Still Here

I’m still here!!

In July, we were blessed with another healthy baby boy.  More on that in another post.

After the baby’s birth, time just turned into days, weeks and months.  I’ve thought of my blog, but it just hasn’t happened it.  I will update soon.

In the meantime, I’ll share that yes, we had a baby boy born on July 18th at 2:23am.  He weighed in at 11.6 pounds and was 23 inches long.  Our very biggest baby ever.  His birth story is unique and I’ll share that at some point.

This is Noah Alexander just hours old being held by his oldest brother.

He just turned 16 weeks this past Tuesday

He is a joy and adored by his older siblings.  ❤

Our Garden in Early July

I thought I’d share a few pictures of our garden.  We have worked hard to stay ahead of the weeds.  With a baby due anytime, I’m happy we have been able to do this.  We will see how things go once baby dear arrives….  I have lots of help  😀

 

My trellis of morning glories, they should be up at the top by August.

My little spot of lavender, it smells so lovely!

Our beans, green, purple and yellow and they are all in flower.

After the beans, comes half a row of dill and then a row of flowers.  Lavatera and calendula. Next are the tomatoes. 

The tomatoes and so far they are doing wonderfully and look great!  Some are already flowering too. 

Two rows of peppers…  growing a little slowly, but they look good. 

Pickling cucumbers

Second planting of corn, this has since been weeded and I tilled down the rows. 

Winter squash and the first planting of corn. 

This is showing the other end of the dill row, I have basil and broccoli here.  

I missed getting a picture of the section of garden between the two corn patches.  There are have some sweet potatoes, kale, and melons in one row. Carrots and radishes in another row.

 

Our long narrow garden, here I have onions, summer squashes (different varieties of zucchinis) , flowers, red cabbages, slicing cucumbers and garlic.

the zucchinis

The raspberries are ripening!  😀

So far this has been a good summer for the garden.

Now we just end to have the baby!  😀

Sweetness

Today at lunch, our 2 year old son exclaimed, “I so happy today.”  

Too cute!!!!  
 

This was last week on an afternoon he said he didnt need a nap. 😊

 

The Goat Herd

I thought I’d share a few pictures of the goat herd. I just started separating the kids at night and milking the mamas in the morning. This morning was the first morning that we had cold cereal for breakfast since I’ve been milking and some of the children told me they liked the milk!  I agree the milk is good and you can’t tell it’s from a goat.
Back to the goats…….

Cordelia and Cranberry  🙂 The youngest set of twins.

Our youngest daughter with the goats.  She also loves being with the goats.  She has her favourites.  😀

Our youngest trying to catch Hero.  🙂  He loves the baby goats ❤

 

  

There is Toby, our buck.  Since he has been moved away from the females, he and Izzy our calf from last year have become great friends. 

 That’s a bit about our little herd.  We also have chickens, chicks, plus a cow and her calf.  I was milking the cow, but after my trip last fall to Mongolia, I didn’t pick it back up, she was not nice to milk and now I would not try it.  I won’t risk our baby.  She is a kicker!  Goats are so much easier to handle and milk.  🙂

Spring Time on the Homestead

 

Holly and Hero

It’s been a while I know!  Life has been moving on and days are busy and full, although I do sneak in a nap just about every day.  😉

Near the end of March, our first kids (twins) were born, a week later another set of twins joined the flock and then a week later, the last doe also had twins.  Pictured above are the second set, Holly and Hero.  🙂  All the kids are white just like their daddy.  I was hoping for a bit more colour since the mama goats are black and white and one of them is mostly brown, but the kids are real sweet and so fun to watch.  We named them Max and Maddie, Holly and Hero, and Cordelia and Cranberry.  I’ll have to get  a picture of them out in the pasture.  I’ve started miking the mamas once a day and am very happy with the amount of milk they are giving.  I enjoy having our own milk!

This past week, I finally got the raspberry patch weeded and mulched.  I’ve been working slowly on this project as we have had a wet spring here and plus being now 31 weeks pregnant,  I’m not as agile as I usually am.  I’m planning on planting a garden this spring and counting on the children to help me keep it up after the baby arrives.  I love gardening and can’t imagine not having one, I’ll down size a bit….  The children are a big help and one of our daughters has already said she will pick and snap the beans this summer.  She loves doing that.  🙂

Baby news!  We are having another boy!!  This gives us 6 boys and 3 girls.  The last 4 will be all boys….  The 3 younger boys have so much fun together, it will be cute to add in another boy to the mix.  Sisters were hoping for another little sister, but God knows best and gave us a boy.  We are looking forward to meeting him and the count down is on, about 9 weeks left!  They will be busy weeks too. Still haven’t yet settled on a name for him yet.

