This week has gone by so fast. I have barely babysat. The five year old girl I only had three days and because school is out I will no longer be watching her. I will still be watching both of the little boys and the other little girl along with her sister. There is also another little boy that I might watch, but nothing is set in stone yet. I am still waiting for his grandmother to call me. I am hoping that I get to watch him, but for now I am going to enjoy the days off that I will have now. Today I am watching the baby boy, who is now eleven months old, overnight tonight.

Yesterday, my sister and I took seven of my sisters and two of my brothers to see The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian at the movie theaters. It was a lot of fun going and the movie was really great. My seven year old sister sat next to me and hid behind her hands in suspense the entire movie. I wouldn’t recommend the movie for little kids, there are some scary creatures and scenes in the movie that scared most of my sisters. We went for a 6:45 movie and didn’t get out until 9:30. While we were in town my mom asked us to stop and get a few necessities from the stare. We didn’t get home until 10:30. It was a late night so all of us are tired today.

My grandparents are going to be coming out to Texas to visit us soon, and we can’t wait. It was so much fun when they visited last year. They haven’t given us a date, but they have assured us that they are coming. Last year they stayed for a month, and it rained the entire time that first week that they were here. It would be nice if that happened again because we are in desperate need of rain.

What a week this has been, and it’s not over yet. To start off three of our goats (Tillie , Angel , and Thumper ) had their babies. Tillie had a girl that we named Jean, Angel had a girl named Angelina , and Thumper had a boy named Flower. Yes, we named a boy, Flower. Both Thumper and Flower are named off of characters from the movie Bambi. All three babies are redheads and are beautiful.

Since we got home from Vegas, I have been babysitting like crazy. It is a blessing because it is what I do for a job, but some days I find myself just breathing through a long day. It is always so different dealing with someone else’s child. Two days this week I will have kids overnight. One of those nights I have two kids.

All week we have been due for severe weather, yesterday we got it. For about an hour or two most of rural Texas was under a tornado warning. Thankfully the storm passed quickly. I haven’t heard the extent of the damage that was done. We had no damage done to our property.

I just found out that I can put smiley faces on my text. Be prepared to see them from hear on out.

It feels so good to be home! We arrived home Monday around 7:30 pm. The drive home was long and uneventful. My mom’s friend came back with us for a visit. She and her children will be staying with us for about two weeks, give or take. We are all still settling in and trying to catch up on sleep.

I love spring in Texas. When we left things around here were just starting to grow and bloom. We came home to lush green trees that completely shade our backyard.

Our kittens are now five and a half weeks old and are in to everything. They are so cute! They pounce from one thing to another, knocking shoes off shelves and food and water dishes over. I love watching them play with their mothers, who patiently sit there and let them jump at their ears and bite their tails. We are keeping 11 of the 22 kittens. My aunt took six, another friend took one, and a neighbor of my aunt took one also.

Oh the plight of a city girl. There is nothing like sitting down to dinner to find fresh chicken on your plate. And when I say fresh chicken, I mean, ten-minutes-ago-the-chicken-was-crowing-in-its-coup-and-is-now-dead-and-cooked-on-my-plate, fresh. I haven’t been able to talk myself into eating it yet, but one day I will (I hope). I have eaten fresh pork before and I haven’t had a problem, but there is something about chicken that I just can’t handle yet. I can eat their eggs which took me a little while to be able to do. Someday, someday, maybe.

Spring is arriving here in Texas. The birds are back, its time to start gardening, everything is in bloom, the snow is falling. Yes, the snow is falling. A couple of days ago we got snow on and off over the course of the day. Welcome to Texas! My mom says its like God spins a large wheel to decide what the weather will be like here. I have heard several people say that if you don’t like the weather wait five minutes and it will change.

Tuesday, March 4 was the primaries here in Texas. It was my fist time voting, and I was very excited. I am 19.

This past week has left me feeling like I have had very little breathing room. This week wasn’t much different then most other weeks if you exclude three of our goats having seven babies between them. Today, my sister went out to check one of our pregnant goats to find that the goat had already delivered two males. One is a redhead, and the other has a white body with a light beige head, they’re both beautiful. Between my mom and me, we are feeding our four, one week old goats every four or so hours. My mom feeds them at night. On top of the goats, I have been babysitting six days a week for the past couple of weeks, and I haven’t really gotten out of the house much and am going stir-crazy. I know that everything will settle down, but at the moment it feels a little much. I guess that I had this coming, because I kept thinking that I was stuck in a rut and need something, anything to get me out of it. There’s nothing like a little chaos to get you moving again.

