You Think Mornings Are Busy… Watch This (8 Kids + Homestead)

I absolutely love getting fresh eggs from our chickens again. Another one of my favorite fresh foods straight from the farm. Good morning everybody. Today is quite the day. We have a busy day ahead of us. We are now trying to get kids ready and out the door for school. I have to go milk the cow. So I also have a new Hey Hosanna song that I'm really excited about and I need to wrap it up so that I can get the video started. If you're not familiar with what I'm talking about, I started a new kids YouTube channel called Hey Hosanna. So it is a like they're fun dance songs for Christian families. Here's a link right here. You guys can go check it out. Let me know what you think. I'm going to be working on all that today and then we have to get into Danielle's garden. She's been working hard getting some stuff going with that. We have some garden beds that we need to get put together and then we have some things we need to just figure out with it. So that's going to happen as well. So with that, let's get going with our day. Look at Jude already ready to go. She came, I think she came down with her backpack on. Did you sleep with that? No, I was not upstairs. She is sitting here an hour before it's time to go. Like just dress, backpack on. Do you brush your teeth? No, it's not eating yet. It's not time to eat yet. Good boy. Do you brush your hair? No, I don't need to brush it. Okay guys, these Bella waffle makers. Let me tell you the story of this here real quick. We had another waffle maker. You poured it in the top and it was really great. It worked for a long time until it didn't. It started sticking. I don't even know. I'm like, all right, we got to get a new one. I looked at the ones. I wanted a big one that made like four waffles at once but I have a rule in my home and it is to keep as many things non-toxic as possible which means no Teflon and a lot of non-stick coated things unfortunately have rubber chemicals in them. So I always look for ceramic. The ceramic like big waffle maker was like 200 and some dollars and I was thinking to myself, we do use this a lot. However, that's more than I'm willing to spend on that. These were like $20, $25 maybe at Walmart. So I was like, I'm just gonna get two which is amazing for our family. There's 10 people here so I can do two waffles at once. They cook really fast. Our waffles used to be like the kids' favorite morning. It was like my most dreaded because I literally would be sitting here forever making one waffle at a time. So this has been a game changer and they're really cheap. They work really well. So if you're looking for a good non-toxic waffle maker, Bella is the brand and I got these at Walmart. I absolutely love getting fresh eggs from our chickens again. It has been a long time. They weren't laying over the winter but they stopped early because they molted and then it's just felt like it's taken forever to get our own eggs again but these all came from our chickens out there and it's just so nice to have like these bright orange yolks and fresh eggs. There's not much like fresh food. All the kids are fed. Sometimes that feels like a marathon in a house with eight kids but everybody's eating. We've got three big girls getting ready to go to school. Their school is like a hybrid school. It's really cool. They get to take a few different classes. We started out with like math and science but we switched back to doing math at home. Tyler and Elena are still in a science class for now. I think next year we're going to do science at home but they're doing like... Helena's in a baking class. Jude is also in a baking and cooking class. They're taking a life skills class. They've got book club. What else? Tech skills and some art classes. So a lot of fun like extracurricular things that we don't necessarily have as much time to do at home unless we are... Unless they're like doing it on their own. So it's really cool to have that like guided instruction. I cooked Indian food. It was fried rice. You made Indian food in your cooking class? It was fried rice but some vegetables and then I got to make... We got to make our own sauce to put on top of our fried rice and I just had a fried egg on top of it. So it was Indian food and it was really good. That's awesome, dude. All right. Can you three help me get clothes for their brothers? And Elena actually is working on the rest of lunches. You two help me get Israel and Cohen some clothes. I just started on that side. Well, we're gonna overflow today. I'll get your jar. Are these baby goats messing with her? They just roam around. We've got a couple baby goats out here. This is their mama. She has to get tied up while he's milking or she will get in and eat her feed which is not a huge deal but it makes her mad and then she'll start kicking and then when they kick and get stuff in the bucket or kick the bucket over, it's a nightmare. So this little guy had a rough start. We had to bottle