Meet Boots and Mario

As our homestead (at least we like to call it a homestead) grows we thought we might need some good mousers around.  Thanks to friends from school who freely gave us 2 of their litter, we now have kittens whom the kids named Boots and Mario.

 Too cute!!

 This one pictured above is Mario.  Max named this one.  He seems to be the more cuddly of the two and Abby has adopted him as her kitty.  He sits with her, follows her around, and patiently lets her carry him everywhere!

 This one above is Boots.  He seems to be the more adventuresome one and looks like he's going to be a good mouser!

Abby especially has taken to the kittens and loves them to death!  If they can survive Abby's loving they'll be good to go!

We have to keep Drew from the strangle hold!

We all love our new Boots and Mario!  Thank you Hummels!!

Springtime Sports

Spring is a busy time of year in the Garvin household.  In addition to getting the garden going and the excitement of adding something new the homestead, Jack and Samuel play baseball, Emily plays soccer, Bob coaches Jack's team, and the rest of us just go along to be cheerleaders.

Here are a few pictures from the 2014 season:

 Samuel plays for Bernies.  This is his first year in a kid pitch league.  He gets to play all the positions, but likes pitching the best.

As a 12 year old this is Jack's last year playing for Geisinger.  He has had a fun season.  This year he has figured out how to hit the ball (finally!) and mostly catches, although once in a while he pitches or plays second base.  

Emily played on the U-12 team this year even though she's only 10.  She loves to play anywhere on the field!!  God has certainly blessed this girl with a competitive spirit!  That girl is all over the field!

And here are a few pictures of the rest of us hanging out at the ballfields

 We are always stocked with plenty of snacks:)

 Abby took this picture of me.

Don't you like how his book is upside down?!

The little ones can't wait until one day they will be able to be out on the ball fields as well!!

Recent Springtime Additions

We recently planted 10 fruit trees...apple, pear, sweet cherry, plum, and peach.  When they arived in the mail there wasn't much sign of life.  Today we can see the buds starting to sprout!  Maybe in 5 years I'll be able to make a fruit pie with my own fruit!!

And thanks to the Wagner Family who passed on some bee equipment to us we also have a colony of honeybees.  Several other beekeepers that I have talked to have lost their hives to the bears so who knows if we'll ever get to harvest any honey, but its worth a try right?

 Before you bother the hive you have to smoke the bees.  This calms them so you can enter their colony to do what you need to do.

Beekeeper Bob ( a new title!)

Meet Charlie and Petunia

Our neighbor drove up one afternoon and explained that he had just bought 2 Tamworth piglets but didn't want to put them with his bigger pigs because they might get run over...and asked if we would want to keep them for him until they got bigger.  Of course we said yes!

So here are Charlie and Petunia, brother and sister!!  Apparently our neighbor has given Charlie to us and Petunia will leave when she gets big enough to live with his pigs.

They are hard to get a good picture of right now because they are constantly on the go and are pretty skiddish around us.  Apparently pigs become very friendly so we'll see.

They LOVE living with the chickens though!  They chase them around and love harrassing them.  Each night when the chickens come into the coop to roost the pigs have a great time chasing them away.  Half of our flock has given up on sleeping in the coop and have gone to roosting in the trees!!!

Emily and I go to NYC

At Northumberland Christian School, the 4th grade gets to go to New York City!  What a treat it was...not only getting to see God's plan in history, but also getting to spend a day with just my Emily was special!

Our first stop was The Cloisters located in Upper Manhattan.  This building was built out of 5 different medieval abbeys from Europe.  The stones were disassembled, numbered, shipped to America, and then reconstructed.  The museum has acquired a great deal of art from the medieval period in history.  Emily's class studied much of this time period in school this year. 

The second stop was the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  The teacher gave us a small list of things to find in the museum that they had studied at school.  There was so much in the museum to look at that we did not find everything on the list.

This is William the Hippo.  He is one of the favorites of the museum.  Apparently William appears on all the scavenger hunt lists and the curators often move him around to keep the visitors looking.  William was found in an Egyptian tomb and dates back to about 1900 BC.  The hippo was known to be a powerful and dangerous animal to the Egyptians.  Emily was not going to leave the museum before finding William!!!

The last stop was at the Cathedral of St John the Divine (began building in 1892).  The architecture is just breathtaking!  The magnificence of the structure cannot be captured in a picture.  We were told that the Statue of Liberty without it's base can stand in the nave of the building.

Although I had already seen these things when Jack's class came, seeing it again with Emily's excitement was just as fun!

Happy Easter



Jack's 12th Birthday

12!!!  When did he get so old??  In some ways its hard to remember what life was like when I only had one kid to look after, and in other ways it seems like I merely blinked and he's 12!

Twelve is a pretty important year in the life of a boy.  He takes his hunter safety course and is allowed to hunt like the men.  In Little League he is now the one the younger kids look up to. In grade school he is the big man on campus or at least the recess playing fields before he leaves his elementary friends behind and gets ready for jr. high.  It's been quite a year for Jack!!

With age though becomes responsibility...Jack isn't quite so sure about this!  In fact Bob just told him yesterday that over the upcoming summer he is going to split wood for an hour each day to ensure the family has heat this winter.  And he is the one in charge of feeding and watering all the animals.  Sometimes he's up for it and enjoys the work, other times he's rather bury his face in his ipod (with which he has a slight obsession)!

We will see if he can arise to the challenge of becoming a big 12 year old!

When we lived in Pittsburgh planning kids birthday parties was easy...all I had to do was invite the cousins and there were plenty of kids to make the day special.  Living away from family, however, caused the kids to beg for a friend party every year.  Not being fond of that idea I agreed to let them have a friend party every 3 years starting at the age of 6.  So this year was the year for Jack to have a friend party.  On his true birthday we celebrated with Grandma and Pappy who were in town and then later he chose to have several of his best buddies over to have a sleepover party at the cabin back in the woods behind the house.  Here are some pictures from both.

At 12, Jack still LOVES his Legos!!

The reason why they have their shirts off is because they all did the "cold water challenge" in the creek.  Actually they all did it again except Jack.
Here's why...

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JACK!!