Baby

Two Months Old!

March 22, 2015 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

I’m staying home from church today because four boys have colds and sore throats. They wanted to watch Flywheel, after we listened to a sermon, so if Little Miss Two Months Old will cooperate, I’ll let you see some of the cuteness we get to enjoy!

Sitting in the laundry basket kept her entertained for awhile one day. I wish I had a Bumbo seat for her—I’m hoping I can find one used soon. She loves being able to look around, but we don’t have any kind of seat besides her carseat, which she hates. Meanwhile, this worked once at least!

Big brother Nathan (3) loves her! We have to watch, though, because he is still trying to learn how to show that love. (No, don’t poke her. Don’t lick her. Keep your fingers out of her mouth. Leave her eyes alone. Yes, give her a kiss!)

Ready for church again! This was made for Esther by Gayle’s second sister.

Big brother apparently wanted to do what little sister was doing!

I love how she sleeps with her hands up! This dress was made for Esther by Gayle’s youngest sister. She also made a doll, with a matching dress. The only problem is, I’m not sure where it is right now (we do still have it).

Baby Update

March 8, 2015 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

Yes, we’re still here, and this baby is still growing. I was shocked this afternoon to realize that it’s been a month since I posted anything! I do sit down frequently with the computer, but I nearly always have a baby on my lap and forget to get the memory card before I sit down. I am holding baby right now; she’s sleeping very peacefully—but I was able to get someone to fetch the memory cards for me this time! Now, if I don’t suddenly remember something that urgently needs done, hopefully I’ll get a few posts up.

This little girl got to go to church in Kaikoura for the first time when she was 3 1/2 weeks old. Not only was I not up to going away yet, the van had broken down the first Sunday we had her and we didn’t get it back for a few weeks. To go to church the first time, I dressed her in a long white dress my mother-in-law made for Esther, with a matching bonnet.

Four weeks, with James:

Four weeks, and asleep on the couch by herself!

One month, and ready to go to church again! My sister surprised us with a dress to match the one she had made Esther. Esther will cringe when she sees the background of the second picture here—but take note of it. That is the before picture; the wall is to be painted today!

Five weeks, and required to lay on a blanket on the countertop. See that suspicious eye in the second picture? She doesn’t like to be laid down.

Six weeks, with Simon (I’m not sure about that motorcycle):

Six weeks:

Six weeks, off to church again. This time, she wore a dress from a sister in our church, who also gave her the hair bow. We stopped to pick blackberries on our way home, and the expression on her face as she looked out the van window while we waited for the rest of the family to finish picking told it all. This little girl does not like to be away from home! In this first picture, she is being held by Joseph.

Seven weeks:

Helping Simon do school!

With James:

The Face We’re Enjoying Seeing Every Day

February 6, 2015 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

We are really enjoying this little girl! It’s hard to believe she’s already three and a half weeks old. She’s growing fast; as of a week ago, she was over 9 pounds already. She spends her time either eating or sleeping, with a short period of time occasionally of being awake and looking around or playing. Her favorite place to sleep, of course, is on someone; right now, she’s sleeping on me. I’m thankful that usually someone is happy to hold her when I need to do something! We are teaching her to sleep by herself, and she usually sleeps in her own bed for 2-4 hours at night.

One day old, with the two-year-old:

One week old:

Ten days old:

Eleven days; we had church here at our house because our van was broken down and everyone came here for a change. She wore a dress my sister made Esther, and the same sister gave me the fabric for my dress (Mom made it while she was here in November). The blanket came from an anonymous person who just left it inside the door one evening!

Two weeks old; this gown was made for me by my grandmother (my dad’s mother), 40 years ago!

Almost three weeks (yes, she’s listening to all sorts of stories already):

Three weeks, with big sister:

Three weeks:

And, tonight:

She’s Here!

January 20, 2015 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

Yes, we have a girl! After six boys in a row, it’s pretty special to have another girl. She arrived last Wednesday evening after a long hard labor. We’ve been thoroughly enjoying having another baby in the house. Everyone wants to hold her as much as possible; she’s hardly been laid down by herself yet for more than a few minutes at a time. I have to make the decision, multiple times a day, as to who gets to hold her. We’re also enjoying having pink clothes in the house; Gayle commented the other day, after hanging out the laundry, how fun it is to hang little girl things! So far, she hasn’t worn very many pink things, because we didn’t have them, but yesterday and today we were given quite a few so she’ll be looking even more girly now.

We don’t have very many pictures yet; we’re enjoying her too much, I guess, to take them. Here are the best of what we do have, though, and I suspect there will be many more coming later!

She’s spending a lot of time sleeping still, although it seems like in the morning she’ll spend a few hours awake and happy. She’s sleeping well at night; last night she slept five hours straight! What a blessing she is.

Haircut Night

October 28, 2013 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

Saturday night I finally got around to doing haircuts–long overdue, for some of our fellows! Even with a fast, efficient set of clippers (bought when I was in America several months ago–we haven’t found a good set here yet), it takes awhile to cut seven heads of hair! Yes, seven. I got tired of hearing comments about putting ponytails in Baby’s hair, and having people make it into Mohawks with water, and people fussing at me about how messy his hair was. So, I cut it. I don’t like that first haircut. He’s not a baby so much anymore!

