Naptime and Smiles

All the excitement must have been tiring! Three times in two weeks I had Hazel and Jade taking afternoon naps at the same time. This is quite unexpected as Hazel stopped napping just under a year ago.

Even managed to get both of them into bed after they both feel asleep in me. 

Can't get over how Hazel still curls up in her sleep 😍 

They both had a couch nap that afternoon.

Someone was a bit to tearful one afternoon, so I laid her on the couch for some downtime and she was soon asleep, and Jade went down for her afternoon nap as well.

Jade has been showing some more personality lately which has been so fun, especially when it's mostly smiles and the occasional attempt at a laugh. 

Hazel has been asking to hold Jade more, and acknowledging Jade more. It has been good to see her slowly warming up to the new normal.

On Sunday she even wanted to take pictures with Jade! Considering Hazel doesn't really like pictures this is a pretty big win. And they even both smiled at the same time, at each other! 😍

 

Setback or Jumpstart?

 

As exciting as it was to have new chicks, the excitement soon had a bit of a damper on it when on day two we lost a whole bunch of them😭, still not sure why. I unfortunately discovered it late Thursday afternoon and it made me feel awful and I was quite somber for the remainder of the evening. Jared on the other hand was confused but was already considering the idea of getting more chicks now instead of getting another batch in the fall like originally planned .

After considering the idea of more chicks over the weekend, Jared called the hatchery and they offered to replace the chicks that died and Jared placed an order for a "few" more. 

Soooo on Wednesday morning, a week and a day after our first batch, 100 more chicks arrived!

It has been neat to see Jared so excited about the chickens! He has a lot of energy and drive when you put chickens and business in the same project 😊

It is amazing what a difference a week of growth makes! 

Had a good chuckle at these three warming their tail feathers! 😆

Our "date nights" for the last two and a bit weeks has been going out to the barn just to sit a watch the chicks run around! (video below)😍 Trying to get as much chick watching time in as we can, as I'm sure it will be just a matter of days before they are sitting on our lawn chairs...

Very curious to see where this jumpstart takes us and excited to learn how to run a small egg business together!

Starting Over and Building up!

A few months ago we said goodbye to our barred rock chickens so that we could start over and make a better bigger chicken barn, with the hopes of making some more egg money.

This was the set up that we had, a fenced area for Nova on one side and the chickens on the other with a freezer and food storage in the open area and a larger storage room to the side. 

It's a bit hard to describe in words... how we took everything out that we had set up, plywooded the ceiling, added a wall and made the storage/service room accessible from the outside... so I drew out a before and after layout. 

Jared spent many hours rewiring the barn to suit the new layout . We didn't keep any of the old wiring when we plywooded the ceiling so he had a clean slate to work with.

Daddy's little helper! IF he wasn't making to much noise :)

Jared was able to install a barrel in the chicken coop so that we could have a water line for the chickens. The barrel is filled from a large tote that is the service room, so water supply is much easier to manage for the chickens. The garbage bags are full of sawdust.

Jared installed a vent and fan so we can get some better airflow in the barn.

A vent, a fan, a waterline, nesting boxes, a feeder and heat lamp all installed!

Hazel making sure the water line is working!

The long awaited day arrived, our day-old chicks arrived at the post office, 50 of them!

Most of them were happy to hang out under the heat lamp, but one was warm enough to explore. Hazel was pretty excited to see them especially when they were moving around. Hazel liked the idea of holding them, but changed her mind once she found out they had "pokey" feet. 

Can you hear Hazel saying "there's a chicky!" in this photo? 😅

Absolutely love these cute chicks!

Once Jared got home he was able to adjust things better for the chicks and install another heat lamp, as the weather was still a bit cooler than we where hoping it would be. It was so neat to see Jared quickly evaluate the chicks and change things that made the chicks so much happier so quickly, I'm really glad Jared knows chickens!

We even let Nova meet the chicks as she was going a bit bonkers trying to get into the barn and see them. She was really good with them! Even herding them if one went out of the group 😅

I absolutely LOVE watching the chicks! (we even set up a lawn chair so we can just sit and watch 😍) Though they don't do much they are endlessly entertaining to watch and listen to, they move from warmth to water to food, they chirp, peck at the food, and tap the water line. I tried to capture their movement and sound on video as heat lamp pictures just don't really cut it!

We are really looking forward to seeing if we can make chickens and eggs into a side business and how far it will go!

A Tuesday on a Monday

 We had our Tuesday on a Monday this week. Jared took this coming Saturday this off for some more firehall training and was working the Monday to make up for it. We also have our little chicks arriving any time on Tuesday so it worked out best to get a head start on all of my Tuesday chores on the Monday. 

Spring has definitely arrived, not the 15 degree weather we were having a month ago, but "normal" spring, mild but still around freezing at night and all sorts of different weather. Today we got to watch a bunch of hail clouds come and go throughout the day.

