Sticky fall fun-Yeah a new post!!!

**Finally!!! We have internet service at home again. There's lots to blog, but I'll try and pace myself! :-)


Last week, we did something that the boys had never done before....made caramel apples. The caramels were free at HEB and we had tons of apples that Michael had picked up at Central Market a week or so ago that really needed to be eaten. It was a no-brainer! :-) I had the boys unwrap the caramels and then we melted them, rolled the apples in the sticky-gooey caramel and enjoyed the caramel apples. The boys really liked them. I had to take the cores away from them or they would have eaten the cores dipped in the extra caramel! We have some more caramels left, and still lots of apples, so I'm sure we'll be doing this again very soon. It was just a very delightful way to spend a fall evening.

Jonathan eating an apple. Jeffrey's trying to get his turn.

Look at that face! He's loving the apple!

Jeremy and Josiah sharing their apple.

Look at those beauties!

Jonathan rolling his apple

Josiah rolling his apple.

Jeffrey rolling his apple.

Jonathan...busted! He's sneaking a caramel.

The boys unwrapping their caramels.

Internet in the "sticks" = trouble

Our internet isn't working at home. I'm posting this from the library and my time is about to run out. There won't be any posts until probably early next week (after the guy comes for the service call) and if you sent an email, I probably won't see it until next week. I'll keep you posted.

Working before the sun came up

Last night we had a cold front come through (though you can't tell by Jonathan's t-shirt and shorts...it's chilly here! Like 55 degrees!) with lots and lots of wind. During the night the wind blew down one of the tree-like things in our yard. I'm not sure it counts as a tree by most people's standards, but by south-central TX standards, it's a tree. Maybe someone reading this could ID this tree. I have no idea what kind it is. But whatever it is, it fell over during the wind last night. Turns out it was pretty rotten, but the boys didn't mind. Jeffrey and Josiah were up out there while it was still mostly dark. What you need to know here is that the sun doesn't come up over the horizon until about 7:45 am. It's wonderful because I can sleep in until 7:15 and still watch the sunrise. My kind of time zone!! :-)

All of the boys were up and out by 7:30, hatchet and saw in hand. One quick OK from mom and they made quick work of the tree. They chopped it down, and dragged it to the fire pit to make an awesome bonfire for another night.

This inspired them to go hunting for fire wood. They wanted to take the big axe, chain saw,etc. and chop some "like Almonzo Wilder", says Jeffrey. Well, I guess the axe would be Wilder-ish, but not the chainsaw! And ummm, NO, bad idea taking heavy, sharp tools into the woods dwhile running on adrenaline from the crisp air and previous chopping encounter. At this point, four sets of shoulders slump and say "OK" (imagine groaning tones). So they decided to try Plan B. They asked if they could go out and collect stumps of wood that are ALREADY on the ground and bring them around to make a wood pile. (We have a wood-burning fireplace for the first time in 10 years! I'm sure we won't need much wood for the two days a year that we'll wish to have a fire around here.) That one I could sign off on. So off they all went. So cute, dressed in boots, pants, hats and gloves (no coats of course, right Kelley!).

They came back after about 1/2 an hour thrilled to tell me that Jeffrey has built a fire pit somewhere on our property in the woods. "Can we take the aim a flame and some water and see if we can light a fire in the fire pit?" Jonathan asks breathlessly with a smile. Again, mom's the party pooper! Do I really want them creating a "test fire-just to see if it lights"??!!That sounds like a disaster in the making. So, I put it back on Michael. I told them to wait until dad gets home and he can look at the pit and assess its "fireworthiness". Man, am I glad they have such a great daddy!

Moving the "tree" to the fire pit.

Moving the tree into the wago to transport it to the fire pit.

You can see how "untall" these tree things are. But the green part is VERY poky!

The hatchet crew.

Jeffrey using his hatchet to chop the tree. Jonathan rocked it back and forth, which helped as much as (or more than) the hatchet.

The explorers return... with dinner

This afternoon, for the first time in a while, Jonathan, Jeremy and Jeffrey went exploring. They got permission to go off of our land, which I think made them very excited to head out. After about 1 1/2 hours, they returned with wide eyes and everyone battling to be the first to talk "Guess what we got? Guess what we got? A snake! (Then everyone joins in together) A snake!!" At this point, MY eyes are wide and I'm frantically looking around and thinking, "They did NOT say snake skin; they said snake" No one had anything in their hands. I'm curious, but quite tentative, and keeping my motherly distance. Then Jonathan reached INTO HIS POCKET! I'm thinking, "There's no way he's got a snake in his pocket" and lo, and behold, he does. He pulls a snake out of his pocket.



