Rock House Updates

It looks pretty much the same on the outside but its going really well on the inside.
This is my kitchen sink area, the windows area really deep so it will be fun to put pretties there to grow. The view is my garden which will be really great for keeping an eye on things. I am used to gardening either at the neighbors house or in this garden which has been 3 miles down the road. Hard to find little moments, this spring will be THE SPRING! The year of gardening has finally come!
Not to brag or anything but like this is seriously at least twice as big as our fridge now and I could not believe it when my husband bought it! We did get a great deal because of the dents you see but really, hello, magnets and pretty pictures will cover those up! This is called child friendly stainless steel because it does not leave finger prints. I am so excited! Do you see the floor is in too! It is going to be really easy to hide dirt, no more foot prints after mama mops!!!
This is the master bedroom closet and Job's room. His crib will fit straight ahead. This will be a nice quiet area for him because he is nestled under the stairs and behind the bathroom to muffle out loud noises-I hope :)
See the nice carpet! A gift from a family member who tore it up and did not want it anymore! What a blessing. I love carpet, its so soft and squishy and warm in the mornings and easy to vacuum.
Upstairs boys loft, its kinda like a space ship. The floor is beautiful and they have great lighting up here. Such neat little spaces too. It will be fun to start scratching this nest.
This is their bathroom, off of their room. They have a shower, sink and toilet.
Again, just different view of the boys space. The square holes in the wall will be crawl spaces and I am trying to talk Joe into making one of them into a sort of play spot for little ones to play. Perhaps he'll change his mind on extras like this when the house is all done. Till then he is like "Are you kidding me??"
The stairs and family room are right off of the kitchen. The hutch was $20 at the Salvation Army. I am going to paint it and put my spices and dishes in it.
Looking from Family room to kitchen, I got the coffee table also at the Salvation Army and plan to sand it down and make it pretty. It has drawers for extra storage.
We also needed couches and found this beautiful one for only $60 at the Salvation Army along with the chair. The dark objects are beautiful book shelves we found at a re-store. We bought three for a great price! I just love that GOD is blessing me with new furniture because what we have now is all handed down and very much loved yet very much on its way out. How fun to start all over in a new house with so many new things :))))
The oven will run of of propane and my washer and dryer will go under the cabinet to your left.
The kitchen with all its appliances and cupboards all costed less than the fridge we bought had we bought it at Home Depot!
This will clean up to be the master bedroom, again I love the carpet! I think we will be moving soon!!! I have been a patient girl for 3 years and it has all paid off with all this beautiful work!

Wholesome Swimwear Sale

Heaven, Noah and Joshua are on their way to Hawaii in March with Gma and Gpa Messenger-what a treat right!

Anyways Heaven's Grandma said she needed to bring two swimming suits so we were really excited that right now Wholesome Swimwear is having a 40% clearance sale!!! That means we only had to pay $50 for a swimming suit.

Are you kidding me, $50!!! Lets not talk about it anymore.

I just know that its worth it, my daughter will look beautiful and feminine and not have to compromise her level of modesty! Hip hip hooray for Wholesome Swimwear!!!

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About A Cow By Heaven Olivia

It is me again, and I am going to tell you about getting a cow. First thing first is you have to buy it. (We got a heifer calf ) You could get it as a full grown cow or a calf. Your best bet is an honest neighbor who would like to see you and the cow succeed, but if your neighbor does not have a cow or does not want to sell you their cow you can go to a dairy, that is where we got ours, but I would not recommend getting one at auction because you do not know if it is going to live. About all of the people I know who have bought a calf at the auction end up with a dead calf. (including one of ours )

But if you were going to get a full grown one, there are thing that you have to watch out for like if her udder and teats aren't in good order and if she is not carrying a calf and a couple of other thing but it would take so long that I would not have enough time to write the rest of this post .