feed him. As you can see, his neck is kind of... His name's Quasimodo. His neck has a little bit of a deformity to it. Oh, thank you. And I think it's just the way he was positioned or maybe came out. They were twins but they are twin brothers. This one's a little bit bigger and healthier, strong. Not healthier. This one's a little bit bigger and stronger but he made a comeback. Mom took him back. She's nursing him now. So that's always good. Do you want me to go get you a jar? Yeah, maybe. And here are the puppies. Good morning. Good morning, Camden. Oh my goodness. Was that like three and a half gallons today? No, probably a little over three. Oh, it's just a lot of food. Whenever it's like literally like filled almost to the top. Yeah. Like of just milk, not the food. But it always... She might work back up to four. She used to give us four gallons a day but we're just coming off of winter. So I wouldn't be surprised if she... Well, I have been... I've been getting like almost three for the last few days. So this will definitely be like over three. What is going on here? It's kind of smoky in here. Hey, bro. You're all dressed? That's what I'm talking about. Down to here. It's just definitely over three gallons. Three and a quarter maybe. For a little while we were getting like just two. Some days I was like, oh man, that's barely two. So it's nice to have a little bit of surplus here. A little bit of extra milk coming in. Here we go. Oh, baby, baby. Thank you. This is good. Welcome. Another one of my favorite fresh foods straight from the farm is obviously our milk. Until you've had fresh milk. Especially if you like milk and like to drink it. I know not everybody does, but for fans of milk drinking, there is nothing quite like a fresh glass of Jersey milk. So we store it in these half gallon mason jars. It's the easiest way to cool it and keep it fresh. Keep it in our fridge like that. So once John milks the cow, he brings it in, he filters the milk out. And that just gets any like particles, let's say hay or hair or anything like that. So that's just like a second line of defense. As he milks, there's develops this like really foamy layer on top of the milk, which usually keeps most stuff out of the milk. Because when you pour it, that foam goes to the back and doesn't end up in. But this filter allows us to pour all of the milk out and it catches any debris. So dust, sometimes maybe little pieces of hay, sometimes hair. That filters that out. It goes straight into these jars. And as soon as we can get it into the back of the refrigerator downstairs to cool, you want to get it really cold because that's what inhibits bacteria from growing. And then it stays fresh, honestly, for two, three weeks. If we keep it downstairs in a fridge that we're not opening often, we've had fresh milk for a month. This is yours. Here you go. And then that's it. When we are ready to use some, we bring some upstairs, keep it in the fridge up here. I don't like to store lots of milk up here because this refrigerator gets open and closed nonstop. And it just doesn't keep it as cold. So it doesn't stay fresh as long. Although we go through it pretty quickly. So it's not like it matters. But that is our process of getting milk every morning. I just dropped off the girls. And on my way here, there's a place that has like a little or someone's house that has a little stand, fresh flowers. And so I've wanted to go and get some, but I don't come out here that often to drop them off at school. I mean, I'm going to give credit where credit is due. Elena said, you should get mom flowers. And I was like, what? And I looked and saw the place and I was like, oh yeah. And they had flowers. So I'm going to stop by and surprise my wife with some flowers. Yep, here it is. Fresh flowers. Here it is. Just a little stand. They have three bouquets out here. $30, great price. But I don't have any cash on me. I was hoping it would be like, maybe they have like a Venmo or something. I also kind of knew it probably doesn't. So that's unfortunate. I don't have any cash on me. Well, that's disappointing. Now I feel like I need to go find flowers. I also don't have a lot of time to just go getting flowers, but I feel like I need to. Oh my goodness. I hear mama and I turn and hear them going. Here you go. And they both brought me, look at this, the way they wrapped this bouquet. That is beautiful. Did they have help? Oh, you guys picked me these flowers. I love them so much. Thank you so much. My little babies. I love you mama. I love you too. This is beautiful, Adeline. Thank you. Good job. I am sitting here working on a couple of things. One, lists for supplies for Passover. We are getting ready to celebrate Pesach or Passover with our friends and family. I'm really excited this year. A lot of times we've just done it like, we've had years where we've done it with friends and it's been really big. The last few years, it's just been our family. So we're kind of quiet and small. But