Apparently Joel is pining away for news from The Westendorf 7, so here’s some bits and pieces of what’s been happening:

Our pullets continue to lay, slowly building up numbers as more start – we averaged 5 eggs a day last week, and 10 a day this weekend. They’re still small, so I’m not selling any, but prospects are looking up!

Homeschooling is going wonderfully well, now that we have a new schedule. Previously, I had each child doing their math first, since they could do this independently while I was getting chores done. Unfortunately, this led to getting no other school done, since I have one extremely talented dawdler who can take 8 hours to do one workbook page! Now we do all of our other subjects first (Bible Study, reading, greek, science, geography, grammar, and spelling) which works out much better, since I have all of the kids doing the same lessons at the same time. We all sit down at the table together and do these subjects (which usually takes under 2 hours total), then break off and each child does his or her math lesson for the day. This goes MUCH smoother (although I did resort to bribery in one case – I told my 8-hour dawdler that I would buy him a toy (under $10) if he got his math page done in under an hour every day for a week. He did it! Yesterday we went to pick up his toy – and *surprise* he chose a new light saber

Unfortunately, we did so well with school Monday-Thursday that I decided to rest on my laurels and have a “Teacher Inservice” day on Friday - otherwise known as “Mom works on other things” – other things meaning yardwork on a gloriously warm and sunny November day! I fixed the lamp in the chicken coop (which was on a timer so the hens get their required 16 hours of light, but hadn’t been working because they kept knocking it down) and installed extra roosts (fun with power tools!), cleaned up the scrap wood lying behind the garage, which was getting wet and beginning to rot, so I stacked it upright so it could air out (and of course made plans to use it for new chicken runs . . .), and organized and swept the garage. A very productive day (and only  minimal damage to the house while I was outside!)

Saturday we went up to our friends’ new house on the North Shore of Lake Superior. It was the perfect day for it – in the 60s and not too breezy. The kids had a wonderful time picking out rocks from the lakeshore:

Naomi found several heart-shaped ones, and one shaped like a breadstick (which I am saving to hold my books open while I read!) Our friend Matthew was there, too, and although Naomi’s heart-shaped rocks may not keep her warm, we couldn’t find any furnace-shaped ones for him . . .

Sunday was catch-up-on-all-the-cleaning-that-didn’t-get-done-while-I-was-busy day, with a brief break to take the kids shopping for Sam’s Math Booty (and also get the kids away from the house while Daddy dispatched Hannah’s chicken, Clara, who had a lethal respiratory infection).

And now it’s Monday. School is almost done (only math left), laundry is moving through the system, and it’s almost time to make lunch. Many homeschool moms have been asked, “What do you do with the younger children when you’re trying to do school with the older ones?” Well, in our house, they have their own studies to occupy them:

Jobiwan Kenobi trains his padawan, Princess Laina

So there you go, Joel. I hope you’re happy now

Tonight all of the kids were merrily spinning around the living room when the inevitable happened: Josiah got dizzy and fell smack dab into the corner of our wooden couch. Blood gushed everywhere, girls were screaming, and parents decided to take him in to see if he needed stitches. After a few quick phone calls, only to find that Debbie and the neighbors were both unavailable, we loaded all of the kids into the van and headed for the hospital. I took Josiah in while Peter took the kids home to put them to bed (he would call to find a sitter for the other kids or a ride home for me while I was in the ER with Jo). By this time the gash on the bridge of his nose (directly between his eyes) had stopped bleeding, but he was definitely a pitiful sight – blood smeared all over his face and PJs. Of course, the effect was rather ruined by his giggling and calling out friendly “Hi”s to the nurses!

As the EMT began to clean him up, I realized too late that I should have gotten a picture for the blog – I’m so sorry, faithful readers. It really was a sight! But in the heat of the moment, you forget such things . . .

Anyway, with all of the blood washed up, it really wasn’t so bad: a quarter-inch gash, and the doctor didn’t seem to even think twice about stitches. He mentioned that they usually use glue on this type of cut, but that they didn’t like to use it near the eyes because it could cause trouble. So we ended up with some tape pulling the cut together, with instructions to keep it clean and dry for a couple days, watch for signs of infection, and if he pulled it off, just put some butterfly bandages on instead. Ho-hum.

So they let us leave, and I tried to call Peter to see about a ride. Of course, my cel wouldn’t work properly in the hospital, so I had to take Josiah outside, where, in typical Josiah style, he had to go Go GO! and his desperate mommy prayed that he wouldn’t trip on the pavement and need to go right back inside!

But soon (with the distraction of playing with my phone) Josiah was sitting relatively still, and my knight in his trusty white steed (Ok, rusty white minivan) pulled up and took us home, where our good friend was keeping an eye on the kids for us until we got home.

I sent up lots of prayers tonight – hoping he was OK, thankful he missed his eyes, thankful the other kids were OK, thankful we didn’t hit that deer on the side of the road as we rushed to the hospital . . . God is kind; no heartache tonight.

