Videos

Videos–Cattle and Tractor

November 16, 2020 by NZ Filbruns 1 Comment

Last Friday evening, the boys moved our heifer Pansy, her calf Iris, and our other heifer calf Bluebell, down to the bottom paddock. I had been milking Pansy, but her teats are so small my hands were not holding up to the job, so we put the calves on her for now. We tried to get her to feed our steer, too, but she hates him with a passion and if he’s around she won’t let the others near, either. It’s always amusing to watch calves being led on a rope for the first time–it’s a good thing Simon is so strong! He had quite a fight with Iris.

Simon moved his tractor and his vintage car to his house last weekend. In preparation, he moved them around the evening before, and Esther got a video clip of him driving the tractor. It runs well, but he was having trouble getting it stuck in 1st gear, and not going into reverse, when he was using it to move undriveable vehicles around at his place (he also acquired a Land Cruiser, which he’s storing in his old chicken coop at his house).

More of Miss Joy

September 16, 2020 by NZ Filbruns 2 Comments

Most of the photos I find on my memory card are of Miss Joy! She’s quite photogenic, in our opinion, right now.

I don’t know who took this photo—I suspect possibly Mr. Imagination.

She loves apples—and she loves boxes and climbing!

One warm, sunny afternoon, she took off on an exploratory trip. She absolutely loves going outside, and can’t understand when we won’t let her go out (because it’s cold and wet!).

07-IMG_6669 When she turned around, I got this video clip:

I was quite amused one day to see her sitting in these tubs that were laying on their side!

This is a very common sight. If she’s at all tired or hungry, she finds her blankie and brings it to me, saying, “Eye-guy-guy.”While I was reading aloud yesterday, Mr. Intellectual was laying on the couch. Miss Joy climbed on top of him and sat herself down to read a book.

When her daddy came home from work and squatted down to clean his work shoes, she grabbed one of my crocs that was handy, got herself a towel, and cleaned my shoe! She quite diligently worked at it for several minutes, as long as Gayle was cleaning his shoes.

One afternoon when she and I were the only ones at home, I was enjoying watching her play. I decided to get a quick video, just because times like that are so fleeting.

Videos of the Children

January 22, 2020 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

The boys were using their forge one day, and Esther took some video clips to send to a little boy who had just broken his leg. She put the best ones together here so Grandma can get an idea of what they are doing.

These are just a few cute video clips of what Miss Joy was doing in the latter part of December. We’re enjoying her so much!

She had just found her feet when I took this video, and while I was taking it she got her toes into her mouth for the first time! That was three weeks ago; now, every time she’s on her back her hands go to her toes–until she decides to roll over and get moving.

Miss Joy, 3 Months

December 7, 2019 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

These first two pictures were taken when Miss Joy was 2 1/2 months old, in early November.

This is her 3-month picture! She loves to taste everything she can get her hands on. When she’s laying down, both hands are up, with one almost always tucked behind her head, as here, while the other tries to stuff something into her mouth.

Her first time in the Bumbo. She likes being able to look around!

She is such a happy baby! She smiles and laughs a lot.

A week ago, I got out this toy that she was given. She likes to chew on it when she can get it into her mouth. That takes a lot of hard work, though.

We had to redo her passport photo for her NZ passport. Here are a couple of the failed attempts.

Little Miss is loving having a live doll to play with!Just for Grandma—a couple of video clips.

October 2019 Photos

November 9, 2019 by NZ Filbruns 1 Comment

Here are the last of my photos from October! This year is almost over already—how can that be?

One more bubble picture, from when that was the fad. This is Mr. Imagination.

Gayle and all the children except Miss Joy went fishing one Saturday. They didn’t catch anything except a blackberry vine, and they lost some hooks and the handle of a reel—but they had fun!

Little Miss wanted to dress her baby sister one morning, so I let her try. She discovered it’s a little harder than dressing a doll! Mr. Imagination helped her.

The cow and calf enjoyed the sunshine a few days after the calf was born during a rainy spell.

The boys were trying to make a stack of people. Mr. Sweetie climbed onto Mr. Diligence’s shoulders, but when Mr. Imagination got on, the stack collapsed.

Mr. Sweetie and Mr. Imagination made these fish out of silly putty. The fish are playing with a ball, and the top of the frame is the sea.

Simon bought a new backpack, and Mr. Diligence wanted to try it out. He got Little Miss to climb in, and gave her a ride. She loved it!

This enormous dump truck is used in mining, likely coal mining. It is not licensed for using on the road, so they had to haul it this way.

Mr. Imagination was quite impressed with the length of this potato sprout when he helped his daddy plant potatoes a few weeks ago!

We enjoy watching episodes of MasterChef together, and Mr. Imagination has been inspired to create pretty food. This was a “dessert” he made one morning. He has pieces of banana and orange, and he made a sauce with mashed bananas and cream.

Miss Joy at a little over two months. She lives up to her name most of the time, and is a joy to have in the family. As I type this, she is sleeping snuggled up on my chest.

Some friends gave us a praying mantis egg case. We were fascinated to watch the baby insects hatch! Esther took a video of it, then sped it up 8 times.

Dead Boring Concert 2019

August 31, 2019 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

Because of the imminent arrival of our new baby, we were not all able to go to this year’s Dead Boring Concert (Dead Boring is the homeschool writing group we were part of in Canterbury before we moved here to the Coast). However, since Esther has her full license now, she was able to take four of her brothers over to it. They sang two songs and performed a skit.

The first song was, “I Am Thine, O Lord.”

Their second song was, “I Have Decided,” and Mr. Intellectual narrated the story behind the song.

They named their skit “A Gift for the King.” It is based on an old story. One morning a few weeks ago, Mr. Intellectual and Mr. Diligence came up with the idea. They told Simon about it when he got home from work that evening, and asked him if he could play the part of a guard. He immediately came up with an even better idea; he wanted to be the one bringing the gift, and when he acted out his idea, we were all in stitches at his goofy accent and what he called his gift! He did make one mistake when they performed the skit on the day; at the end, instead of saying he wanted a goose from the king, he intended to say he wanted a REAL goose. At the very end, they were throwing candy out over the audience for the children.

Boats

January 16, 2019 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

Mr. Intellectual continues to work on his strip canoe. He finally got all the strips glued together, and has been working on sanding it. It’s beautiful! Here it is nearly finished, and then with the last strip in place and part of the sanding done.

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Meanwhile, the boys have been enjoying their barrel boat. Here it is after the first use, when they went down the Grey River.

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This was the day they used it next, when we went down to the creek below our town with some friends to spend a Sunday afternoon in the water. They punted up and down the creek a number of times, but then that got boring, so they decided to sink it. The only way they could get it to sink was to take the plug out of the end and let it fill up with water—and even that took a long time!

Then, they used it on Christmas Day on a lake—I’ll publish a post in a few weeks about that. The most recent time they used it, Simon took Esther and one of her friends, and our two little boys, down the Grey River. They sunk it, and now they have to rebuild the motor—or dry it out, or something. It ended up quite dented, as you can see in this photo that Mr. Intellectual took to show someone.

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