Temple, Beach and Barf

Natalee, Haylee, Mackenzie and Kelsey in front of the Los Angeles Temple

      Yesterday (May 29, 2010) was Stake Temple Day.  About a year and a half ago, we started spending the night at the temple apartments to be able to attend the temple with the girls.  We get there in the evening, and one of us usually does an evening session and the other does a morning session.  Then we take the kids to do something fun.  Unfortunately, we were about 15 minutes too late for the last session.  It used to be at 8:30pm and we didn't realize that they had changed it to 8:00.  So Daren kindly got up and did the 5:30am session in the morning and I did the 8:30am session.  We slept (mostly) while Daren was in the temple.  While I was in the temple, Daren and the girls walked around the temple grounds and took LOTS of pictures.

Natalee and Haylee started fighting so Daren snapped a picture-they stopped immediately, horrified that he took a picture of them fighting at the temple!

   

      Natalee then got a turn with the camera.  She loved taking pictures of the beautiful temple grounds.  And I must say that she did a great job!  These are Natalee's temple pictures:

     We decided to go to the beach for our after-temple fun for this trip.  We went to the Santa Monica Beach, nice and close to the temple.  We hadn't been since last summer and it was such a difference.  Mackenzie was a brave one this time.  Last year she wouldn't even let the water touch her feet if she wasn't holding hands with either Daren or me.  Kelsey didn't like to get her feet wet but I think that's because the water was FREEZING!  It didn't stop Natalee, Haylee, and Mackenzie though.  They had a lot of fun playing in the water, while Kelsey stuck to digging in the sand.

     Daren made Haylee into a mermaid, but she was the only one that got to do that this time.  Just as Natalee was asking Daren to dig her into the sand, Kelsey started throwing up.  Luckily, it isn't that big of a deal to throw up into the beach dirt.  We immediately packed up and headed home for a very LONG drive.  Kelsey threw up several times on the way home.  I sat next to her so I could help her and keep it contained.  We just felt very blessed that we were able to get to the temple before Kelsey got sick.  Since my due date is July 21, we aren't planning on traveling again until after the baby is born.  We're much more careful about that ever since Kelsey was born almost a month early.

    We did get some cute pictures at the beach before the barfing began. :)

Hard to tell that she's about to get very sick, isn't it?

Getting cleaned up-she had to borrow my sunglasses since we'd already taken down the shade.

Sound asleep most of the drive home.

     Daren would be 'bummed' (hahaha) if I didn't mention the part about the hobo.  A beach hobo walked past us and I was feeling sorry for him.  We had brought so much food, a lot of it individually packaged.  He stopped not far down the beach from us.  I told Daren that we should give some food to him, but he was nervous about having me go up to a beach hobo so he said he would do it.  He walked over to the guy just as the waves started splashing all over his sleeping bag.  He pulled his sleeping bag a few feet higher up the shore and offered the man some food.  He said, "No thanks," so Daren walked back with the food.  He wasn't sure if the guy was annoyed that he'd touched his sleeping back because then the guy kept walking down the beach and left the sleeping bag behind.  Anyway, to make a long story short, I sort of put Daren in an uncomfortable situation and the guy didn't even want the food.  So he teased me about it when he came back but I don't think he really cared.  And it's always better to have offered and been denied than to wish you had offered.  If only Daren hadn't touched the sleeping bag! :)

The Year of the Goats-Part 1

Mackenzie with Casper, March 31, 2009, a day after we brought the babies home

     Last year Daren started a new hobby.  We bought 3 goats from our friends Bob and Stephanie Riedel.  Two were purebred nigerian dwarf goats-a boy (Casper) and a girl (Calypso), and one was a cute little kinder goat, also a girl (Andromeda).  Daren planned to raise them and breed them so he could have baby goats of his own and also milk the mothers.  Soon after, he decided he didn't want to wait a whole year for this experience and he bought Luna, an adult nigerian dwarf that was already pregnant.  Well, she had her baby last summer but it was stillborn.  Daren got to do the milking thing but we really hadn't gotten to raise any babies until this year.  This year, all three of our females had babies.

     Calypso was the first, on February 7, 2010, and she belongs to Haylee.  Calypso got pregnant a little bit earlier than we had intended.  We woke up one morning to find that Casper had broken into the female's pen.  We didn't know for sure what had happened, but we eventually realized that Calypso was definitely pregnant.  And sure enough, she went into labor almost exactly 5 months after the day we found Casper in their pen.  It was a Sunday morning.  Daren thought she was in labor but wasn't a 100% sure.  He said he was sure it would be within a few days.  Natalee had just been diagnosed with pink eye the day before and hadn't been on her antibiotic the full 24 hours yet.  I had to do Sharing Time so Daren stayed home with Natalee.  I remember driving up to the house after church and I saw that the van was out on the driveway.  I was sure he had made the garage into a barn so that Calypso would be in there when her baby came-which I was thinking still might be days away.  I was feeling slightly perturbed when I opened the garage door.  And there was Calypso alright-with a cute little black and white baby at her feet.  Haylee was SO excited.  She decided immediately to name the baby Breanna, after herself.  I had to admit that she was a cute little thing.  I wasn't disappointed at all that I had missed the entire birth.  We kept Breanna for 8 or 9 weeks before we found a home for her.  She now lives just around the corner and her name is Princess.

