This Week in Pictures

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  Our sweet Lydia turned 10!


  Earlier in the day, Naomi made, and decorated, the cake (with a little help from her younger sisters.)
 Naomi is getting to be quite an accomplished "cake chef".


  We decided to keep the tiger kitten along with Shadow, who was purchased for Lydia's birthday a few weeks earlier.  Fortunately, the kittens love each other.  And the children love the kittens!


  Sometimes the kids just have to share a blanket :-).


  We visited some friends who live out in the country, like we do, but who have more animals. I think they are braver than we are :-).  Here are their 2 delightful nanny goats.



  And here is a mama hen with a few of her babies.  Our friends have chickens like we do, but they have roosters, and we don't.  So...this little hen got it into her head that she wanted chicks, so she snuck off and started laying eggs away from the crowd.  Our friends eventually found the nest, but decided to let her hatch the chicks.  12 eggs were sat on, 12 eggs hatched, and all 12 chicks are running around enthusiastically.  Our children were delighted with the chicks and asked if we could hav chicks someday. Well, maybe.  They were awfully cute.


 They were also mellow about being carried around, which was nice.



  We have interesting creatures too.  Joseph found this snail yesterday and carried it around proudly for a while.  I lost track of it and asked today, with some anxiety, what he did with it when he was done admiring it.  He said he put it in a tree outside.  Whew!  I was afraid it was still in the house somewhere!


  I think she looks adorable, Daddy thinks she looks silly. What do you think?