Miller Street house

January 2016 Pictures

February 12, 2016 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

One morning when Mr. Intellectual was making his breakfast, he cracked an egg into a cup and found three yolks! He was tickled at his good fortune, and took a picture of it. Then, he cracked two more eggs and they were both double yolkers! So, from three eggs, he had seven yolks, as shown in the second picture, which he took to document his good morning.

Mr. Inventor brought one of his goslings in to show me how big it is now. Compare that to when it was newly-hatched, in October!

The boys spent a rainy day playing with Lincoln logs. Mr. Sweetie was impressed with this house-inside-a-house that he built.

The big boys made towers!

We watched a movie one week, Sheffey, the story of a circuit-riding preacher in, I believe, Tennessee in the 1800s. Gayle was holding the two little boys, and Little Miss got jealous, so announced that she wanted to be on his lap, too—right in the middle! I say we watched it one week, because it took four or five evenings to get through it.

On our way home from church one Sunday afternoon, we stopped for a few minutes at Saint Anne’s Lagoon to look around just a bit.

Mr. Inventor’s ducks enjoyed the pool they had for a week or two after a recent rain!

When we went to Christchurch for a day recently, we ate lunch in a small park, and then used the playground for awhile. Little Miss loved the swing ride she got with her big brother!

Summer Afternoon

February 9, 2016 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

A few weeks ago, I wrote a post one afternoon while I was outside watching my three little ones play. Here are a few more pictures I took that afternoon.

Little Miss took a long nap on my lap. That got rather uncomfortable, but she liked it! I got five books reviewed.

After playing in the water in the old bathtub for awhile, the little boys warmed up in the sun with the inner tubes.

Mr. Inventor’s geese checked us out.

After she woke up, Little Miss went exploring again.

That was such a lovely afternoon!

The Two Littlest

February 7, 2016 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

Mr. Imagination woke up early one morning, but by 7:00 he was asleep again on my chair!

She did it! Little Miss figured out how to get a cloth over her head. She worked on that trick for a long time.

One morning after a rain, Little Miss found a puddle just her size and had fun stepping in it.

She also thought it was fun washing her hands and feet in the milk in the cat dish. Mom was not impressed (and neither was the cat!).

Little Miss is a Daddy’s girl! She wants to be with Daddy whenever she can be. Just before I took this picture, I saw her standing there with her hand on his back, watching intently.

Mr. Sweetie took this one.

Everyone likes to play with Little Miss. One evening, she was “throwing” a ball and chasing it, to the great delight of everyone. Another time, Mr. Handyman brought her into the house in a bucket. She frequently gets bucket rides. This picture with a ball was taken on her birthday.

Mr. Imagination didn’t finish his breakfast, a pancake with applesauce, cut up into bite-sized pieces. Little Miss found it and ate about half, then scattered the rest across the floor.

Mr. Imagination found this dress in the closet one day and badly wanted Little Miss to wear it. The boys love seeing her dressed in really girly clothes.

While I was shelling peas one day, Mr. Sweetie got the camera and took some pictures of the two little ones. This is what I was enjoying watching while I shelled the peas.

That turkey is as big as she is! Mr. Inventor thought it was pretty cute to see her investigating the turkeys. He said she walked right up to them.

While we were eating outside where it was cooler one evening, she stuck her foot in Daddy’s plate. That wasn’t what she wanted to do!

One day, she spent half an hour or more sitting on this box, playing with her empty pill bottle and one or two other things.

After I emptied a jar of yogurt, she took it and the spoon and cleaned out more!

January Garden

February 3, 2016 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

The garden is doing splendidly! My boys have been a great help again this year. We’ve picked cabbage twice; this is the first harvest—30 heads! We made 110 pounds of sourkraut that day, more than we need for the year. It took only about 4 hours from picking the cabbage to finishing the cleanup.

Another day I picked a bushel and a half of peas. It was a lovely day to sit under a tree to shell them.

Little Miss loves to eat peas!

Mr. Intellectual has his own beautiful garden at the edge of the big garden. Here is Mr. Imagination showing the size of his brother’s sunflowers and corn.

This is our corn and pumpkins, with cabbage just beyond, and potatoes on the other side of that.

Little Miss likes zucchini, too!

Mr. Intellectual has been harvesting dandelion roots as well, and making them into “coffee”. He looked up directions and figured out how to roast them. Yum!

Videos of Little Miss

January 25, 2016 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

Little Miss has some brothers that love her. She is also becoming quite a chatterbox. It’s really hard to record her talking, because when she sees the camera she quits. I did manage to get this clip from behind. Looks like Mr. Imagination wanted in on the video, as well! In the second one, we had leftover whipped cream from a special treat one evening (waffles served with cherry pie filling and whipped cream), so Mr. Diligence fed some of it to her while he cleaned out the cup.

This Afternoon and Last Night

January 22, 2016 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

It’s pretty hot today, so I’m letting my little people cool off with water. They would love to go to a swimming pool, but the big boys are all at work so I’m giving them the next best: cold water in a bathtub, with a plastic tub for Little Miss. This is when I really like having a laptop, so I can watch them while still getting something done! This is what I see as I write this:

When I went outside last evening to take a few pictures for the post I did featuring the garden, I got to enjoy a brilliant double rainbow. It was much more beautiful than these pictures show.