Haylee is a proud, proud mama!

Natalee with Breanna, she saw the whole delivery!

Mackenzie happy to hold Breanna

Super Shelby and the Flying Goat

Lisa says I don't post enough, so I thought I would share last night's trauma (5/20/10). I went to bed at a normal hour and was looking forward to feeling rested in the morning. We only had one kida (Kelsey) in bed with us so it looked positive. Then Shelby starts barking wildly next to our door. She often does this so I decided to stick her in the garage to let the house muffle the sound. When I opened the door, one of the goats was making a blood curdling cry. I quickly threw on some shoes, grabbed a flashlight, and rushed outside to see what was up. Shelby ran ahead of me and took off to the side of the goat enclosure, toward the source of the sound.
When I shined the flashlight over, I saw Andromeda stuck in the fence. Stuck may be an understatement. She had attempted to jump from the top of the dogloo over the fence. The front of her body cleared the fence, but her rear left leg caught in one of the woven wire webs. Her leg was wrapped tightly in a tangle of wire, and she had flopped around wildly in pain. I don't know how long she had been there, but I quickly untangled her head and neck to get them free from the fence so that she did not srangle herself. Since she has the one horn, it was not easy. Then I moved on to look the rest of her body. Only her leg was still tangled.. She was stuck tight. I lifted her up (75lbs) and she stopped screaming in pain. I tried to untangle the wire, but did not have a hand for the flashlight while I held up the goat. I held her with my right hand and traced the wire on her leg. Then
I turned her body around and was able to free her leg. I placed her on the ground as Lisa walked out to see if I needed help. She helped me check for blood and there was not any. Andromeda did not stand on her own for a few minutes, but after we checked her leg for breaks and carried her back into the cage, she stood up. Luna scolded her and butted her a few time in the head, then Andromeda walked a bit and we went inside to go back to sleep.
The next morning, Andromeda was walking fine and battled to be first on the milk stand. She has a big bruise arround her leg but is healthy, thanks to Shelby assessing the situation and going to get help.

Kelsey is TWO years old!

12 days old

     On February 1, 2008, Kelsey Rose Hardy surprised us all.  She wasn't due until the end of the month!  I thought she might come around 10 days early like Haylee and Mackenzie, but I wasn't prepared at all for her to come this early.  I didn't even have my bags packed.  I threw some things together and we rushed to the hospital, knowing from past experience how fast my labors are.  I can hardly believe that 2 years have passed!

Kelsey with a stolen piece of chocolate cake.  She just moved the stool, grabbed it, and brought it into the family room like it was nothing.  It was too cute so I told her to smile for a picture and this was the smile she gave me.

     Kelsey is such a big girl now.  Every day she surprises us with the new things she does and says.  I really enjoy watching the older girls get so much pleasure out of watching her do new things.  They always tell me, "Mom, guess what Kelsey said or did!"  Or, "Mom, come see what Kelsey's doing.  It's so cute!"  She certainly gets a lot of attention around this house.

     Kelsey is such an independent child.  She figured out early on that if she couldn't reach something, all she had to do was move the stool.  She likes to help herself to anything I accidentally leave out on the counter.  Once I left a pitcher of crystal light on the kitchen table as I was getting ready to serve dinner.  I didn't notice that she had decided to pour some in her cup.  Of course the pitcher was full and way too heavy for her so she ended up pouring the whole thing on the floor.  Then she looks up and says, "I spill it."  She also spends a lot of time at the sink washing her hands.  She loves to dress herself, which of course means her clothes are often mismatched or backwards.  If we try to help her, she says, "NO, I do it!"  She loves Melmo (Elmo) and doggies and kitties.  She really loves baby dolls.  She also loves to sing (especially action songs) and we all love to listen to her.  "Jesus Wants Me For a Sunbeam" is one of her favorites.  It has been so much fun watching her personality develop.  She brings us so much joy every day with her smiles and her sweet kisses.  We are so grateful for our little Kelsey!

Here are some pictures opening presents (note the backwards nightgown- there are princesses on the front):

     We opened presents first thing in the morning before Daren left for work.  Then that evening we had my mom, dad, and Grandma Poetschlag come over for dinner and cake and ice cream.  Her birthday cake is beautiful because my mom decorated it.  My dad actually asked where I got the cake.  I said Albertson's, just to be funny.  Daren got this concerned look on his face and asked, "Really?"  He couldn't stand it if I spent as much money as it would have cost to buy a cake (probably $15 or $20).  I said, "No, my mom decorated it."  He was so relieved but I thought it was quite a compliment to my mom that Daren thought her decorating skills were as good as professionals. 

Here are some pictures of cake and ice cream: