3 little peeps

Have you ever had an idea pop into your head, but instead of forgetting about it within 5 minutes, you start to look into it, talk to friends who had the same idea, check out books from the library, stay up night after night after night, research online, and finally ended up joining a backyard chicken club?

Me neither.

Okay I'm lying.

So we decided to get some chickens. We laid out a plan for a coop,

and got busy

very very busy.

I told Jared if it doesn't work out we can just have a little playhouse with an

enclosed sandbox. At least my two little peeps look cute in the hen house :)

Originally we ordered 4 young laying hens but when we got them home we found 5 and one was actually a rooster, a rooster with rear end problems. So after a few more days of worrying and more hurried decision making, and a 2 hour ride to Plymouth, (close to where we got Simba in Portage) we now have the correct order. Three chickens - a light brahma, and two buff orphingtons, affectionately named Alice, Betty, and Clarabelle. I thought it would be fun to go through the abc's to name our chickens. We'll see how far into the alphabet we actually end up going. The boys have been in absolute heaven. We have been talking about chickens so much, looking at books, watching movies, visiting the neighbors, they were totally ready for chickens of their own, plus getting to build the coop with dad was a huge bonus.

The coop has been much more work than we thought it would be and still has some final touches to be added, it's not perfect but at least the chickens seem to like it. And the fact that it's Simba proof is probably their favorite feature. The poor chickens had a little run in with Simba the other morning. I'll just say they may have lost a few feathers while Simba was doing laps around the coop, and since then they haven been quite comfortable staying in the hen house. However we did get them walking out in the yard tonight for the first time.

The point of this chicken madness you ask

1. Fresh eggs

2.To help us appreciate where our food comes from

3. To use food products from animals more respectfully and sparingly

4. fun

I think Levi is already starting to appreciate where his food comes from. Every time I pull the milk out of the fridge he starts to moo :)

There is a lot more I could say but at the moment I'm a little chickened out. I think if I spend anymore time worrying about chickens I might sprout feathers and lay an egg. So hopefully things will start to cool down a bit and the chickens will become a natural part of our routine.

One more thing, I have the greatest husband ever, he's one good egg! bock, bock

the brave little patient

After two weeks of a clogged tube, a tube removal, 20 days of antibiotics, Levi's ear was still infected. So we had to gear up for round two. The morning of the surgery is of course no fun. Levi suffers from separation anxiety already, so when you add doctors and strangers to the mix, he wasn't a happy fella. This time they removed his adenoids, which the doc said were pretty big. He asked if Levi was a snorer or heavy breather. Heavy breather yes, I wonder if his enlarged adenoids contributed to his horrible coughing episodes. But now they are gone - new and improved tubes in - his ear infection has cleared, so hopefully we a starting a new chapter of his life. The bummer was since he had his adenoids taken out they had to give him another round of antibiotics, so by the time he is done he will have been on antibiotics for 30 days straight! His poor little bum is so red, even though he gets a large helping of aquaphor each change. Anyway this is Levi pre-op, and below is post-op. It was nice to have our friend Heidi Cottle helping us after his surgery. He was not a happy guy, he ended up getting two rounds of morphine which as you can see settled him into a nice nap. When he woke up from his nap he wasn't very steady on his feet and still not feeling very well, luckily he was able to take a second nap that day. It's too bad that it takes illness to get your kids you take nice long naps.

Anyway - after a week of recovery we are getting back on our feet.

It was kind of funny that the doctor asked me if he snored, which he really didn't, then

on the way home it sounded like there was a little bear in the back seat. I love my Levi bug.

a good day

Today I had the opportunity to go to the temple,

and attend Uncle Max's funeral.

I am so grateful for my family.

It was a good day.

Boo

the cutest caterpillar and lion i know

Levi was good to take out his binki and say "cheese"

ready to go, even though it is a bit wet

We did the majority of our trick-or-treating this year on Friday at Jared's work.

My kids are very shy around strangers but not shy when it comes to locating

the candy bags in everyones offices.

Grandma and Grandpa Buckley came down and brought us

some more Halloween goodies. Including some great little gloves

for trick-or-treating. Levi didn't like em' to much though, darn it, it was cold.

off to go "church-er-treating" as Bronson calls it.

Jared always loves to find reasons that he can sport his

rugby shirt.

We had fun carving pumpkins this year. We even baked the seeds.

in honor of all the trick-or-treaters who ventured out in the rain :)