This is a tiny update of our life here on the homestead.  🙂  I need to go out and separate the kids (goats) from their mamas for the night, so that I can milk in the morning.

Announcing……

Baby #9 is due to arrive in the middle of July!

We are all thrilled and excited for this new life that is being formed in secret at the moment.  At the end of the month, we hope to find out the gender at our 20 weeks ultrasound.

The vote here is for a girl, but only God knows what precious gift He is sending us and His ways are perfect and He knows best.

The timing of this baby was very surreal…  We found out on the weekend that my mother in law was very sick with cancer and it was also then that I bought a pregnancy test and it showed up positive right away.  So we were facing death and new life all at the same time.  This baby’s coming has been like a bright ray of sunshine during the difficult months that followed.  God’s timing is always perfect.  My mother in law’s birthday is also in July, but at the end, so this baby won’t share the same day, but will be in the same month.  Our firstborn also has a birthday in July, so she is excited to have a sibling share her birthday month as well.   Wow….  never dreamed that I’d be having a baby when my daughter turned 19!  😀

Pregnancy has been going well.  Second trimester has been filled with more energy and hardly any sickness, so that is always wonderful.

 

A bit of an update from our life here on our “homestead”.

 

 

 

 

My Mother in Law

I know I mentioned in one of my Mongolian posts about how my mother in law was staying with us and we were caring for her because she was unable to because of lung cancer.  She spent about 1 & 1/2 months here in our home, during that time she had two hospital visits.  For the most part her time here was beautiful and she thoroughly enjoyed our noisy household.  We turned our office into a room for her and even though she couldn’t leave her bed much, she enjoyed hearing the noise and being that the office was on the main floor, our children could pop in and out.

We enjoyed a lovely Christmas together, but just a couple days after Christmas, we could see that she was declining in health.  On Dec. 30, we had to make the difficult decision of moving her into palliative care.  She was just too weak for us to help and her breathing was getting worse.  We stayed night and day with her there and on Wednesday, Jan 4/17 at 11:30am, she breathed her last with my husband and mother by her side holding her hands.  I had spent the night with my husband and her and had come home to make sure the children were ok and get a shower.  I was just heading back when my husband texted me to let me know she was dying and I so wanted to be there with my husband, but it wasn’t in God’s plan.

Even though the past couple months have been difficult and filled with tears, we have beautiful memories and  God faithfully lead us each step of the way.  I’d have fears and questions pop up and I’d wonder how we would handle such and such, but every time those questions were answered and a way I never imagined.  God is good even in the difficult and sad times.

Tomorrow is going to be a difficult day. 😢 A beautiful service is planned to honour my dear mother in law. The burial will take place in the spring so it won’t be completely over tomorrow…..

Pray for comfort and peace as we go through the afternoon tomorrow.

Rest in peace, dear mother of my husband, I promise to take loving care of your dear son. ❤️❤️ I know he meant the world to you as he does to me and I’m thankful for him and for you for raising a wonderful son who became my own dear husband.

You will not be forgotten and we will treasure you always in our hearts and your memories will be shared with our children so that they will remember you too.

Helen Mary Haas

July 29/47 – Jan. 4/17

 

Mongolia Part 3

Like I mentioned in my previous post, after the few days of harvesting, we took the afternoon off and headed to a nearby hot springs.  It was about a 45 minute drive over the countryside on a path like the picture below.  Sometimes it was smooth and other times it was not so smooth!  With all of us in the mini van plus an extra couple, it was a very full van and we kept each other from hitting the sides of the van too hard.  😀

Now this was taken through the van window, so it’s not the best picture.  😉  This was a smooth part of the ride and you can see it’s just a path and not even like the gravel roads we have here in North America.  I told hubby that I’d never complain about our gravel road that we live on.  LOL 

One of the deeper rivers we had to drive through…  Reminded me of Little House on The Prairie!  😀

A body was water we passed on route to the hot springs

Many Mongolians live in Gers/Yurts, you can see a couple here in the picture. 

When we left home it was sunny and warm, but as we drove towards the hot springs, I could see that the sky was darkening and it looked like a storm was coming.  Sure enough we just get parked and the wind picks up, the sky is dark and it starts to snow!  We were all afraid, that we wouldn’t be able to enjoy the hot springs, but after a few minutes we saw that blue sky was coming our way and by the time we found an open spring and changed, the sun came out.  The air was still cool, but the water was lovely.  Joel at first wasn’t sure what to think, but when he realized he could stand, he relaxed and enjoyed playing with our friends children.  One pool was a bit cooler then the others so the children claimed that one, while we adults enjoyed the hot pool.  That one you could sit in for a while, but then you had to stand up and cool off a bit before returning back to the water.  It was so relaxing for our tired muscles.