" Bucket feeding " there are arguments about whether it or it is isn't easier to teach a calf to drink from a bucket if you do not have a mother cow. If it does not catch on immediately do not get irritated at her because some catch on easier then other 's but if you have it's mother you probably will not have to feed her. Oh, and if you get it from an auction it will be very hungry so bring a bottle with you with what ever you are going to feed her when you get home. How you can tell if you are getting a girl is it's number tag will be on it's (if you are getting one from the auction ) belly and the boy's will be farther down. If you have a question ask some one how works there. Well I will tell you more about the cow later . enjoy you're cow or calf !!! this is the end of part 1

Note from the mama. Heaven mentioned that we had a calf die from the auction but we also had one live too:) The calves are taken from their mama's right away, they usually don't even get to eat first so they show up at the auctions half starved and that is why it is important to show up with a baba of milk-milk for your baby-baby. Heaven thinks my baby talk is really weird, I just really like these little bottle calves!

MEET OUR FAMILY!!! BY HEAVEN

Ladies and gentelmen, our faithful blog readers and friends today Giant Oaks has exciting things hapening to share with you :) We have a gust contributer, Heaven Olivia is 10 years old and likes to bake, write stories, listen to Lamp Lighter Theater and Your Story Hour's and read books about dogs and horses. She is a blessing to her family, loving her siblings and mama and daddy in so many ways. She asked if she could share a few things about our family on our blog. ***Please be generous on the comments! *****

Here she is above showing her clean bedroom door and below with cookies ready to bake!
Below is what our school looks like around the table, gotta love the baby :)

Hi, my name is Heaven. I am going to tell you a little about our family. First there is (out of the kid 's ) Noah, he is 13. When he gets up in the morning he reads the Bible and then goes and feeds the chickens (we used to have a pig but it died ) and then he takes a shower and then it is breakfast time . After breakfast we clean up and dad and a boy go to the property and we start school. After school we have lunch . And we clean up and Eve and Simeon & Job go down for a nap and we read books or play . After nap time we clean the house. ( dad is probably home) we start dinner.We clean up A little more and then it is time to eat. After we eat we clean up and then Mom reads our book called Bruchko and then Dad reads the bible .Then we go to bed . THE END!!!

Terrible Life Update

Proverbs 31:31

Give her of the fruit of her hands; and let her own works praise her in the gates.

Here is what we did, see the sign behind Eve that says, "Eve cleans the bathroom". Now everyone that comes into the bathroom will see how sparkly clean it is and know that Eve did it by herself. Every day she gets to clean the bathroom, we even made her own cleaning solution with vinegar and borax and she chose lavender to scent it with. She is very excited. We also gave her the job of setting the table and let me tell you we were all so impressed tonight. With no help she was climbing on cupboards to get what she wanted, she picked out a table cloth and matched the dishes and even thought it took at least half an hour Joe had trouble believing that she did it all on her own. She is an artist and just needs time to "paint" her jobs.

Meet Angel

Angel Baby was born in a goat barn the coupe and there for does not want to eat or play ruffly with chickens :) She is a Great Pyrenees cross and is absolutely adorable! Here she is at almost 3 months old! Look how big she is already! Heaven wants to say a few things about Angel.

"This is Angel she is about 3 moths old and look at how big she is! I got her as a Christmas present. I named her angel because she is going to be a guarding angel for the chickens. (We thought of A bunch of names like Molly and a bunch of other names ) on Christmas day dad said, " Heaven come hear, I do not know how to say this but how would you like to get a puppy ?" And of course I said "YES!!!" So the next day me and my dad and Micah went to the Moody's house & I got to to pick out angel and bring her home .(HOW EXCITING !!!) When we got home everyone was so excited that we finally got a dog! When we got home we put her in to the chicken coop .(Because she will protect the chickens. ) She cried A little that night. In the morning we let her get used to us. (A couple of weeks later ) when the snow came she HAD A BLAST!!! Well that is it . (Oh and A couple of days ago I tried to get her to pull A sled but she did not like that !!)

A Terrible Life

I am sitting on the couch last night talking on the phone to my sister in law about a great book a friend had picked up and left at our house. The Liver and Gal Bladder Miracle Cleanse, just by the title I am sure you are all as interested as I was when I first saw it too. Press on past the boring title and check it out at your library or just buy it because it is SO interesting! As I was reading it I thought to myself, "My sister in law needs to get this book and make my brother do this cleanse!" So I was reading little blips of it to her on the phone and we were chit chatting about this and that when my little darling came and sat by me crying and said, "Mama, has anyone ever told you that I have a terrible life!"

