blessings

This morning is a typical morning at our home (all the kids are at the table eating oatmeal with raisins and milk right now) but I just really have felt strongly this morning a feeling of gratitude and thankfulness of the blessings of the Lord lately and wanted to write them down briefly....

I (as we all could) could write almost continuously for all the blessings we should be thankful for in life...food on the table, a roof over our heads, health, jobs, etc but this morning, these are a few that are just resonating on my heart.

This house.  Our new home.  In a location that I NEVER, EVER, ever....did I say ever?...thought where'd we move to, and esp where I thought my husband would want to move to because of having neighbors so close.  And now that we're here?  I. love. it.  I thought it would take quite the getting used to from coming from being surrounded by 90 acres of field to being 10 feet from the neighbors house but it has been better than I expected.

 Is it still kinda weird to have your neighbor ask you if you've been putting up shelves bc he could hear the hammer pounding? yes. but I think it's something we are getting used to fast.  It is also a blessing to still be "out in the country" but yet so close to town.  I love not having a long drive to the store, but what's even more fun is that people come over now!  No one would ever just 'swing by' our other house bc it wasn't exactly in most peoples' paths to get places but now we are blessed with friends and family who can just pop in for a quick visit!  And bc this house is smaller and more managable, I'm able to (most of the time) keep it in a more picked-up state so I'm not afraid of people stopping over either :)  So all that to say that I never thought I would be truly 'happy' here and I've found that I like it more than our other place.  ...now only if the garage was a tad bigger...but that's for a different post ;)

The next blessing that took a "bad" thing and made it a fun little blessing is the car accident that Nathan was in on Tuesday night.  It was 7:30pm and since that's when I would expect Nathan to be home, I called him to see if I could start heating up his supper.  He said yes and then we hung up.  One minute later, he calls me and says "I was just in a car accident and I think I toteled my car.  You'll need to come get me."  EXCUSE ME?!?  So 2 minutes later, I had the kids run to the van, got the baby outta bed, put him in the van and off we were.  We met him over at the tow-shop where they had to bring his car.  He rear-ended a guy on hwy 23 after the guy in front of him slammed on the breaks bc in front of him there were cars STOPPED on the hwy.  Thankfully it was only a 40mph zone and no one was hurt.  The other guys car was just dinged up on the bumper but it totaled Nathan's car. 

So how was this a blessing?  Well, the next day, Nathan stayed home from work to get a vehicle and we got to spend a whole day together, while the kids were with family!  It was a forced date day :) ....although the day was a tad stressful bc we after driving through every car lot in town, we still didn't know which vehicle to get.  We were debating between a cheap car with alot of miles that would hopefully last awhile (like his car he just wrecked...we had that for over 5 years, it has 230k miles on it, got us all over the country, and we only paid $1300 for it) or to go with something a little micer but with way better gas mileage and hope that it would last long enough Tiernan could drive it.  Well, since Nathan puts on around 660 miles per week, we figured the latter would be a good thing.  So we found this...

 

 

2007 Honda Civic

 

And then I passed a van that caught my eye... And even though we had just purchased an upgraded van from my brother in June, we really wanted to get away from an older model dodge van (plus it was starting to have signs of repair).  When we left in the morning to get Nathan's vehicle, I snuck the title for the van in my purse *just* in case...and we left the dealership with this too...

 

 

2010 Chrysler Town & Country

So let's just say that we are not wanting to get other vehicles now for a very, very, long time!

And lastly the other blessing that I have just been thinking about so much lately is the awesomeness of a new friendship.  A little while ago, we had lunch at our pastors house.  They invited us and another couple over to eat.  That is when we met Guy and Cassie.  We dove right into converstaion and the friendship has blossomed from there.  Guy even helped us butcher chickens a couple weeks later, helped with the move, put up our new mailbox, looked for prob hours on the computer for a new vehicle for us...has just been a blessing.  Guy and Nathan are so different but so similar at the same time and seems like they could talk about anything...it's so great to see.  Cassie and I somehow see each other almost every day and I've felt like I've known her forever.  I never really think that this 'late' in life you'd meet such great friends but I'm glad we did.  They are expecting their first baby anyday...like she's a week past her due date...and I can't wait to see their little family grow. 



