Group Photo!

Last year the Goodsell grandparents joined us and took this picture. 

They nicely sent me the photo this week. 

Look at all of us! 

Poor Cecily still had a black eye back then.

 

Random.

Nephi was so proud to dress Cecily up in a fancy outfit. She is really starting to play with all the kids now. 

Our Small Dog with Coraline.

Clairana has taken up the ukulele again.

You are my Sunshine can be heard for hours. 

 

Around the House.

Nellie likes to hang out with her big friends next door. 

Dirty Faces. Old Swimsuits. Fire full of weeds. Spring has Arrived! 

Of course, Coraline nicely cooked them up some wild chives. 

Early mornings feeding - Coraline.

Our surprise buckling! We did not think Starburst (Clairana's Alpine) got pregnant this year and we were all really disappointed. I ended up selling her mate this past fall because he was so feeble, and it was too much for me to tend him. 

This means Clairana will have a chance to place at 4H this year and we will get real amounts of milk! 

Bella drew this lady from the Roaring 20s she says. 

 Clairana on the farm.

Coraline dressing cats up in bathing suits.

Nephi played his saxophone outside last night for Levi and I and the cows came over to Moo back at him. It was hilarious. 

Colorful little ones this year.

Brighten and Jeremy spent a day with us while mom got to enjoy just having a baby.

We had lots to eat and ended the day with story time, tea and cookies. 

 

Gather & Learn (Including more Faces of History)

Here are a few pictures from Kelli that she has taken lately.  

Girls!

Boys!

From a couple weeks ago - all of us together! 

Around the House.

Homeschooling Life.

We went to go watch all our friends in the Lafayette Youth Choir (Clairana and Nephi chose to sit out this round but will be back for the winter lessons) 

Clairana and I heading to go bring flowers to a new mama.

 

Abel’s Island

    In between book club books we decided to squeeze in a small book together. 

Abel's Island. 

It is such a cute different story but I must say Clairana was upset by the ending. 

It was extra fun because my brother had a little boy this past year and named him Abel. 

 

Faces of History

 This week for our afternoon time at co-op we had Faces of History.

The children got to pick a person from a certain time period 

(This Year - Ancients -Fall of Rome Cycle 1)

Clairana - Medusa 

Nephi - Milo of Croton

They started with all singing the Greek Alphabet. 

Aunt Woody helped with outfits per tradition. I am always thankful for her creative vision. 

Sometimes, I have to pinch myself because I can't believe what a blessing it has been to create this co-op. 

Only five weeks left this year and next year we will be doubling our size which is so exciting and makes me nervous as well. I personally know all the families so that is such a level of comfort.

Mama Bon Muffins

Morning Muffins. 

Mama Bon sends us recipes in the mail which is super sweet and has done this for years. 

When we opened her letter we decided to just dive in. 

 

Ripple Re Opening!

Levi has been working constantly for six weeks now to get the remodel done on the restaurant. 

It is complete! Of course, the grand re opening was when I would be away at a conference, but Jack and Rene came to help him celebrate which I am so thankful for their love and support. 

These are the pictures Levi sent me while I was away for the weekend. 

 

Goat Babies

This is the black buckling born from Rue. We were in the barn assisting. She had a harder time than normal this year. Thankfully Levi and I were both home.

Rue and Calcium gave birth! 

Each had twins (unfortunately Calcium went into labor in the middle of the night and we lost a little buckling)

We have two healthy does and a buckling. Rue actually threw a black and white buckling which never has happened. She always has brown and white doelings. 

At this point, I have several people interested but with Coraline and Cabella being able to show goats this year for fair we may end up keeping them all. 

We lost our buck last year and this would be his last offspring (thankfully Clairana messed up and put Echo with the girls by accident before he passed away - long behold he gave us babies one last time - bitter sweet) so we will probably keep his only son.

 

Nellie.

We have been on the Sheets farm call list for if they ever had a bottle-fed calf they did not want to keep. It happened! 

**Also, note Levi and I told eachother on New Years -we are not buying any animals this year. 

    We ended up getting 40 chickens for free and now a calf. We maybe should have specified no free animals either.....

Meet Nellie. 

She arrived this week at 2 weeks old. She weighs about 50 lbs.

She is 80% Angus and we plan to butcher her in the winter. 

She is such a love. 

 Morning Routine. 

All the neighbor cows come over to moo at her each morning because Nellie cries for her bottle in the morning. 

Night Time Feeding.

Gather & Learn

The Goodsell family welcomed a little girl! 

I adjusted everyone a little to cover all that Millie does each week for our co-op and it worked so well.

Carly did memory work time with the little class while Kelli did the big class.

Carly with the little ones. It was nice to have a break from this spot and watch and see how others would do it. 

 Lunch break ended being in the parking lot throwing snowballs with what was left of the snow pile. It has been SO beautiful here the past few days. 

Clairana doing a presentation about the Salem Witch Trials from her keyword outline/memory. I taught the presentation class and talked about the 5 Canons of Rhetoric. 

Kelli was having everyone help 'milk her cow' before we started our day. 

Science (who knows what I am doing...?) 

This week we talked about mammals. We will end our year talking about the human body. 

Talking about giraffe's and their nostrils vs ours and storing water. Piled everyone into the mother's lodge area to breath on the mirror. 

I was amazed when I said OK lets head to the women's restroom not one of them batted an eye. They are pretty used to my crazy at this point. 

Experiment about pollution in water.