Hickory Horned Devil Catapiller

Really neat catapiller Katie's Great Uncle Brady caught for her. It was about the size of a hot dog. It looks pretty gross, but it does not bite. It lives in trees during the pupa stage, then falls to the ground and burrows under for about 2 years, it turns into the Royal moth (the moth with a 6 inch wingspan).

Katie and a few of her friends.

We had a church campout last weekend and the girls had a great time. I got them to slow down for a minute to take this picure...

From L-R (kinda..) we have

Grace Bailey, Aubrey Young, Katie Boytim, Eva Harris, Marot Smith, and Claire Stevens. They make up most of our Little Women of Virtue group. I think only Rebecca Robison and Emma Reith are missing. Little Women of Virtue is a girls group that we go to every other Friday and it teached the girls different "girl" stuff like sewing, latchhook, baking, manners, etc...

Card, Bella, Sara, and Lauren

The Guthrie girl, Card and Bella

We had a work day at Debra Rayberns ( a widow from our church) and this is where Card and Bella stayed. Card LOVES the girls and Bella is getting fond of them too. The girls actually babysat for us this last week so we could go Christmas shopping.

Arabella 9 months

Arabella Colleen Boytim
9 months old

Bella is standing all by self these day. That is until mommy yells "YEA!!", at which point Bella gets frightened and sits down. She enjoys playing "tea" and "house" with her sister and "screa," with her brother. I guess "scream" is a way of communication among little ones- they really enjoy it until mommy's nerves get rattled.

Rough day for the animals.....

The kids a couple of weeks ago.
Katie is still 8, Card is 2, and Arabella is 9 months old now!!!

Rough day for the animals today. We built a yard for the ducks, but made it where you could open the door to the duck coop and it became the door for the yard. We figured we would just see how the doves did (we have been told that they do not go far). They did not go far, but they also can not go very high. I think their wings are too weak from being in a coop all the time. So they could not really get off the ground when are dogs come by....... well having a bird dog and one very good hunter dog..... yep- one of the doves became doggy food today. By the way, the other doves flew back into the coop- I guess they are smarter than we thought.....
So fast forward a few hours----- Blue, the famous Bette, who lived approx. 7 YEARS, died this afternoon. Katie mentioned that it has just not been her day today. Poor girl, losing two pets in one day. We will probably replace the fish tomorrow and Will is buying a gate for the duck yard so we can let the ducks out and leave the doves in. We will eventually enclose the yard so the doves can fly around it and not get out. That is not very high on our list of "to do" things though. Now we just have to keep Ralph the bird dog out of the duck yard and we will be good.

Katie and one of the doves. We have three now and we are hoping we will have baby doves soon. We also have aquired two goats.....pictures coming soon!

Card on his fire engine!

His Nanny got him this for his second birthday. Yes, it is VERY loud also. We cant seem to find where the batteries go----guess it will just not play music anymore- darn......

"I'm cute but tough, I'm a rescue pup, I'm comin' your way, so dont give up. If you need me, just give a yelp, I'll be right there when you need help"

Over and over and over................

Mama!!

Bella and Mama a couple of months ago at the Atkins house. We were celebrating the birth of their newest one- number 4- Mr. Nathan Atkins arrived in July (sorry I dont know the exact date).

Card blowing out his birthday candle. He was two years old on Sept. 2nd, 2006! We had a small party with a few friends and family. Home made ice cream and cake were the highlights (especially the ice cream- thanks Dad!)

Card loved the "trac-trac" on his cake and the fire engine Nanny got him.

Bella and Card with Mom-Mom.
They have really enjoyed having the grandparents here. They can hardly wait for them to be here full time- Hurry and retire Mom-Mom and Dad-Dad!!!!

Bella

Bella has been pulling up for awhile now! Here she is today.

She is 8 months old tomorrow (October 8th). She is crawling everywhere and has been pulling up for about a month now. Here is is waiting on Mama to give her a bite of bread. She is growing SO fast.

