Happy Birthday to Alex!

This little fella turns 8 today. He's the reason I have kids, and will always be my first "lil' pip". Thank you Alex, I'm so glad you were born.

Hank's Epilogue

You may have read about Hank earlier this month. He came to us by accident nearly a month ago when Chris' mom found him in a parking lot. After trying very hard for two weeks to give him a home here we finally had to face the fact that this wasn't the place for him. Being a young, untrained puppy he really needed someone's undivided attention. Unfortunately the kids also each require my undivided attention, which I already can't give them, so having Hank pushed things over the top.

During the time we had him, the kids and I all fell in love with him so we decided if we couldn't keep him we had to find the most excellent home for him. I searched far and wide on the internet and had inquiries from California, Ohio, Minnesota, Arizona, and Wisconsin. We finally found the perfect home: a 70 acre farm in Wisconsin, where he is the best buddy of a 12 year old girl. He will do 4-H with her in agility and herding, and she and her mom will be able to show their dogs together because her mom also has an Aussie pup! And they are close to my dad so we can visit him the next time we head that way. These are photos of Hank in his new home with his new best friends.

My boys

I hope Blogspot works on local time because I want this to be dated May 23, 2006. Today is Scotty and Chris' 6th and 36th birthdays. I remember when I woke at about 3AM on May 23, 2000 and said "happy birthday" to my beloved husband, who promptly replied with "is the baby coming?"

13 hours later I was holding my first child in my hands. 5 hours after that I listened to Kate and Anna sing "Firstborn" on the folks' weekly radio show Home of Happy Feet on KUNM

Tonight I listened to it again and bawled as hard as I did the first time. Thanks Mom and the Guys for thinking of us tonight.

Scotty has new baby ducklings, his very own mini machine shop, some more cool K'NEX, and a big Rainbow Fish book. This evening the birthday boys snuggled together in the papasan chair and chatted the night away while I nursed Eliza to sleep.

We will celebrate with Chris' dad and Maria on Thursday and with my mom this weekend.

It's a good day.


FIRST BORN
(words and music by Kate McGarrigle/Garden Court Music ASCAP)

The silver spoon's in the mouth
Baby clothes are baby-blue
Nothing's ever handed down
Everything's brand new
Newspaper notices heralding that great event
Daddy's buddies send the flowers
Mother's friends have baby showers
Welcoming that Heaven sent

That first born son is always the one
The first to be called and the last to come
He's his mother's favorite, his grandmother's too
He'll break their hearts and he'll break yours too

For he's the first to creep and the first to crawl
The first to walk and the first to fall
Every bruise is kissed, every cry is heard
Every doubt's cast out with a soothing word

'Cause he's that first born son, he's that special one
No matter what comes next, no matter what comes along
Be it another boy or a sweet baby girl
The family's the oyster and he is the pearl

Some of them make it, some of them don't
Some of them can't, others won't grow up

In the bible of old, according to Exodus
Every first born son of a Jew got axed
But the one who survived with the help of God's hand
Led his people to the promised land

Yes he's that first born son, he's that son of a gun
Just hates to walk, just loves to run
He loves to run as fast as he can
With life held tight in the palm of his hand

Too cute not to share

This was taken last fall on the night before we left on our big Midwest trip.

Steamboy

Chris' dad's (Papa's) vertical steam engine. Scotty has followed in Papa's footsteps and absolutely loves the steam engines. He is well versed in the kinds of gears, types of engines, all the parts of the engines and what they do, and so on. We're pretty glad to have the engines here because as fuel prices rise they may prove quite useful and even necessary in the near future.

The sheep

Our three Navajo-Churro sheep. Ruidoso is the black ewe in the front and the dominant animal. Next there's Coffee the ram lamb, and Cinnamon is behind him with the horns. When those two have lambs, the first one will have to be named Cappuccino of course.

View from the front

Here's the view from the front of our house. Pretty much everything you can see is part of our farm. The plowed section of the field is for erda gardens, the CSA we are working with . They are putting in blue corn and in exchange we get a share of their crop, which is being grown in several locations this year. Note the wild child in the bottom of the frame. She's very tan but has no tan lines--one of the luxuries of living semi-rurally.