A couch nap :) how handy! I was trying to put Jade to sleep, but so many things needed two hands in a short amount of time so I put her down for a few minutes and she was soon sleeping.

 It's amazing what a good sleep can do! Jade slept from 11pm to 9am last night (which was quite the treat!) so I actually felt awake that morning and got bread and cookies baked, dishwasher unloaded and one load of laundry washed and put away before 12:30! 

That afternoon Hazel and I were reading though an activity/learning book that had a cheetah in it. Hazel got all excited that it was the same as another book, she hopped off the couch and got another book off of the shelf and flipped though the pages till she found the page with the pull out that had the other cheetah! It was is so neat to see her make connections from book to book.

With the next hail cloud that came through Hazel asked if she could touch the hail, so we opened the back door and brought some into the house to play with. (yes she is still her jammies, didn't feel like fighting that battle today, and she asked quite nicely if she could stay in them)

Hazel has quite intrigued by the hail and soon outside to play in it!  

The rest of the day was a bit more relaxed, we had lunch, I folded some more laundry, read some more books, Jared came home and then after dinner we all went outside and I watched Hazel play as Jared worked on a few more last minute things for the barn. This has been a regular routine for the last week or so with Jared spending so much time working on the barn, it has been quite enjoyable. 

Today was a very lovely day, things went smoothly, both kids were in good moods and some household chores got done! I'm making an effort to make note of or document the good days so that they are easier to remember on the tired days :) as I'm continuing to learn that staying on top of mental health is very important!

Jade, Two Months

 Finally had some time to try and get some smiles from Jade myself! Others have gotten smiles from her and she has smiled from time to time on her own, but it was fun to get one when I tried. I have found I don't really spend as much time interacting with Jade as I did with Hazel as I'm either dealing with one or the other or both kids at the same time. So when Jared took Hazel on a few little errands I got to spend to time alone with Jade and get some smiles. 

Jade is right around the 10ish pound mark, a little slow on the weight gain, but still gaining. She is learning that she has space to wiggle and loves to stretch after her naps! Overall she is a very content baby, and recently a very hungry baby that has started to cluster feed in the evenings and not sleep quite as well as she did at nights.

I tried to just have a simple mat out for Jade to play on, but I found this one with  the hanging toys provided a bit more of a "fence" and piece of mind. As it is a new toy Hazel has been very intrigued by it and it is rather rare to have any of the toys hanging on it... but hopefully the newness of wears off soon and Jade can have her toys back 😅

With Hazel being caught up on sleep she has been more interested in Jade the past few days. She actually asked to hold Jade in this picture and held her for a minute or two rather then a few seconds. If Jade is crying Hazel will go to comfort her with saying "Don't cry little baby, you don't need to cry" over and over again. Sometimes she will ask to give Jade a hug, which to Hazel means standing and holding Jade. I help Hazel hold Jade while she is standing and then Jade gets a quick few second hug before Hazel moves on to something else. 

I'm glad that I had a bit of time this evening to reflect on some highlights and smiles! With the lack of sleep over the past few nights I find I can get into a pretty negative head space in the evenings, and so far the only way I've found though it has been to keep busy and just keep on going no matter how tired I am. Hopefully with a few more weeks and months at home I can find a new rhythm at home with two that can take care of all of us and all our different needs. 

Hazel's Hair and ABC's

Settling in back at home after our whirlwind of a trip (that post will need to come later as it will take some time to put together!), Hazel enjoyed finding all of her favorite things back. This ABC book has been a recent favorite and she is really interested in learning the song, so far she has "a,b,c" and then rhythmic sounds after that 😅. Hazel started reading the ABC book to herself after I read it one afternoon and I was enjoying her variation of what each page said, I managed to catch a little bit of it on video and I can't get enough of it!!!

Aunty Albany did a cute braid in Hazel's hair when we were down for Aunty Genoa's wedding. I was inspired to attempt some braiding of my own. So one day after a bath I tried some braiding while Hazel played with the running water in the sink.

It's a bit hard to make out, but Hazel discovered that the little medicine cup works as a "drain plug" and it took some doing to get it unstuck!

Hazel requested another warm bath the next evening, so I tried another braid. I was rather proud of the results, but sadly it didn't stay in very long. It loosened as it dried and after Hazel slept on it only the back stay in and the front had all fallen out, which was too bad as the goal was to keep the hair out of her eyes.

It took a bit of doing to get Hazel to bed that evening, and once when Jared checked on Hazel it took him a few seconds to find her. Can you find Hazel?

Then I turned the light on to take a better picture, as she wasn't sleeping anyways 😛

The next day I gave up on the braids, and while Hazel played with the tap water I figured out how to get all of her hair into one ponytail. (when I try two ponytails they always end up lobsided)

Thinking s😊he might just end up being a ponytail girl like her Mama.