Whew, it's a small snake. It looks like it was the sibling/cousin of Creepy mentioned in an earlier post. The boys then told me the whole tale of how they captured and killed the snake, which included killing a lizard to use as bait for the snake. Somethings you just don't want to know! I was glad to hear that they all had at least a little trepidation in holding the live snake and quickly killed it.

So then more fun ensued when we threw the snake out for the chickens to eat for dinner. (BTW, they are all still around and head to the coop each night). Rhoda got it first but it was soon taken by Dorcas and then by Sacagewea who proceeded to run around the yard with it because she didn't want to share. I got it on video on my camera, but couldn't get it loaded onto the blog. It was a hoot. In the end, she got it all to herself! Tell me who's the head chicken!!!!

So, now the chickens have eaten, what are WE going to eat. Time to stop blogging and start cooking....and make sure those boys have washed their hands! :-)

Monday night smackdown

One of the things that Michael has loved to do with the boys (and the feeling is certainly mutual), is wrestling. The evolution of "wrestling" has progressed from simply lying down on the floor while toddlers stumble on top of him (he really liked this type!) to an all out, sweat fest using all his energy on the bed. Well, Josiah has been asking Michael for several days "Can we pleeeeeease wrestle, daddy?!" That's a tough one to turn down for Michael, but things have been busy. Monday night, Michael called Josiah into the bedroom and hid behind the bathroom doors. Josiah figured he'd just forgotten to pick up his shoes or something and casually came inside the bedroom. When Josiah walked in, Michael flung the doors open and sang a song, kinda Monday night football-esque. Michael said the smile on Josiah's face was priceless! He quickly dropped the book in his hand and jumped up onto the bed. Michael counted down...."Three-two-one.." and the mania began. All I heard from the other room was grunting, groaning, and lots of giggling. I went in about 10 minutes later and saw Josiah, red-faced standing on the corner of the bed with a hand in the air, holding up a number three. Another round was about to begin. Their match went on for about 15 mintues. Jonathan couldn't stand it! He HAD to get into the mix. Michael said Jonathan's a lot less subtle than Josiah about wanting to wrestle. Jonathan will come up and just plow Michael over on the bed. Yep, really subtle! So then, it was Michael vs. Jonathan. I'm pleased to say that the 44-year old won! He's still got it! But it takes ALL he's got these days. And last time they wrestled, Michael didn't win. Those boys are strong!! The evening ended up in an all-out dog pile! (with mom taking pics so SHE didn't have to be in the dog pile!)

I love my husband. I know he's making memories that my sweet boys don't ever forget!

A real pain in the booty

Jeremy fell off of the deck on Sunday playing football with his brothers. In the process, he landed funny on his backside. We took him to the chiropractor (the 3rd one we've tried in our little town) yesterday. The chiropractor wanted Jeremy to have an x-ray to rule out a fracture. Jeremy's been having a real time trying to stand up from sitting. We were wondering if maybe it could really be broken. So, this morning, Michael took Jeremy (and Jonathan wanted to tag along) bright and early this morning to get x-rayed. We just got a call from the chiropractor and it's not broken. Yeah! What do you do with a broken tailbone anyway? Just wait it out? So this afternoon, we're headed to the chiropractor to get an adjustment. Hopefully, we can get it settled before football on Thursday or Friday. Thankfully, we don't have football until then. In the mean time, Jeremy will be "chillin'".....literally on an icepack for most of the day today.

I'm so thankful

What a crazy weekend it turned out to be. It turns out this weekend, BOTH of our dads (Michael's and mine) needed 911 calls.

My dad was trying to fix the whirlybird on top of their roof and got stuck, which sounds more like a "most embarrsing moment" than a 911 call, but in fact, there was a point when he said he was really afraid he was going to slide off the edge of the roof and fall off. He gripped the roof in a "six point stance" with his feet (his shoes had come off), knees and hands and gradually inched his way to the top part of the roof and was able to sit down and yell for my mom's help. They eventually had to call 911 and get the firemen to come help him get off of the roof. As Michael and I were talking about this story, I made a comment that "It's amazing how one day can totally change your life and you don't even know it when you wake up that morning." Thankfully, my life DIDN'T change that day. I'm grateful to God for my dad and his safety.