this year, actually, that's not true. That's not true. Last year, we did it with our community here. But so this year, same thing. We're hosting our like home church fellowship is coming and a bunch of other people. I'm guessing around 50 people will be here. So that is super excited. But I'm getting everything prepared, making lists of stuff we'll need for dinner. We're gonna do kebabs, which are delicious and easy. And you can do it over a fire or the grill. We're going to be camping for two nights just because we love Sukkot so much. The Feast of Tabernacles. And we camp for a week in our backyard. It's at the end of the year. It's one of the fall feasts in the Bible. But it's only once a year. And we always like, like, man, I just wish we could do this more. So I said this year, let's like do like a mini camping night. The weather is gonna be great. So we have several friends that will be setting up tents and camping with us for two nights. I love it because we get to like live in community and just fellowship for, you know, this will be like three straight days, morning and night, just doing life together. And I don't know, there's something really special about it. We have loved celebrating the feasts and festivals in the Bible. They were from God, created by God, given to all of his children, whether you are a native-born Israelite or whether you are grafted in through your belief in Jesus, the Messiah. These feasts are for you. They were meant for you to celebrate. So, oh, Maren, one more. Thank you so much. You guys should be able to decorate our Passover table with these pretty flowers. What do you think? Oh boy, we're losing it. We're losing it in here. Boys. In case you guys thought they were all sweet all the time, let's just have a wake-up call. Come on, you're not okay. Don't you dare. Cohen, everyone sees how sweet you are in all the videos. You're always helping clean up. You like to make cookies. You like to be so sweet. Right? Yes. Say, I'm all sweet all the time. You're not sweet all the time? Are you trouble? Are you trouble sometimes? And how about you? This one might be all trouble all the time. Are you? No, you're right. You're sweet. But you do like to get into shenanigans, don't you? And Everly has been a busy little bee in here cleaning up the kitchen for me. That is something she is getting points for that she can trade in. She can trade in those points on our hearth display. Israel's up here. No, but super cool. They have routines that they can do. They have their different chores are added to it. So she can check off all the things. And then once they're done. Come here. Okay. And then they have right here, you'll see. She's got all of the points and she can choose to cash them out. She can pick the prize that she wants and then she can request it. I don't actually know who did that. That, whoever did that is getting, they're getting in trouble. That is not, I did not do that. They'll probably get this one disobeying anyway. So if she wants a treat box, she can go like that and she can click request. And then it shows up on my phone. Everly requested a treat box and I can approve it and then she can go get her treat. And so that has been the single best thing we have ever done or invested in is having this hearth set up because it takes so much of the mental load off of me where I know I can just write. I can even put in extra chores under a to-do list and assign different points for them. So it just takes some of the pressure off of me having to micromanage and nag and they can see what they need to do. They can do it. They're in charge of their points. If they want a prize or a treat or to watch a show, then they need to have the points to do so, which means they need to do their daily chores. Mommy, I don't have enough for a treat box. Oh, I guess we should brush your teeth and then read your Bible and play outside. Those are the things Israel earns points for. All right. Well, I'm home empty-handed. There were no flower places that I could find that were reasonably priced. So I kind of just decided I would do it next time. But, you know, at least the thought was there, right? Is he being rude to mama? What's he doing? I can't hear what you're saying. He's being mean? Oh, no. How's he being mean? Is he saying mean things? Okay. What is that? This? The flowers that you were talking about. Isn't that sweet? That is sweet. Like they're like actual bouquets. That is amazing. So it looks like you got flowers today after all. Can you tell them about how you always pass the flower stand and never get any flowers? And I say something more than every single time. And I stopped there today to get you flowers. Did you really? But they only took cash. They didn't have any kind of Venmo thing, which I was wondering. Elena reminded me. I was like, oh, yeah, let me stop and get flowers. And then I pulled in. I documented and everything. So I was just walking out saying, oh, I didn't get any flowers. But you got your flowers.