Merry Christmas

Wallace with my Dad Jim on 12-24-12. The boy is laughing and in the other photo stroking my Dad's beard. Wallace loves to brush his own "beard".

 Wallace with Alexis, Dylan's Mama on 12-25-12

Wallace with My Mama Linda on 12-24-12. He is enjoying his dinner!

Wallace with Dylan and Craig, Dylan's Dad on 12-25-12

We have some happy news about our livestock! This sounds sad at first: our buck ran away. He climbed out of his cage and vanished. We were set to move in a few days and resolved to buy a new buck once we were settled on the new property. When we went to move the two remaining rabbits Dylan put them into the same transport cage and put them on the trailer. They immediately started mating!!!!!  I was overjoyed. Dylan had already got the rabbits a large warren for the new property instead of the smaller cages we had them in. The rabbits are now in love and they live together in a great big pen with lots of space to hop and play. They cuddle and kiss and groom each other. We are hoping the female Bonnie is pregnant. I made her a nest box and I plan on giving it to her at the end of the month. The gestation of a rabbit is 29-31 days. Most rabbits will give birth on the 30th day. Our buck is named Snowball and he is the sweetest.

We got a wood stove for our house. Even with two heaters we were having a hard time keeping the house above 45 degrees. Wallace had a fever and we were all ready for a solution. With our stove the house easily stays in the 70's. The other night it was even been up to 94 degrees accidentally. With 100 acres of deadfall there is no shortage of wood to be gathered! I like to watch my handsome husband chop wood from the bedroom window ;)

 Wallace is talking a lot more; he also has more signs he uses. As of today he has 12 teeth, is 33 inches tall and weighs 24 pounds. He is learning to use the potty. He sits on the potty with all his clothes on and makes farting sounds with his mouth and then we change his poopy pants. He makes animal sounds. He moos and barks and he makes a ribbit sound. He spends most of his inside time eating, playing with puppets, dancing, looking out the window mooing and barking or reading books.

 Our new property is wonderful. Our main road is a dear highway of sorts. Every single time we are leaving the property we see dear. We have even interrupted two four point bucks battling. They just stopped and moseyed off to finish their fight.

Every day we see at least 5 deer most days it's more like 15. We see cows every day and Wallace loves to MOOOOOOOOO at

 Just this past week I went out side to talk to Dylan for just a minuet and when I came back onto the house I found Wallace sitting in the bowl of our toilet pooping. I was horrified! Dylan was very proud.

This is Willow keeping an eye on her chickens at my in-laws house this morning. We have many streams and small rivers on the property. Some if them even have drainage tunnels laid across them and road built on top. Here is a picture of one when the weather is fine. When it's storming it flows over the road and is easily 30 feet wide. This particular river has a lot of debris to clean out of it like old tires, appliances and even parts of car bodies.

 

This picture is of an old cellar from one of the demolished homesteads. There is an uncountable amount of old appliances inside of this pit.

 On Friday 12-21 we drove up the mountain about 20 minuets to the town of Paradise and it was snowing. We decided to drive up the Skyway a few more miles through the town of Magalia up to Sterling City. They were snowed in up there with no power. I keep giggling at the idea of the Mayan 2012 end of the world prophecy being for that day and these people waking up snowed in with no power. I wonder if any of them thought the world really had ended? All that snow was only a half hour away from our farm. I wonder if we will see snow in Oregon City this year?

Wallace went to see Santa at the Home Depot. He wasn’t scared but he was not his usual smiley self. He sat very still with his hands together and just stared at Santa.

This is my belly today 12-25-12

 We have chosen the name Helena for our baby girl. Helena pronounced like Helena of Troy. I can tell she is going to be a small baby. I feel her moving all the time now. Wallace either kisses and hugs my belly or hits and kicks at it. He understands that there is a change coming and that my belly is the source of it. When I'm not feeling well he knows it's my belly’s fault and he is mad at it. I have been showing him photos of myself when I was heavily pregnant with him and pictures of him as a new born. I explain that I have a new baby in my belly and he hugs sister and gives her kisses. I think he understands what is going on.  My main complaint is headaches. I am tired and I have heart burn like every other pregnant lady but these daily headaches are the worst!!

Wallace eating Ketchup for the first time

It's a Girl!!!

Once again this entry will be comprised of journal entry’s from newest to oldest. We are in Winters today. There is a massive storm here!

We moved this past week. We moved onto a 100-acre cattle ranch. It is very primitive and isolated but so far we are loving it and getting used to it. We have no Internet yet sadly.  We have been looking into satellite Internet but we have not made any decisions yet.

It's Thanksgiving today and I have a lot to be thankful for!

