They rent their clothes

It's time for bed but I can't resist blogging.

Chad came down after his shower and set us all down on the couch for a demonstration. He was wearing an old shirt (probably purchased at a yard sale before we ever got married - 11 years ago) that had a couple tears and a blood stain (from Jonas fall today). He told us that he knew we always wondered what it meant to rent your clothes and then he proceeded to show us. Great teacher, right?!

Jubilee commenced crying hysterically. Chad picked her up, she looked at the tattered shirt lying on the ground and jumped off his lap and ran to me. Poor girl, she was so afraid. It's hard to imagine what goes on in little girls minds. She obviously didn't understand what was going on.

Perhaps daddy shouldn't come in to devotions with a rope and tie up a son as I heard one father did acting out a Bible story. She'd really go into hysterics.

This is how my day began

I recently broke down and bought some boxes of cereal for those days that I don't want to take the time to make breakfast. This is a big thing for me because in general we try to eat foods that are nutricious but lately I have let down my standards for the sake of putting my time into the more urgent needs. I hope to pick this standard up again soon as we get on a good routine.

Well, this morning was one of those times I decided to let the children have cereal for breakfast to save time. After breakfast the children cleaned out the dishwasher while I was working at clearing the counter. They put dishes on the counter that are too high for them to reach and imagine my surprise to see that my tea cup was still brown in the bottom!!! :( I found this out after all the dishes were put away UGH! I quickly asked Javan if he remembered to run the dishwasher after he put the detergent in last night (we have both been guilty of forgetting), but come to find out something must have been blocking the detergent from getting out, so though the dishwasher was run they did not get clean; the water sitting on the cups made the children think they were done when in actuality they were not.

So my time saving with the cereal I guess made up for the time I had to put in to digging out all the dishes I and the children could remember that were in the dishwasher. Anyone want to come for supper? HA HA LOL

This and That from LauraLee

Here are some pictures from the Precision Planting Picnic and the Farm Progress Show, both are several weeks or more past.

The PPI family picnic was held the Saturday of all the Hurricane Ike rains that came through. The committee planned ahead and provided rain gear for anyone that was interested.

Here is Jubilee the "wanna be" admiring everyone in their ponchos.

Here is Jubilee in her poncho ~ a happy little girl.
They had clowns for making balloon creations and face painting.
A couple jumping toys kept the little ones happy. A milk jug and a plastic fork kept Jonas happy during supper.The food tent. I'm not sure how many were there, but it was a large number.
Jared, Javan, Abby Bauer, and Jesse sitting on the Relay Tricycle race route.
On the home stretch.


They had a talent contest and Chad decided he should do what he does best, play with the children, and try to impress the crowd like he tries to impress me!
He started out with a humorous speech which was quite well done. I have a video but it is too long to upload to blogger, so we will share it when our families get together next. He ended by holding all the children except Jared (he wouldn't do it, but was supposed to sit on Chad's shoulders) at once. Javan stood on a loose belt behind Chad, Jesse and Jolene were each on a shoulder, and Jubilee and Jonas were in his arms. They tied for first place and won $100. Granted there weren't many entry's, but there were more than two. Part of Chad's speech was to tell the group that if noone shared their talent there wouldn't be a talent contest; and he expected when he was done lots of people would say "I can do better than that!" So next year we expect more participants. ;)

Chad's talent for the evening!!!
The Farm Progress Show 2008

We borrowed a camper and slept in a field that was designated for campers adjacent to the show. On the way we had a blowout on a camper tire; a kind man behind us stopped to help out. Actually, that kind man is Justin Koch, he works with Chad and owns the camper. Thanks Justin! :) He has a smaller camper that he used and we camped beside each other.

The children enjoy climbing on the equipment on display.





A real live, walking, talking soy bean.


We watched a show called "Horse Whisperer". I think the man actually has a television program, so perhaps you have heard of him. His first name was Craig, but I'm not sure of his last. He trains horses.
On the last day we were at the Stihl Chainsaw demonstration and Jubilee won the drawing for a hand-carved fox. It was carved and stained that day and I look forward to putting it in my new landscaping when it is complete. Keep posted for pictures to come. :)

Jubilee with the fox and Zoe, the chainsaw artist! I said we should name the fox Zoe, but the children didn't think that was a good idea. They never came up with a better name, so it still doesn't have a name.

Huricane ike flooding by Javan

Here are
some pictures of Prairie creeks
flooding caused by Huricane ike

as you can probably tell we got water in our boots

this truck is normaly about 10 from the water

me Jolene and Jonas walking home

From LL: Prairie Creek rose about 6 or 7 feet and was out of it's banks about 30 or so yards onto our property. The pictures above are mostly on our property. The picture with the truck is a neighbor's across the creek. This was on a Sunday and the following day the children went to see how the water was and they said it was back within it's banks but still high. We crossed the Illinois River a couple days ago and it was still very high.

Too many bottles

I was just going to come out Jubilee's hair after her shower and grabbed the flourescent bottle under the sink to make the detangling easier. Imagine my dismay when I realized I had just sprayed about 10 or so sprays out of my flourescent pink hair spray bottle! The detangling spray come to find out is in a flourescent green bottle! So we ran down stairs and gave her head a shower with the kitchen faucet and now all is well.

We are preparing to leave for the Precision Planting Family Picnic. I will try to post pictures of that soon. It is complete with clowns, inflatable activities, and a bit of competition including a talent contest that Chad will be competing in with the children. I will leave you in suspense on what the talent might possibly be. ;)

Another Cavity?