“When I grow up, I don’t want to be a grownup.”

“What do you want to be?”

“A smart girl!”

No, not my kids – my chickens! We got our first pullet eggs today from this year’s batch of chicks:

(as regular blog readers should know, the pullet eggs are the little ones; the larger ones are from the older hens)

Unfortunately, my girls don’t seem to realize that you should lay eggs in the nest boxes, not just wherever you may happen to be when the egg pops out – one was found out in the very muddy run, the other on the floor of the coop. I’ll have to teach the kids to “treasure hunt” for a while when they check for eggs for me . . .

~~~~~

And in case you tuned in for some actual kid news, Josiah also reached a milestone yesterday – he found out how to say “No!”

Obviously, I’m more thrilled about the chickens’ new development than my son’s.

I am currently watching a friend’s kids for the weekend, and while I was in the kitchen making apple butter, I overheard this conversation between Matthew (7) and my Naomi (5):

Above our fireplace hangs a plaque reading: Love Will Keep Us Warm.

Matthew: Love will not keep us warm!

Naomi: Yes it will! If you love some one, you lay down next to them and snuggle with them and they warm you up!

M: But then you’re stealing the other one’s warmth.

N: No, you both warm up.

M: No, then the one who had their warmth stolen needs the furnace to keep them warm. Really it’s the furnace that keeps you warm. That should say “The Furnace Will Keep Us Warm.”

N: I think love is better than a furnace.

That’s right, my baby boy is nine years old. How did that happen???

We spent the day doing all of his favorite things. We had his favorite meals (belgian waffles, grilled cheese sandwiches, and brats on the grill, with chocolate éclair cake for dessert) watched his favorite movies, and, of course, played with his Star Wars Transformer toys (that he got for his birthday from Jessica when she came up on Thursday).

And, of course, he opened his presents, including this C-3PO toy Hannah bought him (with her own money!!!):

After the kids went to bed, Peter and I looked through our photo album from the year Sam was born. Things were a lot different back then! I miss those days – when we could do things on the spur of the moment, take weekend hiking trips (and enjoy them!), go bowling without worrying about getting a babysitter and getting home on time . . . *sigh*

But if I was still that girl, I would never have noticed what color Luke Skywalker’s light saber is, or been able to recite the entire Chronicles of Narnia from memory, or found that sometimes it’s nice to hug a rooster.

That’s right, it’s that time of year again, and although our numbers dwindled quickly (roughly half of those who RSVPd were unavoidably detained, bringing us down from roughly 30 to our final count of 18) we had another successful Punkinfest, complete with pumpkin carving, donut making, storytelling, a trip to the pumpkin cannon, boggle playing, karaoke singing, leafpile jumping, trap shooting, motorcycle riding, and even grouse hunting!

For those of you who couldn’t make it, here’s what you missed:

On Thursday my Dad, Mom, and brother Jon came up on the first leg of their western Wisconsin/eastern Minnesota family tour (Friday they would drive to my brother Mark’s in Minneapolis to install windows, and then they’d head down to Rusford to visit Joel’s family before heading home on Monday). With them, they brought along a trailer load of goodies, including a set of bunk beds for my boys and an old couch for our basement (in very good shape, even if it is gold! Peter calls it “old”; I call it “retro”) as well as some canning jars from a friend of theirs who is no longer canning, a jar of my mom’s homemade grape jelly (yum!) and birthday presents for Sam and me (I asked them if they’d managed to pack a big screen TV, bass boat, and the kitchen sink, but I guess they ran out of room . . .)

It was so good to see them again, and I hope it won’t be five months before we see them next!!!

This morning, Naomi prayed for our breakfast. Tucked in the middle (between “thank you for this food” and “please make everyone happy”) we heard the line:

“and thank you that Mommy gets to finally have her birthday . . .”

I’m not certain, but the only explanation I can think of is that Peter didn’t buy my birthday cake on my actual birthday (Monday) because he took me out to dinner and we had dessert at the restaurant. He did buy it last night, but we didn’t get to eat it because piano lessons pushed too close to bedtime (no sweets before bed!) So tonight I finally get to share my birthday cake with the kids, which apparently is when you have your real birthday! Yup, honey, it’s all about the cake!

I had a very good birthday yesterday (thank you all for your kind wishes!) but there were a few things that I thought were particularly nice, and they all happened within about a half-hour window:

1) I got a long, hot, (almost) uninterrupted shower on a cold and snowy day

2) I got my annual birthday poem from my dear friend Chris

3) I got exciting news about a healthy pregnancy from another close friend

4) When I went to get Josiah up from his nap, he greeted me with a cheery, “Hi, Mom!” (he now puts words together!)

5) My husband came home with a bouquet of flowers for me

6) My sister-in-law came over to babysit so that Peter could take me out for supper

The kids were also super sweet the whole day, and even built snowmen as a special present for me!

So yes, everyone, I had a very happy birthday.