One of our goats had her babies yesterday afternoon. It was so exciting. It feels like we have been waiting for her to have her babies forever. Goats are supposed to carry five months; however, she has been carrying a lot longer than that (at least we thought she was.) She had four babies, two males and two females. One of the males and one of the females are very small. Today they are looking and doing better than they did yesterday. We weren’t sure whether or not they would even make it through the night. We are still waiting and seeing what will happen over the next few days. All four babies are redheads and are beautiful. Last time one of our goats had her babies we were able to watch, this time I was able to participate in the birthing. My mother had gone to the store when, Lucy (the goat), went into labor, so I was the one who helped. We have been watching Lucy closely since November, because she is a bad mother and has been known to abandon her babies. She was thoroughly irritated during the whole birthing process. As she would work through a contraction she would repeatedly smack down her hooves on the ground. Almost every time that she did this she would catch one of her babies under her hoof hurting it. She even accidentally laid on them. We had to keep moving them away from her body and near her head every time that she changed positions. It was a miracle that they even lived through just being born. Right now all of the babies are inside the house in laundry baskets. My mom fed them throughout most of the night. Although, we knew that one of their mother’s teats didn’t work we thought that the other one did, but when my mother tried to milk her for the colostrums she found out that it didn’t work either. We ended up buying some at a animal feed store and giving it to them. Right now we are all still in shock, and in awe over the babies.

I love reading. I love the feeling of getting lost I a story. I love the discovery of something new and someone new. When I am reading I tend to zone out from what is going on around me, much to the amusement of my brothers. I love a variety of books. My favorite books are historical stories. Though, I enjoy reading just about anything I love reading stories. I love a story that draws you in, and makes you feel apart of its world. I used to hate reading. Up until I was 16, the only things that I read where the things that I had to. I have no idea what happened, but now there is rarely a day that goes by that I’m not reading something out of enjoyment. Over the past three years I have read some 300 books give or take. Not all of the books are very big, but most have at least 250-300 pages, some have a lot more. I can’t say that I a favorite book, but some come pretty close.

 My little six year old brother was singing Jesus Loves Me tonight, and he asked me if the reason that God was so strong was because He ate the right stuff. Gotta love little kids.

I have been babysitting a two year old boy for the past five months. Last week I started babysitting a five year old girl. What a difference three years makes behavior wise. The two year old is in, on, and under everything. His favorite thing to do is eat markers and lip gloss. I have to go through the entire house making sure that there is nothing that he can get into, but still, somehow, he always manages to find both a stick of lip gloss and a marker. But it’s not just any marker that he finds; it’s either a blue or green marker. It’s like he has a secret stash hidden somewhere where I, or anyone for that matter, can’t find them. His only saving grace is that he is adorable with curly blond hair, bright blue eyes, and a devilish smile. The little girl, however, I really don’t hear from. After I pick her up from school and come home, she immediately goes and plays with my sisters. I baby-sit her five days a week and the little boy three days.

My brother called home from work saying that he was going to be working late. During his phone conversation with my mother, he asked what she had done today. “Nothing,” she replied. However, she proceeded to tell him that she had just baked bread, made homemade tortillas, quilted, did school with the kids, and was making dinner. All of this was her version of nothing. Yesterday, her nothing consisted of baking bread, making tortillas, making beef stew, a cake made from scratch, and laundry soap. And who can forget the endless laundry that 16 people acquire and school. Many of our days of doing nothing are filled with doing small somethings. A lot of the time, these small somethings are spontaneous and sometimes make you go, “How did you come up with that?”

I have nine younger sisters. Their ages are 17, 15, 14, 12, 11, 10, 8, 7, and 4. I share a room with six of them. Our room is large, large enough to hold three full beds and a twin bed. We have three large closets so space isn’t an issue.

