Almost done

We are at the end of our chicken pox. After my night up late with Jubilee. Chad and I spent the next night with Jonas. He didn't sleep more than 10-15 minutes at a time once we put him back in his bed. It was miserable. I think the younger they are the worse they handle it.
Chad said we will have to have a celebration when we are completely done. He asked for suggestions and one boy brought up a play land we went to in the Quad Cities (nearly 2 hours away!) when Chad said no another boy said let's go to the pizza place we went to on our Plattner family weekend where there was a playground that we didn't get to play on (in the Quad cities!!!). Something just didn't click when Chad said it was too far away! I think he is just thinking of going out to eat somewhere.
Chad leaves for Texas on Sunday night and will be back Tuesday night. I am trying to come up with some ideas of things to do so the days don't seem so long while Chad is away.

Our baby is 9 months old.

Another night with a restless child!

Hopefully this is the end. Tonight it's Jonas. At least last night I had about four hours of sleep before I got up with Jubilee. Tonight I had trouble getting Jonas to sleep and he didn't last long. He doesn't seem to be miserable, just can't sleep.

At least if Jesse or Javan get them they are old enough to entertain themselves if they have a restless night.

Here is a joke I heard on Sunday. ~~~
Back in the day when Pastors visited there parishioners in their homes, a pastor stopped by one home and noone answered the door although it appeared that someone was at home.
Finally, he took his business card and wrote Revelations 3:20 Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me. He left the card in the door and went his way.
The following Sunday the usher was given the same card to deliver to the pastor. On it was written Genesis 3:10 And he said, I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself.

That's all for now!

Miserable little girl

It's 2:41 am and this chicken pox business is getting tough. At least for this mom that likes to sleep! Jubilee has been fussy and restless all night. She's plenty happy now, though ~ she just loves to take a bath. So she's having an oatmeal bath. Thank God for laptops :)

Chad's mom and dad are in Arizona this week and my mom and dad, well, a little too far to just come over for a couple hours while I sleep :( Thankfully Jesse is very good with Jonas, so we may just have a school holiday while Jesse babysits and I sleep!

What do you get when your children use the camera?

What do you get when your children use the camera?
Well, here is just a sampling!

I know that the following were experiments with the timer.

This country girl is loving it!

God has truly blessed us with this beautiful property to live on. Several times a day I look out and enjoy watching the deer roam around our yard. It's so neat to be able to observe, from the comfort of our home, the animals that so often you only get to see a quick glimpse of. At the end of hunting season they were very predictable. I wanted Chad to come home early so we could watch him peg one for our freezer but he had too much going on to make it a priority. Maybe next year. How many people do you know could hunt from their front yard while the family watched out the window?


We did get some venison in our freezer. A friend of ours hunts our property and in return brings us some meat.


Yesterday we saw three cuyotes by the curve in our lane. They were too far away to get a picture, but it was neat to see. Usually we only hear them at night when our windows are open. One starts to yippin and pretty soon the whole pack is going at it. I wonder what's happening at those times. Are they just hangin' out or are they onto some prey?

Our goal for this year is to get some fencing up so we can get some animals for our barn. We plan for a beef cow, maybe a pig, and I am hoping for a milk cow. We already have chickens and I would like to move them to the barn, we'll see.

Our baby is growing up!

Last night Jonas started pushing a chair around the kitchen. I've never seen him take steps and now he was all over the place. I got out a push toy that is a little unstable for a beginner but he did great with it. He will be 9 months on the 13th.



He climbed all the way up our lower flight of stairs last night (with me behind him I might add). He did it like a pro. When he got to the next flight he was too distracted by the railing and I was ready for bed so I carried him the rest of the way. We keep the stairways blocked whenever he is awake now.



He was pretty fussy yesterday after he saw daddy, but daddy went outside to cut wood. So I dressed him up warm and he was a content little boy to sit in a stroller and watch daddy and his brothers working. He was probably out there 1 1/2 to 2 hours. It reminds me of Jared, he would sit in the stroller outside with daddy when he was a baby too and still loves to be outside especially if daddy is with him.

Pork Chops

We had a very sad little boy when Chad took Jesse and Javan to cut up our pig and left Jared behind yesterday. They came home with 57 1/2 pounds of sausage, two roasts, two bags of chops and two bags of ribs. The boys both helped cut meat off the bone and put meat through the grinder. They are great workers.



Jared, Jolene, and Jubilee helped me mix the seasonings in the sausage and bag it up. It was a fun family project.



When Chad got home he needed to cut wood for our central boiler. He again took Jesse and Javan with him and Jared had to stay in the house. Jared is daddy's boy and lives for the weekend when daddy is home and he can go outside to work with daddy. So having the chicken pox is pretty sad for him.

My friend sent them home with some pictures but the cd didn't turn out so I will try to post them later.

More pox

We've got more pox. Jared woke up with a fever and headache on Friday. I figured it was the first day because the books say you can have a fever and headache for a couple of days before the pox begin to appear. Later that day his spots started to show, so he would have been contagious the night before when they went to our friends to kill the pigs.

I found a few pox on Jubilee at bedtime Friday night and told her to go tell daddy. She was pretty giggly that she had the pox like Jolene :) I thought maybe hers were not going to be very much because she went all day yesterday without very many, but when I picked her up this morning I found it wasn't to be.

Jonas has just a few spots, easy to count if I wanted. He had a bad night though, so it will be interesting to see if he has many more spots this morning. ~~~ Jonas is slowly getting more spots but still pretty minimal.

Jesse took this picture this morning before they left for church.

Mom Riley, I told the children how bad Mark had the chicken pox. Would you have enough time to find the picture and post it on your blog so they can see it. You could find the one of Cori and I too

A moment to remember!

Last night Jolene answered the phone for me and this is what followed:

Jolene: Hello Plattners, this is Jolene.
Val: Hi Jolene, this is Val
Jolene: OOey OOey OOey!!!!

What would you think?

Here is the whole scenario. Jubilee had made a mess on the floor and Javan tried to clean it up but needed help. He left the chicken (slop) bucket on the floor and it didn't get done before he went with Chad to slaughter pigs at a friends house. I didn't know it didn't get done.

Meanwhile, Jonas was put on the floor and it wasn't until Jolene was answering the phone that she noticed Jonas was in the chicken bucket and he was a mess!

My friend made a comment about my needing to do some training on phone etiquette. (All the while laughing!)


In other news: Jared broke out with chicken pox today. I hope they all get it, but it would be nice if they would get it all at the same time and not spread it out, this is only the second case, but if we keep on at this rate we will be shut up for awhile.

We were going to go to Morton tonight and run some errands and go to Pizza Hut :( Chad said he would still bring pizza home for us :) :) He needs to get some freezer bags so we can package up the meat they cut up tomorrow.

Problem discovered! No problem at all :)

Thanks for calling Andrea!

Come to find out it is our filter on our laptop that would not allow me to view the video.

Help!

O.K. Andrea
I am obviously having trouble with video. It is not working right when I am editing either. Any words of wisdom? LL

What's new at the Plattners

So what's new at the Plattner? With a growing family there is plenty to report on. Sorry it's been a month, hopefully it will be sooner next time.

This video was taken about 10 minutes ago. Chad on our beat up, hand me down, snow mobile. The man who gave it to Chad was here yesterday with his family to play in the snow. He got stranded down our lane and Chad had to change some spark plugs (I think). Derek made the comment "I'm glad I didn't charge you for this thing!" Keeps life interesting, I guess.

Now we are having a sleet storm complete with thunder and lightning.

Jolene broke out with chicken pox on Monday. Our first experience hasn't been too bad so far. Her spots are mostly on her back and bottom. Her face isn't too bad. Her sore throat was the only complaint we've had. We gave her Ibuprofen a few times which helped (probably too much) she felt too good to be still. She was glad when she could go for a day without it because then I figured she was probably well enough to play in the snow awhile.

Jesse calls them the hen pox because she is a girl and is hoping he won't get the rooster pox!

Sweet Jubilee

We are a little late getting the railing up. Better get to that! We do have a gate to block the stairs!!!

Proud little guy! Yes he did it all on his own. He can pull up now and get anywhere he wants on his hands and knees. He also found his voice which is soo cute to hear him babble. I'll try to get a video for you.

Jolene was grinding wheat for me to make bread.

Jubilee made herself a cozy little spot for coloring.

If Jonas is fussy - just give him a sippy bottle. He loves it!

We spent last weekend with some friends of ours. Their twins are about three weeks younger than Jonas. I've always wanted twins and the parents even said they feel sorry for everyone that doesn't get the pleasure of having twins in their family. Joshua is on the right and Caleb is on the left.

Chopping brocolli for soup! YUMMY!

We had some Jehovah's witnesses stop in for a visit this week. I wasn't able to get them to tell me what they really believe about Salvation. I need to learn how to ask better questions. They seemed to agree with what I had to say but I still felt like I was missing something. I've been praying for them that they might know God in truth.