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You may have noticed the cows just roaming free in the pictures.  In Mongolia, all the farm animals roam free, when driving you often have to stop for cows, sheep, goats or horses as the cross the path.   Such a different experience and when I saw the flocks of goats and sheep, I thought back to how this is what it must have looked in Bible times.

 

Part 4 will be about our trip back to UB and the sight seeing were did there in the days remaining until our return trip home.  We were gone a total of two weeks and they just flew by!

Mongolia – Part 2

He loved this kitten so much.  Her name was Ellie 😀

It was so good to arrive at our friend’s home and have the long flights behind us.  We had traveled over 16 hours in a plane and then 7 hours by van. So unloading the suitcases and making ourselves at home was nice.  We had brought over many things for our friends, so it was almost like Christmas with all the goodies.  LOL   Our first day was spent visiting, napping and more visiting.  During that whole week we spent at our friends house, we helped harvest their carrots, potatoes, cabbages, beets and turnips.   Plus I helped the children do school and of course, we enjoyed lots of visiting.

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Such a precious smile!  He was such a perfect traveler, it was amazing. 

 

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The days were packed full, but it was so good to be there helping and  we made such special memories.  I was expecting the days to be colder, but a few afternoons, it was warm enough to be outside without a jacket.  Once the sun disappeared behind the hills, or the wind picked up, it cooled down quickly.  So you kept your jacket close.  We worked hard each day and on Thursday, or actually it may have been Friday, that we took a trip across the countryside to some hot springs.  More on that in Part 3 🙂

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I just wanted to add a short side note here…

My hubby’s mom was diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer  last month.  She has come to stay with us when not in the hospital, because she is unable to take care of herself.  We are taking it one day at a time here as we don’t know how she will be feeling from one day to the next.  Thankfully she is not in pain, but she is very short of breath and has to be on oxygen all the time.  We are trying many natural treatments and she may start chemo next week depending on how she is feeling.   She is very weak and the doctor is concerned to try chemo because of that.  Prayers appreciated for her and that she would feel God’s peace surrounding her.  It’s hard, but God’s grace has been sustaining us all through this.

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Mongolia – Part 1

Happy faces before our flight to Beijing 🙂

This past September, our second oldest daughter, our youngest son and I took a trip the far way land of Mongolia.   Why Mongolia you may ask??  The reason was we really wanted to visit some friends there as our daughter’s best friend lives there with her family.   We left on a Wednesday evening and arrived in Beijing Thursday evening and that is when the “fun” began. We had just a 2 hour layover and since we arrived late, had to collect our luggage and catch the 20 or so minute shuttle bus to another terminal, we arrived at that check in just 10 minutes before our next plane was to leave.  We were told the check in was already closed and we had to wait until the next flight the next evening.  Talk about disappointing and scary!   After a numerous times, I was able to finally get on wifi and let my hubby know back home that we missed our flight and ask him to let our friends know.  I was in tears, but felt peace that God was going to take care of us.    We found some benches and tried to slept.  That was one long night…..  The next morning at 9am I called the airline we were taking and told them my story and they told me that seats were available on the evening flight, but they  could not hold any for me.  They told me to come to the check in at 6pm.  So I spent the day praying that we would get on that flight.  Thankfully our youngest was such a great traveler and we nap and just walked around the terminal.  6pm comes and I go to check in and hear the dreaded news, “I’m sorry, but there are no seats available.”  I was in tears, I could not imagine another night and day in the airport.  I told them that and they said come back at 8pm.  So that whole time I’m pleading with God to please get on us that plane.  Finally it’s 8pm, I go to check in and they call me over and start filling out forms and check in our luggage  and the next thing I know I have real tickets in my hand!  Thank you Lord!!  (I should mention that they said maybe we could go on standby) But here we had real tickets with seat numbers and the girl told us to hurry to your gate.  So off we ran! My poor daughter was feeling a bit sick and struggled to keep up with her mom, but I was not going to miss that plane!  LOL  We were one of the last people on the plane, but I was just so happy to be on the plane!!

Landing in Mongolia and picking up our luggage was uneventful and quick and the next thing we knew we were with familiar faces.  Such joy!!

We had a 7 hour drive to our friend’s home.  Most was at night, so we didn’t see the landscape on route until our way back to the airport just a week later.

I’ll share more about our trip and try to update on what’s going on here at our homestead too.  Much to share.

More coming!