Follow the shenanigans of a woman's attempt at going green while trying to raise a little one on a small ranch in Arizona with chickens and horses.
What… A… Night!!!
Tonight was our 2nd annual Star Party and our Halloween Potluck. We invited the mom’s group that I belong to, along with our friends from across the valley. Pics and the first part of the video linked below.
I couldn’t have done any of this without the help of the awesome Ashley, Ashley and Zel. (Yes, 2 Ashley’s, with the same last initial, I still haven’t found a good nickname for them to differentiate them, so we’ll go with Ashley 1, and Ashley 2. 
Ashley 1, our group leader, made an awesome cake (2 actually) of Frankenstein and the Bride of Frankenstein.
Ashley 2 lent us a HUGE bouncy-house, and tables/chairs for the event! The kids loved the bouncy house and it was great to have a place for everyone to sit and eat this year, last year we didn’t have tables/chairs so that was such a big help!
Zel came out and helped me pack up all the goody-bags for the kids, (30 bags!) and helped me build the Candy HayDive and hide all the pumpkins for the pumpkin hunt. Her oldest daughter kept an eye on Lilly and Zel’s little one so that we could get everything done.
We took 2 bales of straw and at least 14 big bags of individually wrapped candy (skittles, nerds, smarties, lollipops, tootsi rolls, gummy things, a bunch of stuff) and we layered all the candy into it and put it in a big pile. I think all bags totalled, there were probably 400+ pieces of candy or more, not really sure, and I’m pretty sure the kids didn’t get all of it. I’ll be going out tomorrow to find out what’s buried and was missed.
We started at first by sending in the 4 youngest who were lined up, and at first, I’m pretty sure they didn’t believe us that there was candy in there… until they started finding it. Then they started to get excited.
I realized that there was a lot of hay in there and giving 4-5 kids at a time only 5 minutes just wouldn’t give them much for their bags, so spur of the moment I sent everyone in. The results were hilarious.
We had hay flying everywhere, the pile got smooshed pretty quickly into one layer about 4-5 inches deep across one of our stalls (our stalls are huge). We even had one kid doing a “Hay-Angel” in it for awhile.
I took 20 minutes of video before turning off the camera, and the kids were still going long after that! The kids played in it for at least an hour if not more, and later on in the night they were in there again. Cassandra even brought out a spare bag she had in her car and started throwing it in to get them rolling again. It was a total hoot!
It was a great night, after all the candy-hunting settled down and everyone ate, Ray broke out the telescopes and started pulling up the constellations, the Orion Nebula, and Jupiter and it’s 4 moons. I ended up back inside with Lilly and missed out on that part of things (and on everyone leaving) but still, I’d say all in all, it was a success.
What I’m up to…
Other than being up to my neck in baby bottles and poopy diapers, I figured I’d blog a little about life in general.
My husband is working on putting a new deck on the front porch for me. He’s got 1/2 of it laid in, and most of the screws down. I cannot begin to say how nice it is to not worry about walking out the door and wondering if my foot is going to go through. The previous owner laid down crappy plywood probably 20 years ago and it was rotting through. Luckily, he built the actual support structure amazingly strong so now that we have actual lumber down, it’s an amazing difference. I’ve got before pictures, just need to wait till it’s done and then I’ll post the pics. Might be another week or so.
We’re getting ready for our 2nd annual star party and this year we’re doing a halloween party since it’s the weekend before Halloween. I have work to do outside in the barn, clearing out stalls and getting things ready. I’m hoping to do that this weekend.
The chickies are doing good, this will be their first winter outside. (They were babies when I got them last winter and were inside till spring). They seem to be much happier with the cooler weather lately.
As for life as a new mom, things are awesome. I love being a mom, it’s even better than I ever dreamed it would be. Sure, we have our rough nights here and there but they pass and in general I have to say that she’s a really good baby… She’s developing her own specific crying sound now (which breaks my heart when I hear it) and other noises like short bursts of “ah- ah” when she’s looking around, exploring her world around her.