So today as the day carries on....beautiful sunshine, warm weather (80!) for a late Sept day, cleaning for the arrival of my hubby, spending times with my littles...I will be thanking the Lord for all his blessings...esp the unexpected ones.

7 months

Jaeg is 7 months now.  And. So. Darn. Cute.

 

 

Still not sitting up by himself...but he's got this bumbo thing down-pat.  He also LOVES to eat.  Surprise. Surprise.  He is a Legatt male after all.  Right now he chows down oatmeal cereal, bananas, and avocados. yum yum!

 

Here's a little sneak peak of our living room.  I'll be posting more pics as I get to it.

 

Today we got to drop off some food to friends of ours from church who just had their baby.  Wowzers do babies grow fast!  All the boys were in awe at how little the baby was (and he wasn't even as little as Jaeger was....in the 8 pounds).  We've also been on the slow mend from some stomach thing.  Went slowly thru each kid but this week is getting better. 

 

Well, speaking of my lovely 7 month old.  He's been crying for awhile (trying to go to sleep) so I better be off....



Fireplace

This is the first house we've lived in with a fireplace....and last night was the first time the fireplace went on...can ya tell?  They were memorized....until it started to smell like smoke bc of the left over twigs from the birds nest I removed from the vent outside.  We'll just keep the fireplace turned off until dad gets home to check things over...

School room

So we've packed, we've cleaned, we've loaded up, we've unloaded, and we've moved into our new place!!  And I can honestly say that (besides the color of my kitchen cabinets and the fact that all the walls were painted) I don't miss anything about our house and I'm so thankful for the house that we've moved in to!  But more on the move, etc later.  For now, I'm just trying to keep up with stuff!

Yesterday my parents came over to hang out so 1) Dad and I could go to Home Depot and buy some shelves for my awesome walk-in pantry/misc closet.  I was at HD the day before but I literally stared at the shelving for about a good half hour and since I had baby with, I ended up leaving with nothing.  I figured it would be much easier to be with my dad and his truck without children.  And then my parents also came over so 2) my mom could come with me to church bc I was bringing all the kids to the RAD kick-off!  Here's the cool thing...Nathan was planning on coming home but ended up making an early arrival since they were rained out!  But things continued as planned, except that Nathan helped mom with the kids while I shopped and then he helped dad hang some shelves while mom and I were at church!

There was only 1 shelf in the closet and I knew that I wanted to add 2 more below it.  Then before we left, I figured since the ceilings are higher, why not add one above it too?  This way we could utilize all the space.  The guys worked hard (I guess) while we were gone and got it finished up a little while after mom and I came back.  I hung the small (but very tall) shelf this morning to finish the closet completely!  I'm so happy for all my storage!  It's kind of hard to see but here are a couple pics of it.

Shelves on 2 sides of the closet

 

 

You can see the narrow and tall rack on the 3rd wall

 

 

....and she fell asleep on top of the couch while I was busy working....

 

 

Then I spent the rest of the day unpacking and organizing the school room!  Wow, was that a task!  I emptied 7 big totes and probably around 10 boxes....plus I had to sort, move, and put away all the kids' clothes into the dresser that we are borrowing from mom and dad until we can build our own for the kids.  And, yes, I keep their dresser in the school room...for a couple reasons. 1) super easy to put clothes away when they are clean. One stop and it's done. 2) I don't have kids wanting to change clothes all day long bc when it's outta sight it's outta mind. And that means MUCH less clothes and messes all over the floor....which keeps this mama happy.

 

The view of the school room from the door

 

the other wall....the dresser on the right houses my childrens' clothes.



And my favorite part...the closet! 

