Visitors and deodorant

Howdy howdy.  Well we've got visitors for a few days from Ohio-- friends from camp sychar, where Daniel and I met as kids.   Their son is graduating from Air Force basic training this weekend, and so instead of getting a hotel we asked them to stay with us.  I love having people over, so this is fun for me.  Last night all us girls went out to this fun place for dinner and tea-- definitely somewhere to which I will be going back.  Ezekiel just loves having all these new people around to play with him!  

So I've stopped using deodorant.  It's great-- because I've been using the "all natural" stuff for years now but it's never really worked, so I always smelled like, oh, stinky peaches, stinky lavender, whatever.  But NOW I'm just using baking soda, and it's the best deodorant I've ever used!  I mean it works for like 2 days with no problems at all.  And i've given it a few tests, like hours of yard work in the Texas heat, walking a few miles (still in the texas heat), etc.  And it has yet to fail me!  I'm so excited because it's soooo dirt cheap and it works so sooo good.  Here's what you do: just keep a small bowl of baking soda in your bathroom, wet the tips of your fingers, stick wet fingers in baking soda, and then rub whatever is stuck on your fingers into your pits.  Tada, you will be stink-free for 2 days!  Try it and let me know what you think!

Ok I think I'm off to be productive, as Ezekiel is taking a nap.  

Home sweet home

Here it is-- our new home! Can you believe we bought it?? I still can't! But here we are, soon to be moving out of our 1600 sq ft house into a 36' fifth wheel. Wow! What an adventure!

Here is the kitchen/living room. There's a giant tv and a broken futon that we need to throw out. Natasha's washing her face (we bought the thing in Austin this past Thursday, and a few girls and I had a girls weekend planned in Austin this past weekend, so we stayed in it!)

The kitchen

The bedroom/bathroom area. Obviously the green carpet and 80's curtains are going to have to go. But overall the place is in good shape. There's a shower to the left. The whole thing will need a very good scrubbing before I'm comfortable living in it with Ezekiel, but overall it's clean. There's a brand new hot water heater and a large refridgerator. It's really not too bad in there. Very do-able!

And so begins our homesteading adventure!! Wish us luck!

And we're off

We soooo just bought a 1980-something travel trailer for $3000.  I can't believe we did it!  Forgot to take pictures cause Zeke was crying... I'll get some soon.  

On the one hand I am sooo excited to be mortgage-free (shortly... as soon as the house is sold).  On the other hand... oh my gosh.  This is crazy!  But we're really excited.  

Ok it's one in the morning and I have to be up early tomorrow.  Two dear friends and I are going to Austin for a girls getaway weekend!  We're so excited.  But I can't sleep because I keep thinking about what I can and can't fit in a travel trailer (for those of you who don't know, it's like an RV but you pull it with a pickup truck instead of driving it.  You've seen them before I'm sure).  But we're leaving early so I really need sleep cause it's going to be a long (fun) day.  But our house is boiling hot.  I just turned on the AC but it's not cool yet.  And my throat is really scratchy.  Ok going to bed now.  Wish us luck in our new adventure!  :)

It's almost time...

...for many things.  Ezekiel's about to crawl.  He said "mama" on mother's day morning!  He can sit on his own.  It's almost his birthday! 

It's also almost time for us to move.  Just nine more months here!  I can't believe it.  We called a realtor last friday and hopefully next week our house will be on the market.  I'm obsessively checking craigslist for travel trailers- we hope to buy one soon and once our house is sold,  move into it.  I'm actually really really excited about downsizing- I really can't wait.  There will be so much less stuff to clean!  We will have so much more money!  Daniel promised to buy me a laptop!  I think it's going to be good.  You know how you can take a month long trip with one suitcase, then come home and realize that you have so much crap you can live without?  It really is a relief to be able to live with less stuff.  I'm excited.  :)

It's almost time for our "garden of eatin'" to take off-- 130 baby chicks arrived this morning.  You should have seen me carrying 2 giant chirping boxes and Ezekiel in his sling out of the post office today!

I have 12 lillies blooming today.  They are so beautiful!

Happy Monday to you all!  

Team Pike: 2 Texas: 0

This is the second snake Daniel has killed in our back yard.  Right next to our back door, actually.  The first one was a 4 foot rattle snake. This one was a 5.5 foot rat snake.  It decided to eat our pet rat, blue, who had been living outside in his little home.  It crawled in through a slot in the door, ate him (hence the lump in the middle of the snake.  poor blue!!), and couldn't get out because he was too fat.  I'm too lazy to type out the whole snake-killing story, but the craziest part was when Daniel had the snake by the head with the weed clippers.... he wasn't dead, and he was wiggling all around and he actually wrapped himself around the weed clippers and up daniels arms!  You should have seen it... it was crazy!!  I was inside freaking out, and of course the camera battery was dead.  What a shame!  Anyhoo, so he starts yelling "go get an ax!!" which we don't have, so I grab Ezekiel and run next door, casually asking the neighbor if I could borrow his ax.  Run back home, leave Ezekiel inside, go outside, Daniel has the snake by the neck, I wack at him with the ax to no avail, so Daniel and I switch places and I hold him while Daniel tries to chop his head off.  Still no luck so he gets a knife and cuts off the head.  Oh man, it was horrible.  After he was dead I think I started having a panic attack because I could barely breathe and I was sobbing and shaking.  It was scary!  We had no idea if it was poisonous or not at the time, ya know?  We now know that he wasn't poisonous, and honestly I feel a little bad for him.  I mean he was just looking for food and happened to get stuck in our yard.  But still, he was right by the back door!  

This was our first lilly to bloom this year.  Many more to come!  Today there are about 6.  

Last week, my mom and my grandpa came to visit.  We had a whole lot of fun!  This is the first time Ezekiel got to meet his great grandpa!

Our church farming project is finally taking off- our baby chickens arrive tomorrow or tuesday!  We ordered 125.  In three weeks they will be big enough to go out on pasture and then we will really be rolling.  How exciting!  Speaking of this sort of thing, there is a new documentary out that is really exciting... I will just let you watch the trailer... I don't want to spoil it!  

Edit:  I like my text to be left-alligned but my pictures to be centered.  I can't get my pictures to be centered when i upload them directly from picassa.  Anyone know how to fix that??

Happy Birthday

Someone learned how to "log roll", as my mother-in-law Teresa described it.  He can now roll continuously to get to wherever he's going.  When he runs into something, he starts going back the other way.  He's also sitting up in the tripod position, where he props himself up on his hands.  What a big, big boy!  We took these photos yesterday to celebrate Grandma's birthday.  Happy Birthday mom!  And happy 9 month birthday Ezekiel!

Accepted!

Our offer on the 39 previously mentioned acres was accepted!!  Woo hoo!!  We are so excited.  What an adventure!