Utah!

July 7th thru 14th the kids and I flew out to Utah to visit with Mike's side of the family. Mike came out for only a few days during the middle of that time due to his classes. But we had an awesome time!

The kids spent most of their time with Aunt Brooke and the cousins. Josh hung out with Piersun and his football team one of the days we were there. I had a wonderful time visiting with Brooke (and Dave when he wasn't working) and getting to know beautiful little Indy. I forgot my camera on more than one occasion, and then the battery died, so I didn't get any pictures of the kids catching their oodles of grasshoppers and devising ways to bring about their untimely demise. I didn't particularly have an interest in watching it myself, either.
I did, however remember to take the camera when I took the kids to Payson Swim Park. Can I just tell you how awesome that place is? It was a reasonable price, and the kids got to spend hours swimming in the lazy river, sliding down the slides, getting dumped on by the big spilling bucket, and ganging up on other kids that splashed their younger siblings. We ended up spending two days there, and had a blast... except for Josh... the second day we had planned to go, he ended up getting 8 stitches in his foot (from an escapade running thru the house at Aunt Brooke's) and couldn't swim. Poor guy. He was lucky enough to sit and watch us have fun, though!

Saturday, July 18th, Art and Michelle brought their family up from St George to visit with us, and we all went to Seven Peaks Water Park. Go figure... we were there for a week, the average temperature for the duration of our stay was in the 90's, but on the day we spend lots of money to go to a water park, it got only into the low 80's and had a couple little rain storms! But, we had a wonderful time visiting with the Cowles family and we had fun at the park, too.
All in all, it was a wonderful trip. We had a lot of fun with friends and family. The kids, of course, had the most fun!

Triple T

My children love riding this poor horse. He is about 16 years old now, but he still has a lot of life left in him! The kids pick him out to ride first, and will occasionally get one of the mares out later. I feel sorry for poor little Triple T at times... he rarely gets a rest from breakfast to dinner! The kids were especially thrilled when they learned they could teach him to run (not trot, a full out galloping run) up the driveway. Then he started wanting to run everytime they started back up the driveway. So I had them try to retrain him to run only when they tell him to. They still love to run full out while riding bareback... with only a lead rope and no bridle. Even Carolynn enjoys riding with a sibling or cousin... but she's not into galloping yet!

Picking mulberries

Wow! It's been a long while since I have posted anything! And I have so many pictures I need to add. I really don't know where to begin...

One night in early summer, I came home from work to find a bucket of freshly picked mulberries sitting on the kitchen counter. I had told the kids the day before I would make them a pie if they could pick enough mulberries. I didn't think I had anything to worry about because I knew all the branches within reach were pretty well picked clean of ripe mulberries by children, goats or chickens (yes... one chicken would jump up on the trampoline and run across it to jump up into the mulberry tree). When I asked the kids how they managed, they smiled and said, "dad told us not to say anything so he didn't get in trouble..." Mother radar sensors alarmed loudly. I don't remember which child finally squealed, or if Dad himself broke out with the truth, but I was glad he thought to get pictures of the crime...


I guess tractors do come in handy!

By the way, mulberry pie is not very good. I couldn't find a specific recipe, so I combined a raspberry and blackberry recipe and created my own. Add some cool whip topping and it wasn't bad, but if anyone has a good mulberry recipe, I would love it!

Josh's party

Josh is becoming your typical teen. He's still a good kid, but every now and then the teenage attitude pokes his nasty little horns out! I saw more of his teenageness show thru when it came time for his end of the year school party mid-June. Unfortunately, the weather was predicting no cooperation. Josh decided no one would have any fun if we had the party indoors due to the weather, and he would look completely uncool, so he wanted to cancel. I told him it would be just fine, and the party should go on. Being the good kid, he listened to his mother, and didn't call it off.

Thus I knew I had to make sure my son didn't have a failure for a party. So I called my single, cute college brother for some party activity suggestions just in case. (Everyone knows that Andy is the fun one in the family... the rest of us are married and boring.) Anyway, I went over suggestions with Josh for his approval, and he was still skeptical, but agreed to give it a shot.

