The Last Two Weeks

The last two weeks have been fast paced! It started with Alei's crack of dawn flight to CO only to return the following day with Alayna, Nathan and Samuel. Gabriel is at three months of schools around the country before they relocate from Colorado to WA State. Since Gabriel had to miss Nathan's 5th birthday, they decided to come to Mimi's house to make it special. 

Here's Alei after the return flight. 

Nathan is very outgoing and loves his aunts and uncles, so he hit the ground thrilled to be here! Glacier and Jewell were happy to entertain the little carrot feeder. 

Samuel had a pretty nasty cold, so didn't feel too great at the beginning of the trip; he perked up by the end. 

They were visiting over two weekends, so we had a combo Bella turns 10 and Nathan turns 5 birthday event, with some Bella friends and more of Nathan's family. They both had a great time. 

After dark we did a fire with smores and used some leftover wedding sparklers. 

The babies did pretty well sharing their mommas and their Mimi and Grandad. 

Elijah, Selah and Bella are constantly playing the piano; now they have some competition. 

 The lapacas came to expect the little carrot feeder to come every morning. 

We had some decent weather for walks -

Chris and Samuel 

Samuel was feeling better after a few days. 

In spite of sharing all the toys, Oliver managed to not catch Samuel's cold. 

 Here is our cheering squad at Tori's last basketball game of the year. She played JV for the high school team. I managed to call her Tori at school, but Alayna and Moriah just kept yelling, "Go, Bugs" which has been her long term nick-name. 

Samuel really liked his Granddad; poor little guy is very attached to his Daddy and misses him so Grandad was a good substitute. He learned how to open the office door and come on in and visit during the day while Granddad was working and often on the phone. 

On Sunday, I did the get up in the middle of the night to get to DC for the first flight out with Alayna and the boys. 

I had one full day in CO before returning on Tuesday again - I'm about 110% sure I could never hold down a "get up at 4 a.m. job"!!!

It was enough time to build a few legos and duplos, take Nathan to school, grocery shop with Alayna, make cookies and watch Mr. Rogers movie since Alayna and I were the only two people who wanted to see it!

See the cookie evidence?

So, all these years of breeding goats and me coming and going, I have never had baby goats born while I was gone until this time. Monday morning, Selah found Agnus in obvious labor. My friend, Katy, spent most of the day in the barn reading a book and waiting. She had to leave for an hour in the evening and in that hour, Selah assisted with the birth of FOUR babies; JD was there as moral support for Selah. She handled it like a champ. 

Since there are four, the kids and I are working on getting them to take a bottle to supplement Agnus' milk twice a day. It takes a few days of work! It's E year so meet Edward, Esther, Eleanor and Edith. In spite of saying that I wasn't keeping any baby goats this year, I'm pretty enamored with Edith's dark colors!

One more picture from the last two weeks -