Heaven

I'm not sure how you envision heaven... if there will be streets of gold and big magnificent buildings, but i can tell you what I think heaven will be like. When i look at God's creation all around me and nature, i don't imagine heaven as man made. I think that in heaven there will be mountains and trees and trails winding along beautiful rivers, sunsets and sunrises, clear blue oceans teaming with life, beautiful flowers and yes, i even think there will be animals in heaven. Not animals that have died here on earth (sorry Coco... as much as I loved you as a child.. i just don't think you will be in heaven), but i think that God likes animals and finds pleasure in them. I think earth is a mere blurred reflection of heaven and that nature is going to be even more beautiful then we can even imagine there. So until the day where i can go on hikes with Jesus through heaven's wilderness, I can experience the joy of God's creation with my boys and be reminded of God's beauty, grace, power, master craftsmanship, and how this is just my temporary home.

Someday, if you are hiking on the trails in the great northwest you may just run into our family, but if we don't ever meet on the trails here on earth, i sure hope to see you on the trails in heaven.

Adventures with the Crumes

Sometimes on our adventures kids get sick.... and we have to clean out carseats...


You wouldn't know it but 15 minutes before this picture was taken this little boy was throwing up ALL over! I guess that's all he needed to feel better.

We recently went on vacation to northern Washington and a friend came with on one of our hiking adventures to capture some family photo's.. she really captured our family so well and I love them! So here you are :) They aren't the kind of pose and smile pictures.. this is real everyday Crume family life... I'm still waiting for her to send me the pictures from the rest of the trip including the pictures of us cleaning out Elijah's car seat on the side of the road after he projectile vomited everywhere! Good times....

Down on the farm...

Wheel barrows are used for more then hauling dirt...




Cows are a source of joy and entertainment...


The veiw is calming and peacefull...


The animals have a shelter from the constant rain of winter...


The ducks wait for thier dinner...


The steer waits for a more manly looking colar...



The animals are happy to see you...




Little boys dress up like daddies...


and grow up fast!!!

Normal

We've had a very abnormal first couple of years raising our 2 older boys. Most of my day is filled with avoiding triggers that upset schedules for my children, Working on speech, eye contact, and "typical" play (teaching our children how to play properly with a toy and how to play with someone... not just next to them), preparing wheat and dairy free meals, getting everyone supplements correct and taken, not being able to go to church or go out for a date because of extream seperation anxiety. Yes, some of these things are needed for normal children also, BUT i mean in a much more intense way where the whole day is consumed in just working on helping your children be normal and function.
For the past couple of months as Elijah has began to really blossom into a little boy we've come to realize what a "normal" child is like and it's SO weird! Seriously.. he looks at us and asks questions and repeats words.. this is what a normal almost two year old is like! It blows our mind at how easy he is! Each and every day i feel so blessed to have a child who doesn't have special needs. And for us, him being normal is so... abnormal. Go figure.

The Chasing Ducks Farm welcomes....

Ferdinand






Now we just need to get him a more manly looking collar. :)

Substance

I have many thoughts full of depth and emotion that i will someday share... until then, thank you for hanging on and reading about my cow adventures of late. I know some of you are not that into farm adventures, but i just love the fact that i know where my food is coming from and how it was raised.

Mooving on...