OK a little more history, this child is upset because after dinner their job is to clear the table. This child is naturally slow so we really have to keep on her. Last night I watching her "clear" the table and realized that she was not even trying so I said we would set the timer and in 5 minutes it needed to be done. 5 minutes later she was not done, she had forgotten about the timer and played more. I had just checked out a Thomas the Train movie from the library that day and the children were watching it, yes all but the 13 year old get sucked in to Thomas :) I tolled her that she would not be able to watch the movie with them, ouch! I think she would have traded a spanking for the movie in a heart beat. She started to cry and barter. "Mom can I do work to earn back the movie..."

"No"I stood firm, wanting this to forever put an end to the pokeyness of clearing the table.

Tears...more tears.

I tolled her she could look at a book or color, she didn't want to. I handed out cookies for dessert, she wanted those but she was still really bent out of shape about the whole thing.

Now I am on the phone, ignoring the melt down coming from her bedroom. It hurts when you cant watch Thomas the Train at our house. This consequence was perfect and was going to be the break through we needed, I was not about to melt. This is when she comes in to ask me if my heart was filled with sadness. I didn't say anything to her, I was on the phone and my heart was not troubled. That is when she got my attention by saying that she had a terrible life.

Are you kidding me??? A terrible life! This little girl got cookies, juice, chicken nuggets, a Wendy's Hamburger, a day to town with mom and dad and she comes home and says she has a terrible life! I excused myself from the phone call and talked to her about believing lies that the enemy wants us to believe, lies he will whisper to us till the day we die, tempting us to not be thankful, to not be content. Then I broke out the youtube videos of starving children, naked starving children. I wondered if she would think anything about their nakedness, we try to be very modest in our home with how we ourselves get dressed to what we put in font of our eyes. These children were very naked,the breasts of the naked mothers trying to nurse were nothing, nothing but collapsed skin.

As we watched the videos I would ask her, "Do you think that baby think that you have a terrible life?" "No." She was seeing. We talked and talked and watched and watched. Our hearts breaking for these little lives, precious lives-a terrible circumstance but their lives are precious still, not terrible. One child holding another child on a hip and holding a dirty old bowl with some white liquid in the other hand smiled like it was Christmas. Probably because their was food in that dirty bowl.

As I went to bed last night I thought about why this child would say such a thing to begin with. None of my other children have ever said anything like it. I realized this one has one job, to clear the table. She is cute and sweet and has a lot of older siblings to do the chores. She wakes up, gets dressed and begins her day of play. There are very few things I require of her. I realized we have created an environment for her, a false one that send the message that we are here to serve. Here to serve her.

We know that it is more blessed to give than to receive, when we give we receive much. When we are always on the receiving end we only want to receive more. This is where her heart is, how easy to believe a lie then. I remember when Heaven was just 5, cleaning the bathroom cheerfully by her own self, cleaning her bedroom, helping in the kitchen. Setting and clearing the table and doing it quickly with a smile. Heaven now has a heart that bakes bread and takes it to our neighbors with Bible tracts. In the midst of this snow storm we are having she grabs her brothers and shovels and asks if they can go shovel snow for an elderly neighbor. Her heart loves to give, her eyes have grown up seeing what needs to be done.

I know that little one who thought that their life was terrible may not at first love the idea of taking over the bathroom cleaning job or the bedroom cleaning job or adding setting the table to the already burden of clearing it. She may think she is Cinderella. This won't be easy for me, I am going to have to remember to delegate down to her. I have multiple children I have already spent years training who can clean bathrooms and set tables much faster than she will be able to. This will be inconvenient for both of us but I know that she will not be a happy girl now and will only continue to grow up into an unhappy lady,mama, wife etc.

The Lord says He chastises those He loves, may I see my own chastisements as love and a chance to grow rather than cruel punishment and may this child also learn this lesson quickly. May God ever be at work in our hearts and may our hearts ever be open to Gods work.