What we didn't know was that while I was making that comment, Michael's dad was beginning to have a heart attack. He and Lois were actually out in California with a tour group when it happened. He's doing well know and will be released from the hopsital probably tomorrow. We've just seen God's hand in this situation in so many ways. The hospital that he was nearest to is supposedly one of the best in the LA area. Certainly better than the one that he would have been taken to if it had happened in La Marque, where he lives. The doctor who was on call on Sunday morning was the cheif of staff for the cardiac care unit. That dr. has also been instrumental in helping to get coordination between the ambulances, 911 calls, and hospitals in cardiac cases in LA. Basically, it comes down to the fact that he had his heart attack in one of the best places in all of LA, maybe even in the country. If the heartattack had happened one or two days before or earlier, he wouldn't have been in nearly as great of a place. And Michael's sister, Lacy, is a photographer and lives in College Station, TX (about 3 hours from here), and was out in California about 1 1/2 hours south of LA doing a photo shoot for a friend. So, she's been able to go up to see him and will help fly him home later this week. Michael's aunt and uncle live about 30 minutes from the hosptial and have been able to go up and see him and visit several times. We've all really seen the hand of God on this whole situation. We're so thankful to the Lord for working it out, as especially that Michael's dad is still with us!!!

So, today, I'm choosing again to be very thankful for the people in my life that I love. And I'm thankful for days that end up much like the way they began! :-)

Free range-thanks to Oprah

You know what, I really don't like Oprah very much. I rarely watch her show unless I've heard from someone that it's going to be a good show; and as a result, I've probably seen three episodes over the last 5 years. Imagine my shock when Michael called on Monday and asked me to TIVO Oprah that afternoon. I didn't even know what channel it's on (or how to set the TIVO on Dish Network!), so I asked the expert-Jeremy- and he taped it for me. I guess "taped it" isn't even the correct terminology anymore. Do kids today even know what a tape is???? Anyway, back to the topic at hand. The Oprah episode was about where our food comes from. It was in no masked terms, a biased appeal for California voters to vote "YES" on Proposition 2 which mandates the amount of space that egg laying hens, pregnant sows and veal calves must have in their living quarters. They showed film footage of hens crammed in cages, sows in gestational stalls with barely enough room to move forward and backward and yucky footage of the living conditions of veal calves. There was a man talking about how deplorable it is that humans would do this to animals. Then there was film of organic farmers who have free range animals who live happy, healthy lives. Everyone was so peaceful and happy. Really, it was quite a stark contrast between the two. The vote "NO" people were saying that it would cost a lot of money and put many farmers out of business to be forced to increase the space for all the hens when some farms have thousands of hens or sows. And you know what, I think they are both right. Certainly, the best way, hands down to raise animals is free range, family farm-style. It's a better way for everyone. I've learned first hand how fun it is to have animals come close and start getting excited when you come around with food. It's very enjoyable to live in the country and have animals around! However, honestly, the Walmart mentality most people have (I'm the first to LOVE a great deal!) I think will keep most people from voluntarily buying organic and paying more for it.

Anyway, political positions aside, there was a very interesting part of the film that inspired Michael and I to think. The gentleman who was raising free range chickens would let them out to free range all day and left the doors opened to the coop and every night the chickens would come in to sleep. So, we're going to try it. (We were already Prop 2 compliant, by the way. Our hens had room to spread their wings without touching, but we're going to give them even more room).

Michael took the top off of the coop and opened the door. Here's what happened.


Cheetah, Dorcas, Sacagewea and Rhoda hung out inside the coop for a few minutes, even with the door open.
Rowen, on the other hand, took not even 2 seconds to fly off of the roof and started pecking around.

The hens came out greeted by a very confused and curious goat herd. The goats like to hang out by the chicken coop and eat the chicken feed that they can reach. Today, they got a surprise!
Now the goats are starting to mind their own business, while four of the hens head out and walk around. It will be very interesting to see how the hens "hang". Inside the coop, there is very clearly a pecking order. Rowen is at the bottom, which is why she spends almost all of her waking hours on the roof of the coop. She is currently in a totally different part of the yard. It remains to be seen if she finds the others and pals around with them. I just hope they all come back into the coop tonight!! Stay tuned.

I sure love living in the country!

In case you didn't know, boys LOVE fires, my boys at least. Since backyard fires were really frowned upon by the Quail Ridge Homeowners Ass'n as well as the Bartlett Fire Dept., we didn't have many (ANY) in TN. However, since we now live in "the sticks" nobody thinks twice when they smell something burning. We even have a super nice fire pit in our backyard that's been home to many bonfires over the last several months. Tonight was one of those nights. There's no wind, a nice pile of grass and some boxes in the pit, the temperature has dropped below 80, and no football practice tonight...it all adds up to my fire-loving guys having fun at the pit! Michael nixed the use of lighter fluid (to a chorus of groans) knowing that it's been dry here (even with the rain earlier in the week) so it shouldn't have taken anything but the aim-a-flame to get things going. And he was right. Just took a little spark to get the fire going (anyone else singing an FCA song from the 70s at this point?)



