Chaos Update!

I have been busy. As if keeping up with 5 kids wasn't enough, I had to add 3 horses. What was I thinking??

Well, our Quarter horse mare, Brandy arrived about a week after Dozer (the mini) and they became fast buddies. Each would get upset if the other was taken out of pasture for any amount of time. They rarely went more than about 15 feet from each other as they grazed in pasture.

Then we added Cisco, our Morgan/Quarter gelding, to the mix and it quickly put Brandy into heat. She was acting all wierd towards Cisco....rubbing on him and nibbling his back. It got quite nauseating! Cisco was more annoyed then enamoured too. We woke up the next morning to Dozer being on the other side of the fence, so either she had enough of those two or she was bumped out by one of them. We had decided to separate her anyway, since she is "with child" and Cisco was being slightly agressive with her. She will get her own mini pasture and can visit with Brandy when we go riding.

So yeah....I have been busy. Brandy has turned out to be a great horse. She will do whatever you want her too. Dave enjoys riding her around and Autumn is pretty good at it too. Brandon needs more time on her and a few lessons before he can ride by himself, but he is showing a lot of interest so I am going to try and keep him in it. Logan and Austin enjoy riding Dozer too.

And now I not only have appts for the kids, I have appts for the horses. The farrier is coming out on Monday to trim their feet, then the vet comes out on the 15th to give a look over and shots to the 2 big ones. Then we head into the vet office on November 1st with Dozer. She will get her shots and an ultrasound to check gestation.

So....I am busy, but I have always said I would like to have horses again and now I do and love it. I just wish Cisco was trained to ride so 2 of us could go out riding together. We will be sending him this spring to get trained and hopefully he takes to it well so we can ride him.

As for the kids, they are all doing well. Austin is picking up more and more words everyday and trying to copy what we say. He is growing like a weed. He was 27 lbs and 33 inches tall at his last appt at 16 months old. Logan is fast approaching 3 yrs old in December and talks about his birthday coming up. He sees others get birthday parties and he wants his. He is enjoying having his cousins here to play with and also enjoying his "baby" horse. Brandon is doing ok in homeschool. We got off track last week and its been slow getting back on track. I did have a meeting with his advisor to just go over what we have been doing and she finally looked up his test scores from last year and said he scored advanced in math, reading and writing. She was impressed with Brandon's scores and also my organization of our school stuff. Never thought I would get compliments on organization!!! NEVER! Autumn's birthday is this Sunday and she is having a party with her friends at the bowling alley. They have neon bowling in the evenings, so we will reserve 3 lanes - 2 for her friends and 1 for the rest of us grown-ups to bowl. Dave's aunt Jeanne and her husband Jim are coming up to our house to babysit Logan, Austin, Hannah and Callie so that we can all go bowling without having to chase little kids. Should be a fun time. Kristen is doing well too. She currently has a job at a local farm helping them harvest catnip and potatoes. Fun stuff....she gets cold picking the catnip leaves, and then sweats her butt off lifting 60 lb bags of potatoes. They are paying her $9 bucks an hour though and as a teen that is pretty good wages. She doesn't get to complain too much around me. I thought about doing it just to get out of the house and get some exercise. It will only last for a couple weeks and then she will look for something else.
Dave is foreman at his job now and I think he likes running the show. The good news is he will stay on for winter instead of opting for a lay off and hopefully they can keep him just busy enough to support us through the winter so he doesn't have to go to Nome again and maybe afford him some time with his photography too. As for me, I think you get that I have been one busy beaver! I plug along, day by day, trying to keep up with it all and not lose my sanity. Some days that is harder than others. I have started working with a personal trainer. I feel better about and am getting more exercise. I didn't do well with Weight Watchers, I guess I needed someone to tell me what to do and help guide me more. I suppose I should cancel my WW plan. Procrastination is one of my hard parts.

Otherwise things are going good, winter is fast approaching and I am NOT looking forward to watering the horses when it freezes! In the mornings it has been in the 30's, this morning shows 25 degrees. We have had nice days with the sun shining, but I also see the termination dust on the mountains and the snow slowing making its way down and I know it will be here soon.