Backyarding And Kids

This evening I was out pulling weeds, sucks that is almost September and we are still getting new weeds. Like always I give the weeds to my chickens! As I was giving them the weeds Bella jumps up on my lap, of course I had to take a photo of her cute little face. After school, I got chocolate chip cookies made for the kids, and a color picked out to paint the fish tank stand. Scandinavian blue! I can’t wait to get started on it. I haven’t decided on a design that I want to put on it yet though. My 3 year old wants to help .. But he also wants me to put a cartoon character on the stand. I really don’t want a paw patrol on my stand. 😂😂

The first week of school is done! Whoo hoo! The week went better than I thought it would have, we only had one really long day. The baby was extremely fussy today, teething is just no fun. Now that it’s the weekend, time to tackle some of the house projects, and bake some brownies. I will be getting the rest of the painting done in the bathroom. Then I will get the light switch changed out. I want to change them from a flip switch, to a push button. I will be picking out paint, to paint the fish tank stand. I’m thinking of doing it white with some kinda design, maybe maroon roses. Looking forward to that!

Got some treats for my chickens today! Oats and mealworms, yum yum! My kids didn’t go with out a treat either, no they didn’t have th same treat as the chickens, we got them some popsicles and candy. It’s funny how a popsicle looks so innocent but it’s not. Kids can make a mess with just one popsicle, they can use it to make art on my counter or what I like to call the running art. That’s where it’s running down your kids arm and dripping off their elbow, but the smile on their face is worth the sticky mess that will come from the popsicle. So take photos of their “art” and remember that days like this will not last forever.

Today my kids started school! I do love doing online schooling with them, even though it gets crazy, and can make the day very long. For their first day back, they did good. My oldest son had a great first day of high school. He likes all of his teachers. That is always a plus. My daughter read a few pages of a book all by herself. That is a very big deal for us, so we did lots of high fives and way to go’s. It’s nice when your kids get excited about something that they said they couldn’t do, but you know that they can.. so when that moment where they take the leap, and stop saying I can’t, and start with I can, is a great thing to watch as a parent.

As my oldest and myself get the rest of the things ready for school, I listen to him talk about his orientation. I can’t help but start to think about when he was born. I remember thinking that this day of him starting high school would be years away. Letting my mind wander, I start to remember his first steps, words… ect. I can’t help but feel somewhat sad my baby is growing up. Soon he will be driving, and getting a job! As I watch him put the rest of his books away, I start to smile. He’s coming into his own, and I feel very blessed to have him as my son. I can’t wait to see him do his own thing in his life. Good luck my freshman.

we got our first egg today! We are very excited about this. The look on my daughter’s face was priceless. She jumped up and down, asking to hold it. We have been checking day in and day, I was starting to think we wouldn’t get any eggs until September. The first eggs are normally small so my daughter thought it was so cute that she wanted to go take it to “her kitchen” ( play kitchen in the play room) the white egg is store bought it shows the difference in size and color.

For many of us school starts just around the corner. School shopping for clothes ( uniforms ) and supplies can be stressful. Normally I love shopping for school supplies , I have no idea why…. it’s normally like Christmas for me. This year I’m just not into shopping for the things we need, we do online schooling with our kids and as I write out 12 weeks of spelling words, organize the books, clean the white boards, sharpen the pencils I think about how I really don’t want school to start. Maybe it’s because we are having to start two weeks early, maybe it’s because of the homework ( I know what you are thinking.. you do school at home, yes but the teachers from our online school give out homework) , maybe I don’t want to start because I’ve enjoyed not having to set the alarm and hear it for five days every week, or maybe it’s because I’ve enjoyed being able to get a lot of my house projects done. So if you are normally like me and love the shopping for school supplies, or if it stresses you out beyond belief, I wish you all a wonderful school year!

Some advice if you are new to backyarding, don’t wear flip flops when cleaning out your chicken coop! Every time I go out to clean the coop you would think I would know by now to change my shoes but no… I forget and leave on my flip flops, I do know some people who don’t mind walkimg around barefoot in their coops that’s totally cool for them but if your like me, as much as I love my chickens, I can’t walk around without shoes. So once again, here I am in my flip flops with stuff falling on top of my feet as I scoop it out the coop I yell at myself mentally for doing a city slicker move.

The joy of water balloons! Water balloons are a great way to keep the kids busy and cooled off during the summer, we filled up 200 balloons. I love that new invention of hooking it up to the hose and then shaking them off once they’re full! If we didn’t have that it would of taken a while to get that many done. Seeing the smile on my kids faces as they run over to pick up another balloon and run away before one of their siblings try’s to get them with a water balloon is priceless. I hope that they will ha be water balloon fights with their kids one day… and who knows maybe when they are all older and we do a family reunion a water balloon fight will be on the list on activities.

If you have trouble with flies around your coop, I would recommend getting one of these hanging bags. I had so many flies around my coop. No matter how much I cleaned it out flies would still be everywhere!! There were some big ones too, I think one of them was whispering my name as I swatted it away. Trying different things and nothing really worked, I was at the store and saw one of these bags.. thought why not give it a try. The bag was about five bucks give or take some change. You know what… They work really well for catching the flies! You just follow the directions on the bag, which is just popping open the top and filling it with water to the fill line.. boom done and the bag holds a lot of flies! When you are hanging it up just make sure it’s tie up really good. So even if you don’t have a coop and you just hate flies this is for you also.