Jeremy, Josiah and Jeffrey watching the fire.
The fire crew!!
Jeffrey goofing off around the fire pit.
Michael explaining to Jonathan something about the fire.

Josiah's ready with a football, anytime, anywhere!!

We were out there just about 10 minutes until everything burned up (mostly) and Michael and I got a little tired of saying things like, "Don't put anything else in the fire." "Please take that out of the fire" "Don't try and do the 'Indian smoke dance'" (any guesses at who was trying to do an Indian smoke dance??) "Leave the fire in the pit" "Don't make the ashes go everywhere" "The ant hills won't catch on fire. Please don't try!" You get the picture. It really was fun, and warm.

What a fun family Friday! Now we're off to the hot tub. We barely all fit in b/c my boys have such long arms and legs, but we make it work. The stars are out and it's soooooo peaceful and quiet outside. I LOVE living in the country!!

The great autumnal fall out

Ok, put on your thinking caps, it's time for a pop quiz. What do you call the type of tree that loses its leaves in the autumn?...........Did you say deciduous? (Did I spell deciduous correctly? Doesn't matter, this is a science quiz, not a spelling quiz!) You're correct. Ok, now what do you call teeth that fall out making way for permanent teeth?.......Not baby teeth!........They are called deciduous teeth. Did you know that? Well, Mr. Josiah is celebrating autumn by losing his deciduous teeth as the deciduous trees are losing leaves. He lost another tooth on Tuesday. Just last week he lost one while opening a water bottle. On Tuesday, he was eating chicken nuggets at Chick-Fil-A and I noticed that his tooth was bleeding. (He had just earlier that day shown me that the tooth was wiggly, but it wasn't close to coming out....or so I thought.) Well, bloody teeth and gums really gross Michael out, so he promised Josiah ice cream at home if he would let me pull out his tooth at C-F-A. Of course, Josiah said yes and I proceeded with one of my favorite mommy jobs (really!) In super short order, the tooth was out and wrapped in a napkin. Now Josiah's smile looks like this....

So, according to my records, Josiah's lost 4 teeth in the last six weeks. I'm just REALLY glad they don't turn gold and orange before they fall out!

A great evening of football

*This picture has nothing to do with the post. I just thought it was a cool picture of a butterfly on a nerf football on our back porch. Believe it or not, I took this picture! :-) Maybe I could tie it into the post by saying, the boys have transformed into new life in their football skills or something semi-corny like that!
The boys were invited to play a "B" team game last night for football. They play on the "A" team sometimes, but since they aren't starters, they got to play "B" team. It was a great game, with the Patriots winning 41-19. Jonathan and Jeremy EACH scored 2 touchdowns. Jonathan's hamstring is feeling better now as is Jeremy's confidence level! :-) Jeremy and Jonathan each also made some terriffic tackles throughout the game. All the boys on the team had fun and many got a chance to play who don't normally play. After the game, the coach was talking to the team and said "Dagerath twins, the destruction crew. You guys were killing them out there. Great job!" He even came up to them individually after the game and explained that they were doing so well, that he had to take them out of some plays just to give the other guys a chance. That made them both feel really great. There's a regular conference game on Thursday night. Hopefully, J&J will get some playing time and continue to do great things.
Jeremy (2nd from the left with his hand on the helmet) watching a play. One really cool thing was that all the starters came dressed in their red polo Patriots shirts (which is what they are supposed to wear any time they are as a team and not in uniform) to cheer on the B team. They were all so encouraging of each other.
Here's Jonathan after one of his touchdowns.
After the game, the team went to Chick-Fil-A and had dinner. This is Jonathan with two buddies, Andrew on the left and Cory on the right. Jeremy wasn't at the table when the pic was taken. The team all looks really sharp when we go places after the game b/c everyone's wearing the red polos and khaki pants.

