Miller Street house

August 2017 Pictures

September 22, 2017 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

The kitchen table broke one day, so Simon and Mr. Diligence fixed it for us. I’m sure glad Mr. Diligence has learned to fix things, too, since Simon is no longer here!

Princess likes to try out all sorts of new places to sleep in.

She also wants in the house all the time. She can walk along the ledge outside the living room window, and she begs to come in that way.

Her favorite place to spend the day is on top of our refrigerator in the laundry room. One day, she was rolling around trying to get attention from the boys and fell off!

Mr. Imagination making toast for his breakfast on top the stove.

Little Miss showing off her ponytails.

A dear friend sent these flowers to me! I was bringing the cow home one evening when a truck turned onto our road. I kept the cow off the road, and wasn’t paying much attention to the truck, but it went slower and slower so I finally looked. The driver, a man who had been a neighbor at one house we lived in, was holding out these flowers to me! So beautiful. Thank you, dear friend!

One Sunday at church, a girl who loves Little Miss decorated her with these pansies, so I asked the girl if she would take some pictures for me.

These are places we frequently find the cats. Bandit wants a soft, warm spot. Princess wants to be on something, and the computer, when it’s open, is a favorite. If I close it she’ll find some other place. She loves to curl up on a sheet of paper!

Our beef cattle. The two black ones will soon be going to the works. The white one was our calf last year.

School Days

September 19, 2017 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

We spend a lot of time at the kitchen table in the mornings, doing lessons.

The day Mr. Sweetie learned about borrowing when subtracting, we got out the Base 10 blocks to illustrate what was happening. As soon as I was done with them, Mr. Imagination and Little Miss started playing with them—no wonder I sometimes have trouble finding all the pieces I need!

Mr. Intellectual loves building towers with the blocks, then taking a video of the tower collapsing.

Mr. Diligence is required to spend some time reading something—whatever he wants to—every morning. He’s been reading the Circle C books lately, and really enjoying them. He read the entire Circle C Beginnings series, and now he’s reading the two Circle C Steppingstones books that have been published.

Mr. Imagination isn’t officially doing school yet. He’s quite capable, but he doesn’t want to most of the time. He’s just 5, so I’m not pushing yet—but some days he does things like this! He wrote the numbers to 28, just for fun.

Little Miss spent a lot of time one morning sorting this tiny animals by color. Sometimes she sorts them by kind of animal, or just stands them up. They came inside a Mancala game someone bought at a secondhand shop, and they have been played with a lot more than the game!

Spring!

September 17, 2017 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

Spring is here! Some days sure don’t feel like it, but more days are warm than a month ago, and the grass is growing.

The first garden work was done in mid-August. Simon took the rotary hoe (rototiller) through part of the garden, after I showed him what needed done. It broke after he got some done, though, so he tore it apart and took one part to a local man to get a replacement shaft made. We picked up the finished piece the day I took Simon to Christchurch to get his Learner’s Licence; that night, Simon and Mr. Diligence stayed up till midnight putting the rotary hoe back together. He felt like he had to do it because he was leaving home a couple of days later and wouldn’t have another chance!

This is the lemon tree right outside my kitchen window. So beautiful!

Esther babysat the day I took Simon to Christchurch. She sent the boys outside for a break at one point during school. They started wrestling, and Little Miss was telling them to stop!

When it didn’t work to order them to stop, she tried to manually separate them!

Video–The Great Water Trick

June 27, 2017 by NZ Filbruns 1 Comment

It’s been a few years since our children have made a movie, but they’ve been planning one for about three years. They finally figured out how to do it, and got it made in February. Somehow, I forgot to post it then, so here you go. I love this one!

May 2017

June 11, 2017 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

And the rest of the pictures from May! This is a fairly common sight in the morning; here Mr. Inventor is doing his typing lesson while his cat keeps him company, and Mr. Sweetie is trying to get himself started on his Math in a cozy spot in front of the fire.

After a heavy rain, the underground cistern overflowed, so Mr. Imagination and Little Miss had great fun playing in the puddle one morning. Great fun, that is, until she got muddy—see the picture below! Then, she was done. Because the cistern was overflowing, and we had no need for the water, I let the boys pump it out to the duck pond. They forgot to turn the pump off at bedtime, though, and Esther discovered it sucking air the next afternoon when we were away! Oops. It’s refilled now, though. Quite a contrast to a few months ago, when we were saving water in every way we could. We’re so thankful for rain!

Mr. Sweetie was playing with a candle one day. The wick was long enough he was able to get it to curl around like this, and he wanted to take a picture of it.

On chilly days, the fire is a main focal point.

I’m not sure what these two were up to. They made a line of the Childcraft books along the hallway. And the blankets wrapped around them? I don’t have a clue!

Mr. Sweetie and Mr. Imagination again.

Little Miss in May

June 4, 2017 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

This is a busy little girl. She’s always looking for things to do, especially if they feel like she’s helping with something. Here, she found the tomatillos I had just washed, and spent about half an hour transferring them from one container to another and back again.

Little Miss is happy—but is the cat as happy? This cat is extremely tolerant of her tormenter. She’s only scratched Little Miss a couple of times, and she is mauled daily and hauled around a lot.