Younger sisters, in my experience, are there to simply annoy you, get into your stuff, blame you, take out everything that you just cleaned up, imitate you, nag, beg, hit and kick when they don’t get their way (4 year old), scream at you, ignore you, remind you of all the dumb things that you do at the most embarrassing moments, fight with you, and laugh at you. However, they are your biggest fans, your best friends, your confident, they complement you saying that you are absolutely beautiful with your greasy hair, rumpled pajamas, and pimpled face (they say this with such awe that you actually believe that they think this, 8, 7, & 4 year old), they laugh with you, help you, and when they’re little they want to be just like you. They look at you with awe and wonder when they see you doing something that they wish they could do (cooking, wearing makeup and high heels, driving, etc.) Things that they can’t do because of their age. They imitate you, and they simply love you regardless of all of you imperfections that they are so willing to point out. God made sisters for a reason, and those of us who have them know why.

It’s amazing how much perspectives can change over a short period of time. And how the things that you swore that you would never want nor have are the things that you long for the most. Several years ago I wanted a life that benefited me. I wanted a college education and a career. I have always wanted to get married, but only because that was what fit into my idealistic lifestyle. I wanted only a few children and having none didn’t sound to bad either. I wanted to see what I could get to please me. Now, however, I have changed from a selfish little girl only concerned for herself, to a girl who is trying to become the woman that God wants her to be. Last year, after only two college courses, God laid it on my heart that I shouldn’t go to college. I haven’t taken another class, and I don’t regret my decision. I still want to marry, but now I want to, not for just myself, but for the joy of having someone to love. And as for children, I want as many as God will give me. I am praying that He blesses me with many. I used to resent having a large family, but now I thrive on it.

When my parents uprooted us last year, I left everything that I knew and loved behind. What I loved was a life a convenience. I wanted to hate Texas upon hearing we were moving, and I did. However, moving here where you work for what you have and the nearest store is over eight miles away, life is far more convenient then it was in Las Vegas. Sometimes we have to let go of what we are comfortable with to receive what really want. God knows what we want and need even if we do not or at least think that we do.

Today we had spaghetti for dinner. An easy meal that will consist of three to four cans of spaghetti sauce, three pounds of spaghetti, and five pounds of hamburger. People often ask us what it is like to cook for all of these people. It is hard to answer that question. For me, I learned how to cook cooking for many people. I started learning how to cook when I was about ten or eleven years old and had six brothers and sisters. It’s just the norm for me. Us older girls, who can cook, often amuse ourselves by wondering what is will be like when we get married and have to cook for two. Only two, imagine only having cook and clean for two. Oh, heaven.

Meal time at our house is a much anticipated event. Breakfasts and dinners are our biggest meals. Typical breakfast meals are biscuits and brown gravy, pancakes, waffles, eggs, and oatmeal. Dinners vary; this month our dinners will be potato soup, calzones, shredded beef tacos, enchiladas, meatball sandwiches, steak sandwiches, chicken pot pie, homemade pizzas, pot roast, tacos, hamburgers and hot dogs, spaghetti, beef stew, and chicken.

Three of us girls, I and my fifteen and fourteen year old sisters, each take one meal a day, save Sunday. Our job is to prepare and cook meals, serve them, and, with the help of one of our younger sisters ages twelve, eleven, and ten, clean up afterwards. My mother cooks on Sundays, and she normally cooks or is highly involved in all dinners.

Back in Las Vegas we owned a gas fireplace which was as easy to turn on as flipping a switch, literally. Out here in Texas we own a wood burning fireplace, one in which we take great pleasure in using. My father or brothers are the ones that normally get the fire going and keep it going. I, however, needed to prove to myself that as a city girl I could indeed build a fire. Step one- learn to rebuild a fire from hot coals and ashes. Piece of cake, no problem, uh, how do you get the wood to catch? Well, this lesson was learned the hard way as my mother and I (both of whom had never lit a fire before) tried to get the kindling to light. After much huffing and puffing, exhaling and inhaling smoke we managed to get the kindling to smoke. Yeah! Oops we stopped blowing, back to square one. A half hour or so later we managed to not only barely keep from passing out and giving ourselves carbon monoxide poisoning, we were able, hallelujah, to get the kindling to light and the wood to catch, barely. It, however, went out quickly. Neither one of us owned to this failure until after we learned how to successfully rebuild a fire. I now know not only how to properly rebuild a fire, but now I can also build a fire, and keep it going. With the help of a fire cookie and a lighter of course. But, hey, a city girl can only learn how to be a country girl so fast.