This is one of this year’s experiments. Right after we planted the tomatoes, I had broccoli and cauliflower that also needed planted, but didn’t have any space for them. I put some between rows of tomatoes. A chicken ate most of them while they were tiny, but some of the broccoli survived. It’s getting taken over by tomatoes by now, but I noticed that some are starting to form heads!

The sunset was gorgeous, and I always enjoy seeing the Indian Runner ducks running in single file across the paddock. The geese were pretty active, too, but the turkeys were going to bed. It was dark enough that my camera flashed, and in this picture, the second one I took, they were getting nervous.

Tonight’s Shopping Trip, and Frost Recovery

January 21, 2016 by NZ Filbruns 2 Comments

I had great fun cooking dinner tonight. My first step was to make a shopping trip. I walked through the garden collecting ingredients to put with some cooked lamb I had in the fridge, to make a delicious stew. This was what Mr. Diligent and I picked in a few minutes:

I love this time of year! We eat so well.

Our late frost was five weeks ago already. The zucchinis are completely recovered; within three weeks they were the size they had been before that frost. The tomatoes, on the other hand, while they are the same size again, have really been knocked back. They are finally blooming again now, but I’m afraid we won’t get much of a crop. Here are pictures of the same zucchini plant and the same tomato plant, the day of the frost, three weeks later, and tonight.

One Year Old!

January 15, 2016 by NZ Filbruns 5 Comments

Little Miss turned one yesterday. She didn’t seem to care one way or the other, but we are having a hard time believing we’ve already had her that long. We don’t do much of anything for a first birthday, but some of her brothers wanted to give her gifts. Mr. Imagination was sadly wanting to know what he could give her, so I suggested he pick a few peas in the garden and shell them for her. He happily did so, and they shared a bowl of raw peas! Here are the pictures we’ve taken of our precious little girl over the past month.

One evening when everyone else was away, she checked out the lawn mower, then went to investigate the ducks.

This was when she had just learned to walk and was thrilled to be able to transport things. She must have decided I needed the nearly-empty jug of molasses for the cow in the house, so she threw it in the door.

Here she was absolutely thrilled to have figured out how to climb the stepstool. Don’t ask how many times she’s fallen off by now when we forgot to turn it over!

One rainy day, her daddy and brothers rigged up a swing in the living room for her. She loved that!

Thrilled again to find a way to the top of the stool!

A family with seven children spent a day with us right after Christmas. The two babies started playing together late in the afternoon. We loved watching them “working” together with this toy computer!

She spent a couple of weeks playing with towels and washcloths and Mr. Imagination’s neon-green shirt, trying to get them onto her head. It takes a lot of work and concentration to accomplish that goal! Once she figured out how, she quit doing it!

It rained! She found a puddle just her size.

Another puddle! She likes to “wash” her feet and hands in the cat dish. I have to push it way back under the grill if the cat is to get any milk.

The faces she makes!

December Fun

December 30, 2015 by NZ Filbruns 2 Comments

I was thrilled one evening when I came across this scene! This is only the first or second time ever that Mr. Diligence has voluntarily read a book! Mr. Imagination loved listening, of course.

We saw this impressive cold front on its way up from the south as we came home from church one Sunday afternoon. Unfortunately, it blew over without dropping anything, although we did get a bit of rain later that night.

Is that a kiss—or a bite?

For our last homeschool gathering of the year, we went to a campground by the Waipara River. We were the first ones there, so the boys spent some time building dams while we waited for others to arrive.

Little Miss tasted rocks.

The boys discovered Little Miss with a jar of jam she had managed to get open. Instead of cleaning her up (we were supposed to be leaving in a few minutes for a barbeque!), Mr. Inventor started snapping pictures. It was cute, I’ll have to admit, to see her dipping in for yet another handful of jam! Thankfully, it was sugar-free, so not bad for her.

Mr. Sweetie was happy to get his cast off. The boys were all very interested in how it was done.

When Esther and Mr. Handyman came home, they brought gifts from the grandparents. This was Mr. Imagination’s favorite. He needed help putting it together a few times, but now he can do it himself.

Little Miss discovered an empty cupboard, and then Mr. Imagination joined her in it.

Little Glimpses into Our Life

December 19, 2015 by NZ Filbruns 2 Comments

A couple of weeks ago, the boys noticed a peacock running along the fence on the north side of this property. The next morning, the peacock was in our paddock, preening and generally making himself at home. We frequently see him showing off his ragged, beautiful tail, and the sounds we hear multiple times through the day make it sound like a zoo here!

I got out this box of milk bottles so I could put milk in the freezer. Looks like the rats got there first. I was glad to hear that the bait we put out is gone; we haven’t seen signs of rats recently (these bottles have been stored in that spot since about March). Why they would eat empty, clean milk bottles, and the calf bottle, is beyond me.

Mr. Imagination

Gayle decided they needed to find out what exactly it was like in the underground water tank. The water level was down to about 2 feet deep, after watering the garden for a couple of days, so he tied a rope around Mr. Diligence and lowered him in. He walked around and reported that the floor is solid concrete, covered with a layer of mud and debris.

I liked this—all the boys laying around the hole, looking in.

The boys found this hedgehog while they were feeding the chickens one evening.

Little Miss was delighted to be able to see the hen with her four chicks!

Mr. Sweetie can read! I found a couple of beginning readers for him the other evening, and he didn’t want to go to bed; he wanted to keep reading. I told him he was allowed to get up early in the morning to read. He didn’t like that idea, but as soon as he was up in the morning he was reading!