The night of the party came and 10-15 of his friends -- boys and girls -- showed up (I forget the exact count). The weather held out while Mike grilled dogs and burgers and the kids mingled outside. It started drizzling, so we moved indoors to eat. After dinner, kids moved to the livingroom to play the borrowed X-box and socialize, while Carolynn entertained a handful of girls with her antics. I scanned faces occasionally looking for signs of boredom, and when I saw the first hint, suggested trying the "candy bar" game. The kids not absorbed by the X-box, willingly filed back to the tables to try their hand eating large chocolate bars with butter knives while wearing hat, gloves and scarf. They made enough racket and sounded like they were having enough fun that the X-box was forgotten and 4 giant candy bars ended up eaten. My baking pan still shows the scars from frustrated teens trying to get a taste of chocolate before having it ripped away by the next contender! The weather then cleared and some kids moved back outside. The small fire had survived the rain somehow, and the teens chatted and roasted marshmallows, jumped on the soggy trampoline, and even played a night game or two. As the last friend left after 10 or 11, Josh had a big grin on his face... he had had fun, and his popularity had remained intact.

Until the next time!...

End of the year party

Last year, we had a party at the end of the school year for the kids. We wanted to help Michael and Devon make new friends since they transferred at the end of the school year and all, but we couldn't not have a party for the other kids, either, so we had 2 parties... one for the 3 younger boys, and one for the 3 older boys. This year, we wanted to do the same thing. Unfortunately, due to Michael and Devon's mom causing some headache with summer visitation schedule (as usual), we changed the date on their party a couple of times, finally planning to just have a back to school party at the end of summer for them.

Anyway, Rhett, Austin, and Trev had their party tonite. Unfortunately, I never once got the camera out. There were at least 30 kids here. They started the night by chasing chickens ( I still don't understand the fun in that, but it kept them entertained for about an hour!). It was good they enjoyed that... right as Mike fired up the grill we ran out of propane, so he made a quick run for more. Dinner ended up being at 7:30 instead of 6:30. While one group of kids chased chickens (you can tell who the suburbians are), some played on the water slide, others jumped on the tampoline, and still others wore poor Triple T out by riding him all over the yard. The poor little horse is about 16 years old and still gets run all over the place! Just before dinner, Devon, Josh, and Dev's friend Zadrien (sp?) brought a good sized snapping turtle the kids found in the creek up to the house for all to see. After dinner, the kids had a massive waterballon fight. It pretty much ended up being about 20 or so younger kids agains the 3 afore mentioned older boys (Michael was at work all day so missed the fun). Needless to say, several kids got dumped in the pond, and most everyone was pretty wet by the end of the night. They never really settled down, either, and most didn't want to leave when parents began arriving around 9:30. The last of the kids left about 10:30. And, believe it or not, the only 2 kids to get hurt with all the running and carrying on were Trev (he slipped and fell) and Austin (he fell off the horse when some kids spooked him making him rear up... they were riding bareback with only a lead-rope -- no bridle). The boys all said they thought it was the best party ever!

Times like these, I have a happy moment!

It's a girl!

The Robinson's have finally had a girl! And, boy! is she ever cute! Sweet Pea had her baby yesterday, and it's an adorable little paint baby girl.. the tiniest I think we have ever had! She's only 18 inches at the shoulder, and comes to just below my knee. The kids think that we had 6 boys in our family before we got the girl, so we were gonna have a girl for sure. Well, there's Shadow, Bluebug, Beau, Peggy Sue's boy, Call-a-doll's boy, and Dot's boy. Now we finally have our girl! We are still open to suggestions for names for the last 3 boys and now this girl! Isn't she a cutie!

Carolynn's popcorn

The other day I was up in my room folding clothes while Carolynn helped. After a short while (and I mean "short"), Care got bored and wandered downstaris. I could hear cabinet doors opening and closing and her chair/stool being pushed across the kitchen floor, so I decided to investigate. When I went into the kitchen, Care was climbing up the chair positioned in front of the microwave, a packet of hot chocolate in hand.

