Adventures in Backyard Farming: When Hawks Attack!

Oh my goodness I've had such a crazy past two weeks. I am pooped! So I'm sorry I haven't gotten to post those book reviews I promised. I'll just have to sprinkle them in here and there.

Cooper's Hawk

Two weeks ago bronchitis, strep throat and pink eye went sweeping through my home. Then, just as everyone was starting to feel better, we started having another entirely different problem. This past Monday morning I was just sitting down to write a blog post when I heard the chickens squawking out back. I thought maybe the dog was chasing them around, as he sometimes does, but when I looked out the window there was a huge grey hawk sitting on the ground with its wings spread, talons clutching one of my chickens. I quickly ran to the back door. I knew there was little if any time for me to save my chicken so I grabbed one shoe and ran outside into the cold without a coat or shoes on, wearing the baby in a sling. It had rained the night before and the ground was slick and muddy, but I had to save my chicken! I ran through the mud and flung my shoe at the hawk. It landed nearby and scared him back up into the trees. The chicken was scared but unharmed and ran off to hide with the rest of the flock. Relieved, but worried I returned to the house knowing there was nothing more I could do to protect my chickens at that time, but something had to be done soon. Later that afternoon the hawk attacked another chicken and I ran out, same as before, and scared him off before he killed her.

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Loving the Little Years - Book Review

One of the best things about having a new baby is that all the long, frequent nursing times give me a perfect opportunity to read. This past week I have been devouring books. I have been extremely encouraged by some of the books I've been reading, so I'd love to share my thoughts about them with you over my next few posts.

First up is "Loving the Little Years: Motherhood in the Trenches" by Rachel Jankovic.

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Home Management Binder: Task Manager NOT Task Master

The other day I gave you a little glimpse at my Home Management Binder and my favorite page, the Daily Checklist. In theory, if I do everything on that page perfectly, my house will be kept in a constant state of order and cleanliness. However, I don't actually expect that will ever happen.

Having 4 children means I have to be organized yet flexible with my days. If I'm not thoughtful and organized then not much will get accomplished. I will fall way behind with housework and will quickly become overwhelmed. If I'm not flexible then I will become too rigid, get irritated when my children and unexpected circumstances interrupt my perfect schedule and will generally be a busy, cranky mom.

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My Home Management Binder

Last year I created my first Home Management Binder to help me stay organized and on top of all my household duties. Want to know how much it helped me and made everything wonderful and perfect? ZERO, zip, nada! It didn't help at all! Now it wasn't the Home Management Binder's fault. It was my fault because I didn't actually use it once I made it.

This year I spent a lot of time making my own personalized pages, so I am making a promise to myself to use it. I really do need it. I work so much better in an organized system than when I'm just running around (like a chicken with my head cut off) trying to figure out what needs to be done right now or can wait until later. Some things end up waiting WAY too long to be done if I do it like that, especially since I tend to just keep putting off chores I don't like to do, like folding laundry or scrubbing the shower.

Home Management Binder's can get very thick and complex if you're not careful (or, if you really want to I guess). I know that I will get overwhelmed if I have too many pages and too many details. Right now I have only a few basic pages in my Home Management binder:

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Christmas 2011 Re-cap

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and New Years! Our family did!

We really enjoyed a lot of the new Christmas traditions we started this year, but not everything turned out perfectly. I think we may have tried to cram in a few too many good things at once, but now we know better for next year! I'm sure next Christmas will look a bit different than this Christmas did as we continue to grow and change and make traditions as a family.We will definitely keep doing birthday presents for Jesus, that was such a fun and rewarding experience for our whole family. We will also continue to do a special nightly Advent devotion as a family, although we are going to try a different one next year as the Ann Voskamp Jesse Tree devotional turned out to not be a great fit for our family. The kids LOVED getting to decorate a birthday cake for Jesus, so that one is a definite keeper too.

I have to admit I caved Christmas Eve and went and got our kids a couple of gifts to open Christmas morning. Oops. I know I said I wouldn't, but I was so darn proud of my kids for the love and generosity they showed towards others throughout the season that I was overwhelmed by wanting to bless them. I really don't know what we'll do for gift giving in the future. Maybe we'll just do one gift on Christmas Eve or maybe I'll just be stronger and stick with our gifts only for Jesus plan. Thankfully, we've got a year to think, pray and figure it out. It was much harder than I anticipated to make such drastic changes!

How did your Christmas and Advent celebrations go? Did you introduce any new traditions?

LEGO plus Jesus equals Love !

My kids ❤ LEGOs. I was so excited the other day when I stumbled across LEGO stop motion videos depicting the Christmas story on YouTube. There were a lot of cute little videos, but these were our favorites. If you have kids who love LEGOs (or perhaps a husband who does er uh, did) you might enjoy these as well!

What to get Jesus for His Birthday

Our family has decided that this year we will begin giving birthday gifts to Jesus during Christmas. We don't want to give to just any charity though. We are trying to pick charities and ministries that will not only use our gift to provide for the needy physically, but also spiritually. We want to see people helped, but also the gospel spread.  We also want to choose things that our children can be active participants in, instead of just watching dad write a check. Here are the things we want to do so far:

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Pumpkin Muffins and Maple Hot Chocolate

This morning we awoke to snow! As soon as the kids woke up I rushed them through breakfast and getting dressed so we could get outside to enjoy it as soon as possible. It doesn't snow a whole lot in these parts and I knew it wouldn't stay long once it started warming up for the day. We were only outside for about 15 minutes before we were all wet, freezing cold and ready to come inside.

After we came back in, we warmed ourselves with a special snack, Whole Wheat Pumpkin Muffins and Maple Hot Chocolate. Yum! I thought maybe you'd like to enjoy these wintry treats too...

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Peanut and Dairy Free Edible Playdough

My sweet little Crunchy is almost a year and a half old now. She wants to do everything her two older brothers do, but the problem is she still puts everything in her mouth.

Recently the big boys have been wanting to play with playdough a lot, but since its not really safe to eat -and she will eat it- she's been getting left out of the fun. She gets pretty upset about it too, poor girl :(

Then this morning I remembered you can make edible playdough! I started looking for recipes, but most of them were made with peanut butter and powdered milk, two things our kids can't have due to allergies. But, who needs a recipe anyway?
Here's what I did:

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Old Traditions Die Hard

Every Christmas since we've been married Mr. Fix-it and I get into the same argument. One of the most difficult things about marriage is figuring out how to blend the long held, beloved holiday traditions of two families into one. Especially in our case...

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