Two little people in a boat!

This little girl doesn’t like having her hair in ponytails. I put the rubberbands in to go to church, and tell her she can’t take them out till after church, and she mostly leaves them. One day, she brought me five rubberbands and wanted them all put in! Silly girl. They didn’t last long, though; she soon pulled them out.

“Want to take this book to ‘Merica! Read it wif Gamma.” She has no idea what an airplane is, but she’s pretty excited about the upcoming trip.

She got one of my coverings out of my drawer and put it on. She was pretty pleased with herself!

She unloaded an entire shelf of books the other day, onto the couch. When I told her she would need to put them away, she sat herself down and said she had to read all of them first.

Busy Boys

June 2, 2017 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

My boys know how to keep themselves busy. Here are a few of the projects they’ve been doing lately. Mr. Inventor built this tandem bicycle. He cut apart a couple of bikes and welded them back together. The boys love it; they can hook a trailer to it and with two of them peddling they can carry quite a load.

Counting down…till we fly to America. This was a few weeks ago; the chains are pretty short now!

Mr. Diligence made a cross, and Mr. Intellectual engraved Seth’s name and dates on it, to temporarily mark the grave until we get a proper headstone.

Mr. Diligence researching something.

Some of the busyness is not serious—sometimes they pull shenanigans like this! It took Mr. Intellectual quite awhile and a bit of help to free himself.

Mr. Inventor spent one morning trimming trees so he could mow under them.

The loggers. Mr. Inventor cut these logs across the road, and they hauled them home this way!

Mowing lawn one last time before we leave. He didn’t want to rake up the grass clippings, so he used the bag and pulled a wheelbarrow tub around to put the grass in so he didn’t have to walk to the other side of the yard every time it was full.

April 2017 Pictures

May 30, 2017 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

Time to get caught up with the random pictures!

Remember that post I did about salsa? After I added all the other ingredients, I ended up with two pots full!

Does Little Miss look like she has gained some weight? We were given a big boxful of shoes, gumboots, and a few dresses, her size or a little smaller. She wanted to wear all the dresses at once, so she has five dresses on in this picture!

One afternoon when everyone was away except her and me, she found this sunflower head and sat herself down to pick the seeds out. She got a handful before she got tired of it.

Yes, this is me laughing. I had sent a text to Gayle at work, and although he got an advertising text sent him just before that, he didn’t see mine. So, I sent him another, and we were all laughing about the ridiculousness of the whole thing.

Gayle reading my text.

One of our favorite meals—straw hats.

Little Miss

What to do with an empty chips bag—tape it shut tightly, then pop it with a bang! Boys….

We didn’t have a hard frost till early May, but I picked all the peppers the end of April. These were all from the greenhouse. I was astounded; I hadn’t thought they did so well this year!

This silly cat is always looking for a new spot to sleep.

I’m fixing my bicycle!

Gayle took the boys to the beach to get some sand, so the sandbox is full again. It’s been quite popular—although I’m glad the main popularity only lasted a couple of days; a lot was tracked into the house during those days.

Mr. Diligence and Little Miss mowing lawn.

Mr. Inventor, Little Miss, and Mr. Diligence all mowing at once.

Evening Walk

May 26, 2017 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

We don’t have enough grass here for our animals, so we graze the cow on the roadside during the day. We bring her home every evening before dark, to milk her and keep her in our paddock overnight. Seth always used to bring her home, and after he died Mr. Intellectual took over the job. One day around the first of February, though, I went to get her when everyone else was away and decided it would be a good way to get my daily walk in. I do it when I have time in the evening. Usually I take Little Miss in her stroller, but one evening in April I invited Mr. Imagination to go along instead. He was thrilled to get to go, and rode his bicycle ahead of me. One treat was seeing the moon rising over the hills to our east, the other side of Cheviot.

There’s our cow, waiting for us!

Happy Days

May 7, 2017 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

This is just a collection of random pictures of happy times over the past couple of months—pictures I never found a spot for before. Mr. Imagination was so happy to have puddles to splash in! This was one of our first rains in March, and was some of the first puddles he had the opportunity to play in for a couple of years.

All these lovely people, plus a few more, slept and ate at our house for a day and a half! We really enjoyed that weekend. One family had lived with us for two and a half months; they had to fly back to America a couple of days after the picture was taken, and the other family had come to say goodbye to them.

Mr. Intellectual was doing a science experiment, with help from Mr. Inventor and Esther. It had something to do with how pulleys work.

A friend came one day to say goodbye before she goes to America for a year. She loves children, and spent a lot of the day with the little ones. You can see how Little Miss loved her!

I believe this is a cup of hot chocolate from the friend in the picture above. Think Little Miss likes it?

We were given a big box of clothes, and Mr. Inventor had great fun dressing up and trying to look as ridiculous as possible! (And now I notice a cat enjoying the box!)

I came out of the bedroom after praying with Gayle at bedtime one night, and found that, not only had the boys not gone to bed, Mr. Inventor was busy tying Mr. Diligence up!

When we happen to have a Sunday afternoon at home, Daddy sometimes plays a game with the children. They love it!