This is why they thought he needed trimmed! After the big trim–he was severely traumatized for awhile by that experience–poor thing!

Seth didn’t mind; he’s used to it!

The pile we swept up at the end!

Adventures Never Cease!

June 17, 2013 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

Most of last week was pretty tame. We did the normal stuff–school, working outside a few minutes a day, taking care of things in the house, doing laundry–all that good stuff. Saturday night the second-youngest gave us an anxious time when he tripped and fell against a doorpost. We were pretty worried about his head for awhile, but we prayed over him and watched him for a couple of hours, along with a naturopath friend who came over and checked his reflexes. He showed no signs of swelling in the brain or concussion, so after a few hours we put him to bed and other than a large bruise he seems to be fine.

I made a couple of loaves of sourdough bread Saturday. Baby grabbed part of one and happily took off, chewing on it!

Baby loves to read, especially laying on his back!

Our 8-month-old steer, the Jersey/Belted Galloway cross.

I love those chubby, dirty legs!

This morning, Gayle drove into water flowing through the ford he crosses every morning on the way to work, not realizing that it was too deep, and we’re thankful he was able to get out of the truck! It was washed downstream a ways. The children went to look for it this afternoon, and found it 50-100 meters from the ford. Next adventure–getting it out of there! I think we’ll be looking for new transportation to work for Gayle.

This is what is left of the truck.

Up close, the ford is obviously very dangerous right now.

The ford doesn’t look too dangerous from this perspective! And by the way, this pictures was taken at the same time as the one above. That’s how much the road dips down!

Our waterlogged world today, after the storm.

Winter Harvest, and random pictures

June 6, 2013 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

One thing I really enjoy about our climate here is being able to grow things year-round. Right now, it is the equivalent of early December in the Northern Hemisphere. I harvested our salad and some vegetables for soup today, and spent some time weeding. After spending six hours teaching the children, weeding is a great way to relax and reset.

Today’s harvest–lettuce, radishes, green onions, parsley, and celery.

He was waiting for me to fill containers with weeds, so he could dump them into a larger container for me.

There was snow on the hills around us early last week. We went to Dead Boring that day, and enjoyed the beautiful snowfall on the way there.

The Hurunui River, looking towards the sea.

Farmed deer near Greta Valley.

Coming over the Omihi Saddle into the Waipara Valley. You can see the Southern Alps in the distance.

A hill to the west of us.

And, some pictures of the children. Elijah was doing school, and baby wanted to do the same.

Jealousy–I was holding Mr. Sweetie, and baby had to get in between!

Tired baby–he fell asleep being pushed in a stroller outside, and couldn’t wake up for supper.

One of baby’s many funny poses!

Baby thinking about the hat someone put on him!

James dumping a container of weeds.

Our Week

May 26, 2013 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

This has been a pretty normal week–lots of school and other real life, too.

Baby wants more kombucha!

Baby loves his daddy! These Usborne puzzle books have been very popular this week.

Part of school every day–the most popular part–is practicing math facts with a game on the computer. I forgot to include these two pictures last week! Our hedge was trimmed.

The children have been bringing in heaps of these field mushrooms. They are delicious!

The hills to the north-west of us.

We see a lot of these cows in the paddock next to the house.

Baby fell against the wood stove Sunday night. Ouch!

After trying in vain to get into this laundry basket, and squealing in frustration, he picked it up and brought it to me. I put him in–and he was delighted!We enjoyed the sight of snow blowing off the tops of the mountains north of Kaikoura as we drove to church this morning. Finally, here are some of the pictures Esther took when we stopped at the beach on the way home this afternoon. One boy was moving so fast all the pictures of him turned out blurry!

Messy Faces!

May 18, 2013 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

Baby showed up at the door this afternoon, in the tow of Big Brother who was saying, “Be prepared!” It took awhile to figure out what he got into, but eventually we found that he had been playing with a bucket of mud, and obviously decided to paint his face! He enjoyed the clean-up, once I quit turning him upside down to wash his hair. Tonight, he painted himself again. This time, it was easier to clean up!

I haven’t been doing well at keeping this blog up, so I’ll just put in some more miscellaneous pictures from the past week or so. Maybe I’ll aim to do that in the future–just go through the memory card once a week or so and put up pictures of the highlights of the week.

Our landlord put 180 dry dairy cows into the paddock next to our house over the past week. He keeps them here for the winter to allow their home farm to rest. They arrived in big double-decker stock trucks.

The paddock he put them in is planted in kale, which is 4-5 feet high! Notice how the cows are dwarfed by it!

This is the first section, after 24 hours of grazing by about 120 cows. By the next day, nothing was left except short stubs of stems.

This enormous spider was on a cupboard in the laundry room one night when I was putting laundry in the washer! It was 1 1/2 inches long.

Simon invented a stir-fry one evening, with goat meat, onions, mushrooms, lemon juice, salt and pepper, and an egg. It was delicious!

At the same time, Elijah was mixing up apricot-chocolate chip muffins, and Seth was making coconut bread, which I didn’t manage to get a picture of before it disappeared. Both were scrumptious! The kitchen was quite the busy place that evening, as all three boys were cooking while I was trying to fix supper. Also during that time, a friend dropped off my cell phone which had gotten left somewhere, and someone else came for milk!