"What are you doing, Carolynn?"

"Make me popcorn."

I told Carolynn she had hot chocolate instead of popcorn, redirected her to the proper packet, then had a Sue moment and grabbed the camera. With only a little prompting from me, Carolynn then made herself some popcorn!

At first, she tried to tell me to do it. I told her she could do it and how to open the microwave.


She managed to get the microwave open, then put the popcorn in.

I told her which buttons to push, and she was all to willing to push them and more!

She watched as it popped, and got really excited when it got bigger and bigger.

As soon as it dinged, she grabbed it out, burning her fingers slightly, even tho I tried to warn her. "No! Me do it!"

She hurried and pushed her chair back to the table and hopped up to enjoy the popcorn. Only two years old and already cooking her own food! She scavenges it up and everything!

Carolynn

Carolynn's newest saying:

"Guess what mommy!"

"What Carolynn?"

"I love you!" (only it sounds more like "I lub you!")

Daddy's little helper...

The other night, I put Carolynn to bed. As usual, we read a story. Then she asked me to "sweep wif me." I told her that I would lay down with her after I finished washing the dishes. While I kissed the boys and washed the dishes, I could hear her thumping the wall, and singing to herself here and there. Then the room got quiet. By the time I finished the dishes, she was quiet and I forgot about laying with her. Mike got home a short time later and went in to check on her. Apparently, she wasn't in bed, and this is what he found...

Carolynn's first real Easter Egg hunt... where she actually found the eggs! Of course she did have a few helpers!

The Staus Curse

Remember that curse I was telling you about in the last posting? Well, the saga continues...

Dot just had an adorable little boy this morning! (yes... Dot's a donkey).Take notice in the next pic how little he is! I took some oats out to give Dot after Mike left and measured the little guy... he's about 20&1/2 to 21 inches tall at the shoulder!You can almost compare him to Call-a-doll's little boy. This pic was taken when he was a day old, but he measured 22 inches at the shoulder the day he was born.
So, here are pictures of all the little boys that have been born on our farm this year:

Taxi's baby boy. He's around 2-3 wks old in this pic. His name is Bluebug Louie (His momma is Bluebug Taxi, his daddy is Louie). I call him Bluebug.

Blossum's baby boy. He's almost a month old in this picture. His name is Beau of Blossum. I call him Beau (pronounced Bo). Unfortuantely, we lost his momma. But due to being bottle fed, he's much friendlier than Bluebug!

Call-a-doll's baby boy... he's 2 days old here. We still need a name, if you have any suggestions. His Daddy is Star (who is about 30 inches tall full-grown!).

And last, but not least is Dot's little guy. We need a name for him, too, if anyone has suggestions! His daddy's name is Blackjack.

Two more babies yet to be born... Can we get a girl? Stay tuned to find out!

It's a boy!! Again...

I think the Staus curse has carried through to our little farm. On a farm, it's good to get the females, cuz you can have lots of female animals to only one male most of the time. And the females can have more babies which can then be sold etc., etc. Well, since we moved here and got animals, the Staus curse has been passed to the farm animals... no girls! (For those of you unfamiliar with the family, of my siblings, I had 5 brothers and 1 sister. I myself gave birth to 4 boys and only 1 girl... My mother has 12 grandchildren -- only 1 granddaughter... My Granny has 16 great-grandchildren and one on the way -- only one is a girl... you get the picture.

Anyway, last year we had one baby born... a little male donkey jack. So far this year, the three babies that have been born are all boys... 2 little bull calves (miniature jerseys) and just yesterday a little paint colt was born. They're cute little buggers, but we sure would like to get a heifer! Dot is due to have her baby donkey any day, SweetPea should have her baby horse in a month or less, and Peggy Sue should drop a cute little calf any minute! It sure would be nice if at least one of those (if not all) is a girl!

At any rate, here are some pics of the babies...

Our most newest addition... Call-a-doll's little paint colt...