An unusual day

Yesterday something unusual happened. (BTW, unusual has for years been one of my favorite words to spell. Maybe it's the sing-song-y way it's spelled. Kinda like a cheer "U-N-U-S-U-A-L; That's the word I like to spell. Leeeeet's yell! Leeeeet's spell! U-N-U-S-U-A-L!" Okay, now you're thinking, "I know why she likes that word, she relates to it. SHE'S unusual!") Anywhoo, back to the story. Yesterday something unusual happened. It rained. It hasn't done that in weeks, maybe months. We really needed the rain. Ever seen chickens when it rains? They stay huddled up in the coop unless they were coming out to eat. Ever seen a WET chicken? It actually spurred a dinner conversation that Jonathan initiated about the oil glands that water birds have under their feathers that obviously chicken do NOT. They just look soaking wet. It's kinda funny. Sorry I didn't get a picture of it.

The goats huddled up under the eaves of the front porch, much to Jackson's dismay, and stayed for most of the day.


And then this morning, here's what popped up.
For the benefits of the foreigners (e.g. non-Texans) this is a fire ant mound. These ants are small like the sugar ants of TN, but they sting and it feels like, well, fire! It's one of the very few bummer things about Texas. I'll take the house flies of TN over the fire ants of TX any day. But here they are. Now that it's rained, we probably have hundreds of these around on our property.
And, this is our front porch this morning. It's not ant beds, it's goat poop. Yuck!

So today, we're going to have an official "Scoop the Poop and Kill the Hill" day at Dagerath Academy. Idecided against calling it "Scoop the Poop and Pound the Mound" day because I feel sure that at least one of my boys would take "pound the mound" to mean, stick your foot in the ant hill before you put poison in it. That could be trouble. (Added later: Turns out, that's just what Jeremy did when he was doing the poison. You know, a GIRL would NEVER think to do that!)

It says in Proverbs that we should "Go to the ant, you sluggard; consider its ways and be wise! It has no commander, no overseer or ruler, yet it stores its provisions in summer and gathers its food at harvest." Prov. 6:6-8 We're going to do just that. We're going to go to the ants, watch them, then dump poison on their hills. My normally organic-loving self takes a back seat when it comes to fire ants. I'm ruthless. And it's going to be "all hands on deck" to knock these guys out.

Then we'll pull out the "poop blower" (a.k.a. leaf blower-but since we don't have any trees here that dump their leaves, it works beautifully to blow the goat poop off of the porch and driveway!) and clean off the front porch.

Gotta take the bad with the good. We'll take the rain everytime! And we'll just make a fun day of it. Maybe I'll make t-shirts! or maybe just a cheer! :-)

My beautimous house

A couple of people have asked for pictures of my house since they have read the blog and can't make it by to see the house...so here ya' go. Because my blogging mechanics savvy is still in the infancy stage, I don't know how to move these pics around so I'll just comment on them as they come up. If you've been following my blog for very long, you'll be painfully aware of the fact of my weak photography skills, limited in large part to the weakness of my camera (NOT user error, of course! :-) ) But, if you've been my friend for long, you know that the fact that I'm actually taking pictures is HUGE! Right, Kelley!! SO, here's my house. We are sooooo thankful to the Lord for providing this house for us to rent. It's the nicest house I've ever lived in , and may ever live in. And to get the real feel of it, you would need someone who can capture the outdoors that you can see out almost every window. The view out our windows is lovely...trees and land in every direction. It's great! And quiet, outside at least. Inside is usually a different story! So, to get the real package....come and visit!


Michael's and my bedroom-taken from the back door leading onto the deck. Master bathroom taken from the master bedroom.
The totally awesome shower. This pic doesn't do it justice!
The laundry room. With it's own sink, which doubles as a baby bathtub when my sister comes to visit.
Jonathan and Jeremy's room. They have their own bathroom, which is where I'm standing to take the picture.

The living room view from the master bedroom hallway.
The living room from the kitchen/formal dining area.
The schoolroom/office.
The Dagerath branch library. We love these bookshelves. We've decided our book collection (there's still more books in the garage) is about the size of Castroville Public library. AND it has better books!
I LOVE this pantry. The light comes on automatically when you open the door. A very cool feature. This picture doesn't even capture the entire size of it. I love it!

My favorite part of the house...the kitchen. There's a double oven, that you can't see. And I love the island. I'd like to take this kitchen and put it in whatever house we have next.
The formal dining room. This room doubles as our laundry folding room most of the time. Just not when I took this pretty picture!
The breakfast area. It's right behind the kitchen.
Jeffrey and Josiah's room. They don't have beds, just a nice striped rug. Just kidding, the bunk beds are hidden a little behind the corner of the wall.
Another view of the kitchen. Behind the sink is the bar where I sit to do all my blogging. I love all the windows! We keep most of the lights turned off during the day. Natural light does a body good!

Come and see it in person! We always have room for guests!