Spring is here

Well, it's been a while since I have posted. I have been really busy. My allergies have been really bad these last few weeks. The Bradford Pear trees, peach trees and redbud trees have bloomed. The first two are nearly done blooming. Our apple tree has started to bloom as well. I finally got the cool season veggies planted last night and today. I'm really excited about my gardening this year. I have made 4 garden boxes that measure 4 feet wide by 16 feet long. Into one of them I have transplanted strawberries. I have so many more strawberry plants that I am trying to get rid of. I've been telling people to come and get some, so come on over and get some. We have hundreds! One of the garden boxes has the cool season veggies planted in it. The others will be for the other crops, and then we still have 1/2 of our garden available for old fashoned planting. I will probably use that area for corn, potatoes and winter squash.

I've been trying to get Lizzie to use the toilet lately. It hasn't worked really well. She has only gone to the bathroom on the toilet a couple of times. On days that I try the underwear, she goes through 5 or so pairs by late afternoon when I finally get tired of it and put her back in a diaper. Well, today I had her in a diaper and she kept taking it off after she wet in it. Well, then she took it off after she pooped in it! Not only that, but she wasn't done pooping either. She walked across the house and pooped more on the floor in the family room, then stepped in it. Oh what a mess! I put her on the toilet and made her sit there while I cleaned up. I think she actually peed in the toilet that time! Sometimes it is hard to tell because a couple of my kids are good at forgetting to flush, so the water could have been a bit yellow before I put her there. So, I put a pair of underwear on her again (more absorbent ones) and hopefully she will learn a thing or two.

I went to a different Wal Mart the other day that still has fabric at it. There are two other Wal Marts that are closer to me, but I wanted to see the fabric. So, I found some and it is beautiful. I got enough to make a quilt (I hope) for my bed finally. I then came home and found a pretty pattern that I had to fgure out how big to make all the pieces. If my math on that is right, I should have enough of most of the fabrics for the quilt top and then some for borders. I will need to get more for borders, and more of one of the fabrics for the top, but they still had some of it left yesterday, so if I go soon I should be able to get what I need. I guess it also depends on if I will be making it for a queen or king bed. Right now we have a queen, but we keep talking about getting new bedroom furniture. I am not sure if it will be queen size or king size when we get it.
I am also thinking of decorating the master bathroom. Right now we have a mix and match (but not so much of the "match" part) of what we had when we moved in. I saw some cute bathroom decor things that I might decide to get. I still have the girls' bedroom to finish decorating too. I guess it is time to get cracking.

We are going to hatch a few more baby chicks again this year. We will probaly get rid of our roosters and keep some of the little ones that we hatch. We will not keep too many because we do not want to have many more chickens. Even now, we can't keep up with the egg output from the 10 hens that we have. We get about 6-8 eggs every day. It's wonderful. I've given so many of them away too and we still have 1 1/2 to 3 dozen eggs in our fridge at any given time. When we get close to the 3 dozen mark, I usually find someone to give half of them to. Jonathan and Matthew like cooking their own eggs for breakfast. I made the girls some fried egg sandwiches the other day for lunch. They thought those were pretty good. If anyone has any good ideas on different ways to eat eggs, I'm all ears!

I really enjoy living out here in the country. We are far enough away from the city, but not far enough that it is a pain to go to the store. That Wal Mart that I went to the other day was only 20 miles away. There are two that are closer than that, so it isn't bad. I don't know if I would ever be able to move back to a city. I like having the chickens. I love the sound of the roosters. I'd like to get more animals, but we can't do that in our neighborhood. Some of the people don't like the chickens that much, though I think most of the people do.

Well, that's the news from these parts. I hope you all take time to enjoy the wonderful things that spring brings and remember where we get it all from. This is such a wonderful time of year to remember all that our Savior did for us. We really do owe Him our lives. It would do us all well to remember that. If we are living our lives as Christ would have us do, we would all be much happier. There would not be so much anger or hatred. Let's strive to make our lives as close to Christ-like as possible.