Penelope didn't work out. She wasn't healing like we wanted her to so we felt like it was better to pass on an animal that probably had some serious long term issues. So we continued the search and Lord willing tomorrow we will be going to pick up a Jersey calf. His name is Ferdinand (named after the popular children's book The Story of Ferdinand )... he is 5 months old and he has been used as an animal ambassador to elementary school children to teach them about farm animals. He is super friendly, loves people and should make a good start out cow for our little farm. Joshua is SO excited to get a "cow". He keeps asking about it. The person that we are getting Ferdinand from is very excited that he will be going to a home with kids and also she loves our idea of starting a therapy farm for special needs families. Of course the economic side of us knows that Ferdinand will only be a pet for about the next year, then be replaced with a smaller cuter version and then he will provide us with many warm meals on cold nights. We'll see how that goes when his time is up... but for now he will be loved on by children and adults alike and enjoy grazing in a lush pasture. I know you are probably thinking "does the person you are getting Ferdinand from know that he will someday be beef in the freezer?" And to answer your question, yes she does. She is one of those people that believe in treating an animal humanly, but also realistic in the fact that animals have purposes and you can't keep a full sized cow as a lawn ornament.
Since we do not have a livestock trailer yet, we will be hauling him in our work van... or which we so lovingly have named "Ghetto Van". Believe me, it's surely a sight... if Ghetto Van is still working in the next couple of years we are going to let the kids do a spray paint camouflage job on it! :)

p.s. if you are not familiar with the story of Ferdinand the bull... check out this video.... It's a great story

Family size

I've been wanting to write a post on this for sometime. It seems to be such a sensitive subject that gets people VERY opinionated. I grew up in a family of 4 children... me, my older sister and brother are all my mother's biological children, and my little sister is adopted. I have friends who are only children and I also have friends who are a part of a family of 14 children. Now with my own children and having friends who have children I find i am encountered with it more often. I love large families. Yes, they have their pro's and con's.. just like anything does.. but the majority of large families i know are precious and well balanced. I personally always wanted 5 children... 3 boys and 2 girls. Circumstances have enabled my dream to be partly fulfilled, and for the time being it looks like we may only ever have 3 children. Though i don't like to say that I'm done... I am open to the idea of adoption and I know that the Lord could miraculously bless us with more biological children.. but at this time it's not something that we feel called to pursue. I get a lot of questions on if we are going to keep trying to have a girl. Which is funny... yes i was hoping that when we were pregnant with Elijah we would have a girl, but it didn't make me love him any less when we found out his gender... in fact i think it made me love him more and have to lean on Jesus even stronger because of the difficulties that we had with our first two boys. And let me tell you Elijah is a BLESSING and i would NEVER trade him, or any of my sons for a daughter. Anyway this is my point and my tangent... I think that we need to get past apologizing for the amount of children that we have or don't have. Be it only 1, or 14... I think the Lord allows some to have many children and others to only have a few and each family is not any better or less then the other. Let me share a verse on children...

Psalm 127:3
Sons are a heritage from the LORD, children a reward from him.

a REWARD! Children are a reward! I know sometimes (at least for me) it may not feel like they are a reward... more like a punishment, but they are a REWARD. I think we have to change our perspective here as a culture... ESPECIALLY in the Christan community. There seems to be so much judging that goes on when someone chooses to have more then three children.. and heaven forbid they are any closer then a couple years apart because that's just CRAZY, or if they choose to stop at one. OH i am sooo tired of hearing that and dealing with it. I wish that we could have a dozen kids... i wish that i had health to handle more pregnancies and the patience and love for more children,I wish that Matt wanted more children, but for right now God gave me three.
So whether you have no kids, 2 kids, or you are going on your 19th, please remember this verse and DO NOT apologize for the amount of children that you have.. each and every life is precious .. even if they have no siblings or a dozen siblings! Psalm 127:3
Sons are a heritage from the LORD, children a reward from him.

Penelope

So here's a little background for you. When we put our fences up Matt told me that we could get a cow next spring time. I had talked about getting a heifer and raising her and breeding her. There was much discussion and we decided that maybe the best way to go first would be to get a bull calf, band him , grow him up and then butcher him to see how it would go to have a cow and then we could pursue the heifer breeding route. Cows and one of my FAVORITE animals so anyway we could get one was fine with me.. i told Matt that i would treat the cow, even if we were going to butcher it, like a pet.
SO i put up an ad on craigslist looking for a Jersey bull calf. Someone e-mailed and said that they had a Swiss brown bull calf. After some back and forth she said she also had a Holstein heifer that was 3 months old that was recovering from an injury that she was trying to find a home for. Well i started to get pretty excited because my dream of owning a female cow and breeding her started to come true. Matt said "let's do it" and I've been a bit excited ever since. Her injury was that she was bitten by a dog and her leg got infected. She was taken to auction, but they were just going to butcher her so this lady that I've been talking to saved her and has been taking care of her. The calf has only been getting better, but she will still need extra attention for a little while to make sure that she continues to heal. We will be picking her up next Wednesday after our mini vacation up to birch bay. I'm SUPER excited and I can't wait!!!!
I've decided that i want to name her Penelope, I think that's a great name for a cow!
I feel like we are almost an offical small family farm :)

