zoo trip

We took a trip to Lufkin zoo over the weekend. What a wonderful family outing we had!! Above is a photo of the children and I in front of a train they had on show. It looks like they will soon have it so that you can go up in it and look around. That will be neat. Thats Anna in the baby carrier! She rode around in there just happy as ever!

We took a ride on the little train that goes around the zoo and park. The kids had fun and it was cheap!!

Have to hope the cage is built strong!! This lion loooks hungry!!!

There was several pea-cocks walking around showing thier beuty!!! I think they are pretty cool! There was several young babies too, just walking around with thier moms. We wondered if the mom pea-cocks might attack snice they had thier youngs ones, but none did!! I guess the zoo keepers would not let them free like that if they would be aggresive when they have young.

Sarah and Sam enjoy watching the little aligators. Good thing they are behind glass!!

Well we had a great time there. This zoo is very enixpensive ( we all got in for $17.50, the train ride was an additional cost at $1 per person over age 3) , so makes for a great family place. Though they do not have the larger animals like zebras, gehiraffs, apes, or elephants. But we had fun and thought it was very worth it.

I'm glad I'm at home...

... at home all day with my children so dear
Oh what I would be missing if I were not here,

Sweet baby smiles, cooing, hearing children's chatter & laughter (even their bickering) walks, talks, sitting on the couch reading stories,
fixing scratches and scrapes, wiping tears, mending broken hearts , watching baby sleep, seeing first steps & first attempts at crawling, giving instructions and advice, talking about God, and the list goes on and on !!

No, there's no other place I'd rather be.
Home sweet home is the place for me!

I'm glad I'm not a working mom,
gone from my house and kids all day.

though work is what I do ,
from sun up to sun down, and then some!

but my work is all done at home with children all around me,
making it all worth my while!

Yes, I'm so glad I'm at home, at home all day with my children so dear,
Oh what I would be missing if I were not here!!!

There's absolutely no place I would rather be!!!
Thank you Lord that I am a stay at home Mom!!
For that's the only job for me!!

( My mothering thoughts for the day)

Fun facts about me

I thought it would be neat to share a some fun facts about me as a way for any new visitors to my blog to get to know me better. And for those of you that know me already, you should find it intresting as well ,and may be surpised at what you don't know!!!



So here goes!! ( none of these things are in order)



I met my husband to be at the age of 18 and married at 20.


I am the youngest of 9.


Met my husband to be in Texas and married in Canada.


I grew up on a farm.


I don't have a favoite color. Really!!


I am a second generation homeschooler.


Me and patience don't get along! lol!


My favorite food is anything someone eles cooks!!

If its not cheap or on sale, I don't buy it!

I wear skirts or dresses most of of the time.


My favorite place to be is at home!


I grew up with out a T.V , and still don't have one. ( we do have a DVD player though)

My favorite place to shop is any thing second hand!

I got my dirvers lience at the age of 21! ( I was scared to drive, so thats why I waited so long. I think I will make my kids wait that long too!! LOL)

My favorite animal is rabbits. ( I've always had pet rabbits ever since I was really little)

If I can't eat it, I don't grow it. ( that explains why you see no flowers growing in my yard!)

little tid-bits

This time I do not have a pacific topic I am posting on , so thats why the heading is little tid-bits. Because thats just what thie is this time," little tid-bits," of this and that.

One thing is that my the oldest son, (my last one left doing school for the year) has only one week of school left to finish up his grade 4!! So i am totally excited!! Both him and I need a break!! I can not believe he will be 10 in July! I am so proad of my sweet big son, he is so wonderful!! One day this past week he comes up to me with a card he had made for me. The out side read, " Thank you mom for everything you do. Thank you for cooking and teaching me to be good and kind." The inside read," I love you so much. Yes I do. Thank you, thank you". And he singed his name on the back. I thought that was ever so sweet.

I will not excatly be done with school for the summer for I have just started this week teaching my youngest son, Samuel, who turned 5 in March. But his school only take between 20 to 30 min. each day. I am teaching him out of the book called 100 Easy Lessons To Teach Your Child To Read. I have used that book for my 2 older boys as well when they were 5 and really loved it. I felt it worked very good. With my oldest though I felt that I pushed him to quickly through it and that he did not do as well as he could have with it ( but boy can read now, and he jst loves reading). So I was more carefull with my son and infact used it 2 years for him. That turned out much better for him that way.

My sweet Sarah who will soon be 3 in July did somthing funny this past week. She was left eating breakfast at the table while I went in to help Samuel with school. Soon she comes in to me and saids," MOm, come here". So I folllow her to the table where she proadly shows me a bananna she cut in half and smeared both halfs with peanut butter. I mean she had it coated right good! Shes standing there smiling so big and was so happy with her self!! But it would have been better if she had peeled it first!! :)
When she wasn't looking I scraped the peanut butter off with a butter knife and saved it. ( I wasn't going to waste that peanut butter!)


