his trike. |
Dinner Menus- We went through a whole week without even doing our dinner menu and we just cooked random things but for the most part, we have stuck to it and continued to cook each night even while sick. We did a lot of soup.
Anniversary- Last weekend, Eric and I celebrated our 13 year wedding anniversary. Scott was nice enough to offer to watch the kids so we could take a day (or even a night) away. We decided to take him up on the offer and take off to go hot tub shopping for the afternoon. We found a hot tub but are holding off on purchasing for now. I was still not feeling the best (exhaustion) and fell asleep in the car for most of the date but it was still nice to be out and away from the kids for a bit. Gramps bought us a cake and we ate it for breakfast then let the kids finish it over the next few days.
Valentines Day- The kids received a bunch of Valentine cards and loves from Grandma Webb, Aunt Leslie and Uncle Brian and Kaden and McKenna! They feel very special and are loving all of the love! We have zero plans for the day but will buy the kids a few little treats and I bought them all a huge box of sidewalk chalk each.
Celebration- In January, we celebrated Scott's birthday. He requested chocolate chip cookies instead of cake and Spaghetti for dinner. The girls made his treats and Eric cooked his supper.
Art- Emery is quite the budding artist. She came out a few weeks ago with this painting she had done. We were beyond impressed.
Gifts- The Flannery family sent us a goodie box full of girly things and extra bottles of vanilla extract! Andy and Monica sent us a couple of treats as a thank you for taking the dogs. By the way, that was such a heartbreaking weekend because Monica struggled letting them go and really didn't want to but it was a safety thing for the dogs. They sent me a box of Lush and the scent is incredible. They sent Eric a meat thermometer that stays in the meat as it cooks. We love it all!
Feed & Horses- This is what our truck looks like when we pick up our feed once a month. We also bought more hay and the horses are loving having the round bale in their pasture.
Random Photos- Nico had to learn to write thank you notes in class so he wrote one to Eric. Harlan's face is healing well from his digger. We have had beautiful skies and I managed to snap a few photos.
That's the update for us for now. We are working to get back to a sense of normalcy and we are on our way there. Thank you for sticking with us and for checking in with us and checking on us. Take care!