Did I mention....

Our brood is expanding!  I announced it on a facebook a while ago but forgot about my blog, which seems to be a bit of a problem these days. Oops. 

 I'm due October 11th! Things have been normal and we're both healthy so not much to report!  The weeks are flying by which I'm thankful for.  

The kids are thrilled! The boys know whats coming and can't wait. They really enjoyed watching Isla grow up over the last two years and are looking forward to having a tiny baby in the house again.  They like making plans about who will feed the baby it's first solid food, who will help teach the baby to sit up, crawl and walk.  And they've decided that every morning they each get to hold the baby taking turns from youngest to oldest.  

Isla has no idea what is coming but given her squeals of delight whenever she sees a picture of a baby on the computer or the tv I think she's going to be pretty happy.  She has been told enough times that there's a baby in mommy's belly that she's taken to regularly patting my tummy and telling me, "There's a baby in there."  Then she pats her own and says the same thing. It's quite funny.  I am highly anticipating her breastfeeding dolls and fashioning a carrier out of blankets. 

Due to his crazy work travel, Jed was out of town during the gender ultrasound.  So the kids and I came up with our own fun gender reveal "party" for him!  

 We didn't have time after the ultrasound to pick up our supplies so we had to get candies in both colors.

Once we knew we filled a pinata with the appropriate color.  Jed is a big fan of pinatas.

It was difficult to convince the little two to leave the pinata be until daddy got home.  

I only took video of the kids and Jed whacking the pinata and it doesn't want to load. :( 

This is why the kids thought the pinata was a great idea!  Candy galore! 

And the big reveal... 

It's a GIRL!  

We're so excited! 

I'll leave you with a picture Seth made me for Mother's Day. 

Tea Party

On a recent date, I talked Jed into taking me to Goodwill.  I had told him a couple days earlier that I wanted to find a tea set for Isla so we could finally have tea parties and wouldn't you know it he spotted a cute little ceramic set!  

 We had blueberry bread and coffee.

I enjoyed Isla's many silly faces.  

I can tell we'll be having plenty more parties and I can only imagine how much fun it'll be when there are two little girls! 

What I wasn't expecting was how much the boys would like the tea set.  Considering how much they love food and drinks, I don't know why I was surprised.  This may have been one of the best four dollars I've ever spent!

Life With Boys

When we go out to eat and there's unlimited access to a soda fountain machine, this is bound to happen on the way home.  

We Bought Some Cows

When we moved out here I started researching different animals we could keep on our 13 acres.  Neither Jed or I had much experience with livestock so research seemed like the obvious first step.  

Jed liked the idea of pigs but with pork being my least favorite meat, I wasn't excited.  We contemplated goats but they're described by many as, "escape artists" and the last thing I want to do is try to wrangle a goat back into its pen while Jed is off traveling for work in another state!  That lead to sheep, which we're still open to but we didn't know what we'd do with them!  Cows and horses were out of the question as they were too big and required too much infrastructure.  Then I came across miniature cattle! 

There are several different kinds and many were tempting but it seemed that for our first venture that the mini zebu would be our safest bet.  They're originally from southern Asia so they're better adapted to our climate, they were the least expensive and they were the easiest to find! 

We didn't plan to buy cattle so soon but, we were just perusing craigslist when we found a listing for 3 minis at a steal!  They were less than an hour away to boot!  So we contacted the seller and set up an appointment to check them out.  

Long story, not so short, we agreed to buy them! The seller offered to drop them off a couple days later so Jed set to work on putting up his very first fence!

 Feverishly working.

I watched on from my lofty perch as my boys worked hard!

And just as Jed finished, the zebus were delivered.  That's Rhett, our resident bull.  He's quite friendly, especially when we have food.  

The kids were in awe! 

Isla wakes up almost every morning and asks to go out and see the cows.  

In the back ground are Scarlett and Major, they've been a bit more standoffish with us. However in less than a week we've made a lot of progress with them.  We're thinking that Rhett is the reason they're timid, he tends to become jealous of our attention and rams them out of the way to get to us.  We're considering separating them for a time so they can warm up to us.  

We're not sure if we'll actually use these guys for beef or if Scarlett will ever become comfortable enough to allow us to milk her but that's ok.  For now we're taking in our first experience with larger animal ownership!  We're going to take things one step at a time and see if this fits us or not.   

Teacup Human

I bought this cradle for her dolls!  I guess it's nice that it's duel purpose.  

10 Years

Last week we celebrated 10 years living in Florida!  It's hard to believe it's been that long!

We took the kids to a local restaurant for their first taste of gator!  

It was pretty good!  

The kids got to see their first airboat in action as it took a group of tourists out on the river.  

And then they put to use the "enormous" hill on the property.

Clothes Line

Our dryer began eating our clothes last week. 

Apparently there are a couple of parts broken in the dryer that cause this. 

Jed ordered new parts and will hopefully be able to get our dryer back up in running but for now our front balcony looks like this. Super classy. 

 Several of the boys clothes were ruined so we went shopping to replace them.  I bought Ford a couple of shirts and a pair of shorts and when I gave them to him he said, "These are for me?! I don't have to share them with my brothers?!"  The kid is a bit of a neat freak so you can imagine hand-me downs have been hard on him. :)