Its been awful hot latly here where we live in Texas, in the high 90sF most days. Makes me miss my home country of Canada!! Every time I talk to my mom I ask her the temputer up there and its been about 20 degrees cooler than our temp. here! Makes me very envoius!! It hasn't rained here in awhile now, so hoping for rain.

Well I gues thats about it for now. Better get in bed, and get some sleep beofre my little one wakes to nurse. But shes been sleeping very good at night now, so I am very happy for that!!
Sweet Dreams to all!!
Mae

Bunny pictuers!!

Here is Sarah with her favorite bunny. She really loves any of the bunnies

but usually asks for this one when she wants a bunny to hold and play with.

The little chicks that Sarah loved to play with so much earlier, have all grown to big for her now so she had to resort to our bunnies!! She loves to carry them every where. Occasionally the bunny escapes from her and then there is a chase around through the house or around the yard and until one of her big brothers succeeds in capturing it!! Its a really riot!!!

Here is a pictuer of one of those bunnys that Sarah has brought in at one time or another, and let it join us for lunch!!! We gave it a piece of lettuce and it was content as ever!

Oh what fun it is with animals and children!! Wouldn't want to live with out either of them for nothing!!

Guinea Hen and Babies

I just wanted to share these pictuers of our Guinea hen and her babies. she hatched out about 1 1/2 weeks ago. They are doing very well. The babies somtimes do not do well in rainy weather but we so far have not had a rain since they were born.



Both the mom and dad guineas take care of the babys. When I throw out food for them and our chickens to eat in the chicken yard , the dad guinea chashes away the chickens and then they all eat in peace! And thats what you can see here in these pictuers. They have the feed all to them selves and are enjoying it!!

I did not know how many we had because of them always running around so quickly and was so hard to count. But now in this pictuer you can count them. It looks like theres 17. Its so neat to see them running around in the yard! You have to keep your distance though. The mom and dad are very protective and will chase at you if you get to close to the babies. They got poor Sarah one day, and now she makes sure she keep s a good distacne away!! If they start her way, she starts hollering!! They have chased at the boys a few time too.

garden news

Our garden is going very good this year. We have not planted our own garden though but are sharing my brothers. So its smaller and less for me to keep up with. I knew with having a baby early tis spring ( Feb. 4th) that I would not want a big garden to take care of. I knew I would be extra busy with the new baby and school!

I just picked our first yellow squash today! I love yellow squash, either boiled or fryed,its yummy! We are eating fresh cucmbers, cabbage, brocile, swish chard,califlower, and carrots now too. I noticed today that the green beans are blooming now, so before we know it we will have fresh green beans as well.

Also just a few days ago the boys and I harvested the onions and garlic. Both did very well. I have spread both out on a covered porch to dry better and then will hang them up. The onions don't keep to well for very long, but I just have enough that I will use up soon. For the garlic it keeps farily well till fall time, in which at that time I plant some for the next year . This last winter my Dad peeled the rest of the garlic that we hadn't planted or used up yet at that time and put them in a zip-lock bag to freeze. It sure is handy. I just grab out what I need for what I am cooking and its already to use! And of course they kept for much longer than they would have other wise. I will defiently do that again with my garlic this coming winter.

The potatoes should also be ready soon too. Always so glad to have fresh new potatoes. So yummy!!

For my readers out side of Texas you will notice that we harvest here so much ealier than other places, epesially my home place of Alberta, Canada. Thats because we plant so much ealier. We usually plant our early things like greens, onions, and cabbage in late Janaury, and the potatoes, beets ,carrots, and other such things about the middle of Febuary. Our last chanch for frost here is usully about Easter time. This year we were alittle later with the potatoes because of the weather.. We had snow here on Feb. 11th! About 7 in. We have not had a snow here like that in several years. It was so nice!! The kids had a blast , and I got lots of snow pictures!! But the snow only lasted parts of 2 days.

Most of my canning starts the middle of June and I am usually all done by middle of July, with tomatoes and making picles the last things going. I cann and freeze alot of vegtables. Its alot of work at th time, but so handy to have after its all done!!!

We could plant a fall garden ( cool weather vegtables) but I am always so happy to have the garden over for the summmer that I am not eager to plant any thing eles till the next spring. And besides I start the kids school by end of July or early August so I really do not have time for any more garden work. I start thier school early so as to finesh up early in the spring when I start to get busy in the garden. Though this year I still have one son still doing school.