Update on us-----

Lets see, Card is potty trained- YEA!! He was two on Sept. 2nd. He had a great "John Deere" birthday cake which he enjoyed day after day. He got the last piece too. He is growing up so fast. He has started talking in complete sentences and runs outside all day long. Even today, in the rain and mud- he finds he LOVES the mud.

Katie is still taking piano and doing quite well in it. Her daddy does her math with her at night and they are having a good time with it. She is hoping to take horsemanship again at camp next year and wants to be in their annual rodeo. The camp has actually offered to let us pasture a horse during the winter months- that is when we get some pasture! and fence!

Bella- crawling, standing, smiling, all the usual baby stuff. She and her brother love each other immensly and crack each other up. She has started eating solid food- last night was her first- she had some banana. Today she had wheat cereal and banana/avacado. My she is growing fast.

Will and I- raising kids, dogs, birds, fence, and all the other farm stuff! Hoping to have some goats soon- at least Bev is :) Maybe some chickens in the near future too. We have two gardens going and are working hard on 2 or 3 more.

Card riding a "cow"- he refused to call it anything else! He went on a 45 minute trail ride with me and Katie. We had a great time!

Katie riding on the "water weenie" (their name, not mine!) She has the Diclementi kids with her. We had such a great time at family camp- we rode horses, shot guns, played games, the infamous shaving cream slide, and ate lots of not to good for you camp food.

Katie and Daddy building the chicken coop

Tried to build a chicken coop this weekend, but got rained out. We went to visit some friends later in the evening and had a great time. Today I tried to lay down for a nap, but Bell woke up as soon as I came in the room. I layed down anyway and when I sneaked a peak at her she was sitting up in her crib! All by herself! She has been sitting if we put her in the position, but she did it all alone today! Then of course she had to show off and pull herself up. I guess we will be moving the matress down a notch. Did not get much done today- it was hot outside and in. Hopefully after dinner we can get started on the coop. It is hard to do farm work alone with three kids, so we wait until daddy gets home to do most of it. Katie is still a huge help around here. Not sure what I would do without her! Hope to see everyone soon :)

Card is modeling his new John Deere apron. He loves to "cook" everything he can get his hands on! I know he looks a bit dirty- he stays that way around here, and he loves it. I often "hose" him off two or three times a day. He usually needs some type of rinsing before he even enters the house. Will keeps reminding me of the book he read awhile back about a boy (true story) and his brothers that were not allowed in the house during the week. They ate and slept on the front porch because they were to dirty to come in. On Saturday nights they were brought in and bathed for church on Sunday and those were the only two nights they slept inside. I am not sure I am ready to go that far yet. Maybe when I have 4 or 5 dirty boys............
Everyone is doing great here. Bell is crawling around and I caught her pulling herself up a few days ago. She now pulls up to standing on everything she can crawl over too. My this is going by so fast! Katie is becoming quite the young lady. Sewing things, washing clothes (we do let her use the washing machine occasionally) , loading/unloading the dishwasher. She is such a help here! We are going to be making a batch of soap soon. We are trying to get some Lye, it has become quite a task as we are finding that most places are not allowed to carry it anymore. We have happend upon two doves (they had an egg, but it got broken) and we are building them a coop today and tomorrow. It will be a chicken/dove coop and we will be getting some baby chicks soon! YEA! We might have 3 less dogs soon- maybe we can teach the chickens to be guard chickens....... Well I am off for now, as usual there are a millon things to get done.
Oh yes, we will going to family camp next weekend. I will try to post some good pictures :)

If you want to see the pictures bigger just click on them and it will open them......just be sure to click your back button and not close the window!

Myself and couple friends at a Women of Grace meeting. This is Me and Bella (in the pouch), Nikki Nixon with her little one Hope, and Shannon Robison.

Me and my daddy!