 

Everything still needs labels, but a girl can only do so much in a day!  And I have yet to hang the stuff on the walls....maps, calendars, letters, etc and I'll probably end up painting but I needed to get it organized and ready to go so we can have a little more structured school days.  Here are a couple pics of what I've organized so far.  Oh yeah, and I hung both of those bottom shelves in the closet today too.  It was kinda fun!  And it gave me TONS more storage space.

Butchering Day.

(Caution: The pics could be considered graphic to some...I will write everything first at post pics at the bottom so those who'd rather not see pictures, don't have to look :)

Butchering day.  We started on Friday afternoon around 3pm.  Since Nathan was just leaving the cities, his parents and I got everything set up and started on our first 12.  Mary (Nathan's mom) wanted to do 12 at a time, making the 67 we had to do seem a little more managable.

Nathan calls around 4:00 stuck in traffic.  I didn't think it was that big of deal bc we were doing just fine but then he reminds me that we needed to sign our papers for the sale of our house at 4:30!  He was going to just meet me in town.  Thankfully he called bc otherwise I would have totally forgot!  (How could I forget on signing on our house?!  Guess it just goes to prove how occupied my thoughts were on these chickens!)

My niece Alma came over to help with the kids (Jaeger mostly) so I was free to run to the signing.  (It was a "pre" signing since the original docs have to be up to Brainerd on Tues the 4th, which is when the buyers sign their side of the paperwork.)  I left the driveway and noticed a scooter driving towards me on the road.  It was our friend from church coming to help with the butchering!  Yay!  So I turned around, chatted with him and sent him off to our house and told him we'd be back asap.

Nathan made it to closing just before 5 and we were able to get everything signed in time!  Whew!  So back to the butchering!

We got back and went right into the swing of things!  Usually one of the guys did the ax dropping on the chicken's neck while Mary or another guy held the chicken down.  Then Mary did the dipping in hot water; Nathan, me, and Mary did most of the plucking; Tom gutted; Guy was the 'gizzard wizzard'; and then Mary cut them all up into pieces (ie: wings, legs, thighs, and breasts) and then Nathan or I packaged them up!

We wanted to get 36 done on Friday so we worked past dark, ending around 9pm.  I had to bring a lamp and set it up on our hay rack so we could see what we were doing.  Nothing like butchering chickens by 'candle light' :)  It was so peaceful though.  It was a perfect temperture, no wind, and all we could hear were crickets chirping.

The next morning we were up by 6:30 and started again by 7:15 or so getting all the bowls of water ready.  Butchering started about 7:30 and we were done by 11:30am. Our friend wasn't able to make it again this day so there were only 4 of us, but it went extremely well!  I was mostly inside keeping an eye on the baby and the kids and then manning the water, making sure they always had hot water ready and also pressure cooking all the necks and backs so we could get all the meat off them.  I also got 8 qts of broth just from those!

The chickens were a lot smaller than we wanted them to be.  We really wish we could have waited another 2 weeks to a month.  Then they would have been perfect.  But we had no choice, moving day is tomorrow!!  Each bird was only about 1.75 pounds all dressed and cut up.  We packaged them 2 birds per bag and put them in the freezer.  My in-laws took 2 home to fix the next day and said that they were some of the best chickens they've ever had.  Well, of course!

It's kinda of weird not having them around though.  I almost told Tiernan to go feed the chickens this morning when we first got up.  That was his job.  It really is nice though to have 65 chickens in the freezer, already 8 qts of broth, and 4 qts of cooked meat from the necks/backs!

It was a job well done!

Here are some pics:

 

Nathan, Guy, and Mary cleaning away

Caedmon helping to catch the chickens

 

 

 Ariella with a chicken's head.  That's my girl!

 

 

 Workin' hard.

 

 

 Guy chopping, Tom holding, Ariella watching

 

 

 Mary dunking

 

 

 I helped Mary hold a chicken down after it's head was chopped off and yeah, got a little bloody.  But don't worry, I wiped it off before I went to the house signing :)



 

 

 Working in the peaceful dark

 

 

 The next morning, back at it.

 

 

 We ended Friday night with a scooter ride.  Thanks Guy :)