I try my best to sleep when she does (which obviously isn’t happening right now, I should have been in bed 2.5 hours ago when she went down, oops). (If it counts, I used the time to clean off my desk and actually be productive)
On the home-front, I’ve realized that the methodical daily washing of baby bottles has done something kind of amazing for me mentally. I’m not sure why but the action of washing them brings a sense of relief and pleasure.
I am prone to two types of behavior, I either go completely OCD and run high energy, but it never lasts for long periods of time, (usually only 1-2 weeks, though I’ve had it last for a couple years before) or the opposite, when I find myself cluttered and often burned out in general. Obviously, the high energy me is something I would prefer but it’s hard to trip it off and keep it going. The baby bottles are actually spurring it off and slowly building it up which is good, maybe it’ll last longer.
I find myself able to keep up on other things around the house. The sinks are almost always empty, the laundry is being kept up on, etc. There’s a few things I need to work out, like how the livingroom always seems to be ransacked with baby blankets, car carrier, diaper bag and other stuff, but only because I haven’t found proper places for them that make sense… It’s a work in progress.
I have to return to work in 6 weeks and I’m not looking forward to it to be honest. I want to be home with my little girl, but it’s just not feasible right now. I’ve got to find a way to balance full time work, full time little girl, and part time school. Starting in January, my life is going to go full on upside down and I have no idea how I’m going to deal with all of it. Take it day by day I suppose!
New Chicky Pic.
Just an updated pic on my chickies. They’ve gotten big!
For comparison, check out the two pics below.
The only one I can discern from the others name wise is Geeter, the one on the left with all the brown on her neck and the spikes. The others, well, honestly I’m not sure who’s who anymore. Oh well!
They’ve come a long long way from when they were babies! Of course, they were a lot cuter back then.
and here’s the imbetween picture of them at about 4 months old.
And the cloth diapering begins!!!
Lil’ Peanut is finally fitting in her cloth diapers. (Her FuzziBunz one’s fit, the SunBaby’s are still a little large around the leg-gussets…) I’m guessing she’s appx 8 pounds right now.
They’re bulky but they are fitting once I made the correct adjustments on the leg bands. Sadly, I think they may have fit her before too but I kept using the Sunbaby ones to try on her and forgot about the Fuzzibunz ones… That’s okay, at least we’re started!
So one thing of note… her newborn onesies are definitely not going to fit over the padded diapers, so I’ll be moving up to her 0-3 month clothes which are quite a bit longer and wider, and also will be looking for just shirts (non-onesies).
We’ve got to hook up the diaper sprayer as well, and I’ve got to decide if I’m going to do a dry pail or wet pail.
Let the laundry begin!!!
Time Flies… 1+ month already…
My baby girl is 1 month old (and a couple days, I haven’t had time to blog lately). I’m slowly adjusting and starting to get better about resting when she’s down (well, I’ve been up all night and she’s been out since 2am, but I’ll sleep probably on her next run.) Getting better with time-management for getting things done around the house, and in fact, being home, I’m getting more done. I even went OCD on my husbands sock drawer.
Now it’s time to start tackling ranch life again.
I’ve got horses that are in serious need of baths and a good brushing, and some cleanup in the pole-barn for our annual star-party plus we’re throwing a halloween potluck out here with our friends and my new friends from the Mom’s group.
I’m sure my husband would appreciate it as well if I started taking care of feeding the horses and chickens again. He’s been taking care of the chickies for me for the last several months on top of the horses. The chickens are HUGE by the way. My last pictures of them were about 1/2 size, they’re full size now. I’ll try to get out today or tomorrow for pictures.
I would really like to start a vegetable garden but I’m completely clueless when it comes to it. Everything online talks about pH balance and soil testing and adding stuff to the soil…. plus I don’t have a level area, so it’s going to require a lot of manual tilling and I really don’t know if I have that in me.