Jared has been complaining that his tooth hurt in the back of his mouth. Since the last cavity was such a miserable experience Chad wanted to get it taken care of right away before it got worse so he took him in this morning to get his cavity filled. Imagine his embarasement when the doctor said it wasn't a cavity but a new molar coming in! LOL :)

We had such a time last time that we didn't question if it could possibly be something else. The doctor had mercy, he said he couldn't look him in the face and charge him full price so we got off at $20.00.

Little Cori

Is it just us or is this a miniature Cori?

August update

We took a bike ride a couple Sundays ago and decided to let the children take a dip in the creek before making our way back home.

Javan and his borrowed banjo. He hasn't had much practice yet because we went to the farm progress show a week ago and right now we are trying to get a routine for school and he can't watch his instructional DVD while we are doing school. Hopefully this week we will get it all organized and they can be working on their instruments.

Speaking of the Farm Progress Show, Javan is going to blog about it but we have had internet trouble this week, and it takes him a long time to type so he's not got it ready to post yet.

Jesse and his fiddle.

We went canoeing for Labor Day and Jesse is working on a blog to tell you all about it.

I am hoping to have them blog once a week, but since it is taking so long with the typing part I'm not sure if it is going to work. I may have to have them write it and then I can type it for now.

My baby turned 10!!! He got his first BB gun for his birthday. I remember shooting Mark's BB gun when we were young. How old were you Mark when you got it? Do you remember? Chad was 10 when he got his.
I painted my parlor awhile back and love they way it turned out. Now I would like to do my room, but I don't have any hopes of getting to it in the near future.

Jonas is a good communicator. Although it might take several questions to figure out what he wants.

Jubilee singing. I recently started using the microphone to record books onto the computer to burn on a CD when I finish. The children have enjoyed playing with the microphone since then.

A lot has happened since we last blogged any pictures, but I won't take the time to upload them all, we will have to share them at our next family gathering.

We went to Branson, MO for the Defending your Faith conference Answers in Genesis hosted in August. We met up with some friends for most of the week. A couple nights we went into town and did the Go-Carts and Putt-Putt but we didn't do any shows to speak of, although Jared's favorite part of the conference was Buddy Davis concerts each evening. Chad said he was bored when his parents took him to see the Shepherd of the Hills as a child so maybe when they are older we can take them to see it.

Javan said he would like to go to another conference next year, he really enjoyed the speakers.

Did you know that 2009 is designated as the year of Darwin and February 12 is Darwin Day? Do a search on it, they especially want to convince Christians that it is o.k. to believe that God used evolution to create the world. Are you prepared to defend your stand on 7 literal days? Answers in Genesis is a great resource for learning how to defend your faith. Eventually I would like to write a little paper on what I have learned, if I ever get around to it I will try to remember to blog it. Writing reports on things really helps me to cement the information into my mind.

Until next time.

Sleep? What's sleep?

3:43 AM I want to go to sleep!!! Jonas has a bad cold. I gave him Ibuprofen for his fever which is now gone but he is a BEAR and nothing satisfies him. I decided to let him cry it out in his bed for a little, I think he is probably just over-tired because he has not been sleeping well.

I also have a bad cold so this lack of sleep on my part is not helping me any.

Two years ago I found out we were pregnant the first week of school. Last year I got really sick the first week of school. This year, as I have been hoping to get some more organizing done before we start school on Monday, I have a sick boy that has a sick mom!!! Maybe I should start planning to start school the end of July and that will leave extra time for the unexpected!!!

I don't have any pictures yet, but our newest project is working toward adding a little bluegrass to our family program (singing at nursing home).

We purchased instruments for all but Jonas and DVD instructionals to teach us.

Jesse chose fiddle which arrived today. Already he has shown signs of being able to do well. He has taken the books and DVDs and figured a lot out on his own already. I was expecting lots of screeching but not so!!!

Javan wanted the banjo, after watching part of the video I'm confident that he will do well also. We borrowed a banjo to get him started, they are the most expensive of the instruments that we are going to use for starters and I was told that the banjo is an instrument that if you don't put the money into a decent one it sounds like you didn't put the money into a decent one.

Jared and Chad are doing the guitar. Well, Jared and mommy are doing the guitar for now, Chad is willing but it hasn't fit into an evening yet. I'm sure Jared will succeed too if he is willing to build up the calouses on his fingers before giving up. This is where daddy comes in!!! I think daddy would be able to influence Jared better than me on this one.

I chose fiddle for the girls and I. I was told guitar was too much for a 5 year old. I wasn't interested in a bass ukelele so we went with fiddle because it's common to start children on violin between 3 and 5 years old. The only reason I decided to start Jubilee is because you have to have them in violin's that fit them and the place I bought them from will exchange violin's up to the next size if your violin has not been damage other than the normal wear and tear. If I was going to put the money into it later, why not start now!!! I was told that Jubilee is too young to learn songs but she should be able to learn how to hold the fiddle and bow it right.

Fiddle for me because if I as going to teach Jolene I was going to have to know what I was doing!!!


Jonas won!!! It is now 4:34 he was content to watch part of an Answers in Genesis video with me and now I will try to put him back to sleep!!!

Save the frogs!

I commented on Andrea's blog recently, she was commenting about all the dead yellow butterflies on her walk and that she needed to actively do something to save them (ha ha); I commented that I need to head up a Save the Frogs campaign (from the Plattner children that is)!

This is the latest. Jubilee brought me a sippy cup and took the lid off to show me the contents. Imagine my surprise to see a frog!!! Awhile later I put her to bed and shortly thereafter Jolene found Jubilee's new friend on my couch ~ NO sippy cup this time!!!

Sorry I haven't updated in awhile, we have been pretty busy lately. I will try to blog soon with some photo's of our latest project.