Wallace is big and healthy. He has 12 teeth. He walks, runs and climbs. He jumps and throws stuff. He knows some sign language: eat and more. He says some words: Chick, stick, Chicken, cheese, yes, Mama, hi, bye, teeth, that, uh-oh, wow, Papa, yummm, weeeeee. He has more words than that but those are the ones he uses often.

Wallace Is a definite challenge sometimes. He is strong willed and smart. He will follow nearly any command except "stop". Today he grabbed the iron off the counter. He got in big trouble. It's hard on Dylan and I having to be the disciplinarians. When Wallace is acting up I feel like all I am is the mean Mama. Yelling and swatting. Holding  down, and talking sternly. It honestly blows, but it is not a constant.

 Dylan is looking good. His leg if still broken but he gets around well.

We are moving! We are leasing a 100-acre ranch. It is on Table Mountain in Oroville. It has five old homestead’s from Oregon City, a demolished mining town, on it. The property has a large roofed hay barn area that's fenced in on it.

It is a cattle ranch. Grass fed cattle. It has a pond dug onto it that will soon fill up and be stocked with tilapia!

 We were gone from home for nearly two weeks this September. Jordan and Becky got married. We went down to Winters for the bridal shower and we got sick :( We decided to stay until after Dylan’s Dr app in Sacramento. We got to visit with lots of family who came up for the wedding. It was such an unlikely blessing to get sick. The wedding was lovely! Jordan wore a kilt and they had a bagpipe player. Wallace did a lot of dancing at the reception. Nearly the entire time there was music playing Wallace was cutting a rug either in someone’s arms or on the floor.

 We have chickens now. We lost our Buck, he ran away and we have lost 5 ducks and a chicken to a bobcat. Dylan sold 11 of our ducks. And we bought a canoe with the money. We have had a good time paddling around on the after bay here in Oroville.

 Wallace and feed the ducks in the mornings. Wallace throws food to them and he also let's them take food out of his hands. We let them nibble our fingers and Wallace likes to put his face against the fence so they nibble his nose and his hair. They are harmless and very friendly. Po-Po and her 4 ducklings are the sweet ducks that we play with. Bon-Bon comes over for food with Po-Po and her brood but she still doesn’t take food from our hands. We bought feeder goldfish and put them into the pond for the ducks to eat. Dylan even hand fed Blue a fish. She really is an exceptional duck.

Wallace and I have also started feeding the rabbits. We pet them, Wallace loves it.

 I like being a farmer’s wife. It took a bit of getting used to for sure but farm life suits me well. I am fit, I eat well and I'm happy. I live close to the ground. I feel a profound connection to my creator God living this way.

“God may not always come when you call, but he's always on time.”

-       Lemon

 I made a quilt for cousin Jessica. She had her baby Brooklyn on October 17^th. I haven’t seen her yet but from what I know she is amazing!

  

Wallace is 16 months old now! He got his 9th tooth today. He weighs 23.6 pounds and he is 33 inches tall.

Wallace has been hungry all day! He has literally eaten more food today than ever before. He ate one and a half string cheeses, about 20 oat meal squares, a quarter cup of peas 2-3 peas at a time, grapes, a box of raisins, baby carrots, avocado, a small tomato, pear, peanut butter and jam, corn chips and an entire hash brown. He took a two hr nap right after he ate the hash brown.

He said 'eat' tonight after he woke up from his nap. He was pointing at the cupboard "eat," then he turned and pointed at the fridge and said, "eat, eat!" I said, "do you want something to eat?"  He started shaking his head yes and stomping his feet.

  

Wallace speaks his own sign language. He shakes his head yes and no. He has other head and hand movements (some with sounds) that mean: what, more, bite, want.... I'm sure there's more.

 He understands a great number of things. We talk all day; he knows his nose, mouth, head, feet, tushie. He knows cup and hat. He knows his different toys and brings them to us. We read all day long.

 So for Halloween Wallace was an elephant. Nicole and I took the babies to the library for a Halloween party. We baked pumpkin pie from real pumpkins and made a delicious dinner. It was a lot of fun!

 I have made a friend! Her name is Nicole and she has a little girl named Tari 6 months younger than Wallace. It is so strange to tell him, "be careful of the baby!" She lives about one mile away from me. We go over to her house to play. She has become a real sister for me and I am so thankful for her and her family.

 Dylan's leg has not healed at all in 4 months. We are waiting to see if he has any more progress before more surgeries are scheduled. He is using a bone stimulator that is FDA approved. We are praying for healing! God is good!

 Wallace feeds himself with a spoon now!!! he is such a big boy! This picture is from today 12-2-2012.

 I am half way through my pregnancy with our first girl. We could not be happier about our growing family! I am doing very well. I'm not gaining much weight. I have a lot of headaches. I felt much worse with my last pregnancy. I feel the baby move a lot and Dylan has even felt her jumping around