411 The Walters Bunch

I know, it has been awhile.  There has been much happening on the Walters home front. First, we lost our first chicken that wasn't our doing.  Unfortunately, our youngest daughter found her and it was traumatic. It took us very much by surprise because she was our best layer (and first). We had cleaned out the chickens on a Saturday afternoon knowing that we would be gone all day on Sunday. When L went out first thing on Monday morning to let the girls out, we found out that Jim (named after Paleface) had become egg bound and passed. It happens VERY quickly when they become egg bound. Needless to say, this has made us all very hesitant to leave them alone. We check on them multiple times a day now. I know there will be times we can't do that and survival of the fittest and all that, but it took SOOOO LONG to finally get eggs and I dread starting all over again. We started with 10. Six were roosters. One died. Three eggs a day (for a good day) for a family of five (C doesn't...

Merry Christmas! Happy New Year Everyone! I can't believe another year has gone by. It is ironic isn't it? As you get older, the years fly by at a faster and faster pace. I really have made a conscious decision to let go of things that don't really matter (I mean why waste my time, it's precious) and focus more on things I do enjoy (like family). That's not to mean that I don't do anything I don't like. I mean cleaning out the chickens everyday and stomping out in single digits to unfreeze their water is definitely not enjoyable, but I must admit in nice weather they are fun to watch. Though if one of the roosters tries to attack me again, I may end up with one less chicken. We have been stuck inside these past few days because of the artic weather. Again, the south does get cold (really cold on some days), but we rebound fairly quickly and after a week should once again be enjoying nice mild winter days. Unfortunately, our time inside during this col...

Home Sweet Home. We love Christmas in our household. In fact, on Thanksgiving Day it is a tradition to make our gingerbread houses and start decorating. All our shopping is finished and we just relax and take in the holiday by Dec 10. This year is no different. We finished shopping and wrapping on the 13th. Yay! Shipping caused a little bit of stress about our angel gifts arriving on time this year, but literally the day they arrived the kids and I set up a gift wrapping line and we had everything wrapped and at the church within an hour. Talk about stressful. We all take turns having Cookie the elf do different things each night. When everyone gets up the next morning we see what she was up too. Sometimes she has a wii party. Sometimes she wraps gifts Sometimes she has an accident. Sometimes she makes a mess.....I mean cooks. We all have fun seeing what Cookie does each night. We started our vacation on Dec. 11th this year and have been so busy each day so ...

It's tradition to make gingerbread houses on Thanksgiving Day. We had a fairly uneventful Thanksgiving this year. D had to work on the actual Thanksgiving this year so the kids and I stuck to our normal routine. We got up and took the day off from school. We enjoy a leisurely breakfast. This year L made Chocolate Muffins. She is turning into quite the little baker and I really enjoy her love of cooking. Mostly because that means I don't have to. After breakfast, in order to feel good about our serious plans to lounge around and eat all day, we did about half an hour of cardio. We then watched the Thanksgiving Parade because is it really Thanksgiving without watching the parade? The girls and I then watched what they wait for all year long to come on........the National Dog Show. I am not sure what they find so fascinating about this , but they love it.  We were disappointed the whippet didn't win. We grilled some steaks and tried not to eat ANY traditional Tha...

I grew up heading off every summer to spend a month in Missouri with my grandparents. My poor grandfather would spend all day long dragging my cousins and I around the lake behind one of his many boats. We would solemn ski, tandem ski, ride inner tubes, and whatever you could think of. We were water rats and I loved it and I loved the Ozarks, though in full disclosure I did get car sick nearly every time I was in the car. The Ozarks were always a beautiful relaxing destination. Being so close to Branson, we made our way there several times to enjoy the shows and to visit Silver Dollar City. Unfortunately, my grandfather passed away when I was only 15 and I have not been back since. I had honestly forgotten about this little gem until the kids and I saw a commercial for Branson not to long ago and it reminded me of all the fun I had and the kids thought it looked like fun also. The seed was planted and 6 weeks later we arrived at the Branson KOA. The week before Thanksgiving was per...