Not too much

Not a whole lot going on here.

I took Georgia out to a garage sale on Saturday. Here she is modeling her new clothes. They had lots of Dora clothes there and she was in heaven.And here is Austin after enjoying his lunch of spaghetti. He has been a pistol lately. And thankfully his naps have been closer to three hours a day. I certainly need a break during the day from worrying about what he is doing and what he is into now.And the new baby has officially reached the second trimester. Other than feeling big, nothing new to report there either.

Pigs & Raking Hay

This morning we went out and did our pig chores. I think that our closest neighbor is about a half mile away, so going outside in your big boy underpants is completely acceptable.

Here Casey is filling the feeder for the farrowing sows. We have 17 litters as of this morning.Some of the litters that we first born in this group are getting big enough to follow their mom around the pen. I'll have to work on getting some closer up photos. The coloring on the piglets is so vibrant. You can see the red, brown, black, white, and even some blue in them. Or maybe it is they are just much cleaner than the older pigs.Just to get out of the house for a bit after lunch we went and helped Case raking hay. Georgia told Case that he was going over too many bumps.

Promising!

Austin has been in undies all day and we've only had one accident so far! Knock on wood that we are on to something!

It's all about exhaustion!

The kids have been sort of driving me batty lately. I'm sure that it's an adjustment in both of our schedules. I'm not with adults all day and they are stuck home with me. I've been trying hard to find things to do that they find fun and exhausting.
Yesterday we went to the park for about an hour. Austin fell asleep before we got home. Georgia does not take naps, but she did go to bed early.Georgia looking cool riding on a duck and Austin giving me a heart attack climbing all the way up this on his own.This morning the weather lady warned that today would be the warmest day for the rest of the month and maybe even the summer. I filled the pool this morning and after lunch let the kids play. I dragged out a kitchenette set and they had a blast cooking with the water and washing the skid steer in the sink. We must have needed to stay outside longer because Austin is still awake now. I just need to figure out what we can do tomorrow that will tire them out (without tiring me out)!

13 weeks!

Well, I thought that I would be taking the kids with me to the OB today. But my SIL called with an offer of them to play in the baby pool with her kids, so my kids turned a visit to the doctor down.

Everything looks good. Baby is measuring on target, and I'm good.

The doctor had a harder time finding the heartbeat with the doppler so she grabbed her handy ultrasound machine and took a peek. It looks like the baby's placenta is attached to the front of my uterus making it harder to hear the heartbeat. I got to see the little one move it's arms. It's heartbeat was in the 140's. Below is the picture that was printed for me. It's the baby's profile, it is looking to the right.

Good Morning!

Believe it or not all three, well three and a partial, of us fit in the skid steer! Case loaded up the bucket with small bails of straw, we drove and bedded the new litters. We have 10 new litters as of today.

40 Years

Last night we went out to dinner to celebrate my in-law's 40th wedding anniversary. This is much easier said than done with 5 of the grandchildren 3 years old and younger. Georgia of course had to wear her Dorthy dress. Dinner went well and was really nice.We went out on the deck to watch the sunset over Lake Michigan and I tried to take some cute photos of my children.Austin's "say cheese" face.

This morning we headed to church. The church that we go to has a children's message where the children sit up on the alter and listen to a short story. Austin needed to make himself a little more comfortable and took his shoes off and laid down.

Tomorrow is an appointment with the OB. Hopefully all is good. I plan on bringing the kids with me to hear the baby's heartbeat.

Sew Saturday

Since she got the ruby red slippers, we just had to make the Dorthy dress to go with it. It's a little big, but I want her to be able to wear it for a while. I think that it turned out pretty well. She's super happy with it. And it didn't take forever to make.

Getting a gift in the mail

I've been working with the kids on certain key areas. They have charts and each time they do something on the chart they get to put a sticker up. Their chore list includes: Sleeping in their own beds, helping with the pigs, picking up their toys, and brushing their teeth. They both have over 10 stickers in the sleeping in their own bed category and to celebrate Grandma sent them a little gift in the mail.

The kids.

Georgia loves cats. She just adores the barns cats. I have no idea where she gets this because I won't even touch them. The first thing she does every morning is goes outside and feeds them. She changes their names daily, and it is never anything normal, one day one was "Princess ohhh-laa".

And with Austin, I'm starting to wonder if farming is genetic. He was telling me here that he was chopping corn. Whenever we drive by a corn field he yells "corn!" as loud as he can, like it is the first time that he has ever seen a corn field. Of course, every field that isn't corn is hay to him. We are working on that. ;)

Farming

A busy morning!

We had some new litters born. They are so cute!! These sows are first time mothers and they seem to be doing pretty good so far.

I don't think that they liked me taking pictures of them. I thought that one of the sows was going to chase after me.




















The next older group of piglets are getting big. They were weened from their mom about a week ago.

Georgia and Austin enjoy helping with pig chores from their comfy ride.

Inside the first finishing barn.Casey and his dad, Glen, loading pigs to sell from the second finishing barn. The steer were more than willing to come over and supervise the operation.Loading the pigs into the big trailer. We had 30 pigs to sell. The livestock trailer holds a total of 180 hogs. Once completely loaded from West Michigan it drives straight to the slaughter house in Iowa.Austin was very impressed with the giant trailer and wanted to take a walk around it. Here is picture from the other side of the trailer from where they were loading in. Glen is chasing our pigs from our little livestock trailer into the semi.

A new day

Things have out of the blue turned upside. I'm trying hard to keep it together, and let God have control and show us the right way to go. It is going to be hard, but we can do it.

On a lighter note.

We have our health, our family, our friends, our farm, our home, our beautiful children and another on the way. Things are good.

And some photos... Georgia, after putting on her own make-up.And she loves to take my camera and photograph herself.And me trying desperately to keep Austin quiet and still at a wedding.

This and That

This week...
I was laid off from work this past week. So we spent it on the beach with Case's family. The beach house was only 36 miles from our house. We spent two nights there. But that was all I could take. It was far easier to spend the day, go home and sleep in my bed and go back the next day.

This decade...
This guy came around offering aerial photos. He said that he comes to each area every ten years. So we signed up. We bought the CD with all the photos on it. He gave us an untouched up print today, here is the scan of that. Low and behold, the Sparks Family Farm. If you look really closely in the middle of the driveway heading back to the pigs you can see two specs, it's Austin and I on our way to check on the pigs. Georgia was sleeping when the pics were taken.And that baby...
I asked the doctor about it coming early, since Austin was 3 weeks early. She said that once it hits 34 weeks, there is no stopping it. And there is no way to predict when it will arrive. I guess we just wait and see.