coming soon...

We went to visit the mini horses to see if they would be a good fit for our little farm. Long story short, i fell in love with them, but we just aren't going to be able to provide them with the proper care. They are older in age and have some health issues that wouldn't work well with our layout. I feel a bit sad because they were SO great with the kids and wonderful... but i know that it wouldn't be the best.
Anyway.. it's been a long day, and I need some sleep!

Therapy farm

I love animals. I've always loved animals, even through intense sneezing from loving on them. That has really transferred over to my kids. As we moved out into the country I noticed how with each animal we got, the kids world seemed to open up more.
A couple of weeks ago an idea sparked. Living on a small farm and being around animals has helped my children so much... why not share the gift? So after much prayer and research we are pursuing a ministry for special needs families. Very small scale, by appointment only and word of mouth.. families with special needs children, geared towards autistic, but not limited to, can come up to experience what it is like to be around "farm" animals. Small and not overwhelming where we don't mind at all if your child has a meltdown or sensory issues... in fact, those are our favorite kids :)
The name of my ministry- Chasing Ducks - a place for special needs families. I came up with it from watching how much joy it gives Daniel to chase the ducks...

So now we come to the horses. I put up a post on craigslist in the farm and garden section about my idea and if anybody had any advice, suggestions, and just anything they would like to share, or any animals they would like to donate or partner with me in anyway. I received a fair number of e-mail from people telling me that i should consider getting miniature horses as they make GREAT therapy animals and they are very non-threatening to small children. *note miniature horses and ponies are not the same thing So after doing research on them i fell in love and in my heart decided that my little special needs farm would have mini horses. A couple of days later i received an e-mail form a woman in a neighboring town. Her and her husband are getting along in years and just had to many animals to handle and had two mini horses that they were looking for a home for. SO... long story short, tomorrow we are going to meet Amy and Dolly and see if they would be a good match for us.. and if all goes well they will start living with us by the weekend!
Whew... it's late and there is lots to do tomorrow. I am going to attempt to get pictures when we visit tomorrow that are not blurry!
And i'll be sure to post more on my therapy farm ideas later :D

your getting what?

Tomorrow we are meeting..

DOLLY

and
AMY


Can you guess what for?

I never thought of it that way...

Joshua has been going to the christian preschool now for a week. He LOVES it and loves being around the other children his age. This has been a hard step for me and I've been wondering if it has been the right choice. I worry about Joshua being a burden to the teachers. I think mostly that fear comes out of just always wanting to be a blessing to others, and it's hard for me to think about Joshua having a hard time and that being a blessing to someone. I was talking to Joshua's teacher after class on Friday expressing my fears on him being to much for them to handle. She told me that she enjoyed the challenge and was excited to work with him in the coming months, she also encouraged me by telling me that I CAN NOT do it on my own, and that i needed to start letting people help and not worry about being a burden. She was telling me that she was SO excited for the other kids in the class to learn how to be a good friend to someone who had special needs. She was excited that the children were able to interact with him, so that as they got older it wouldn't be such an issue and that they would be more sensitive to the special needs community. She said that they were already asking questions on how they could be a good friend to Joshua and that they wanted to help him with things. When she was telling me this I felt like i was hit by a semi truck.. My sons special needs can be a blessing to others! I never thought of it that way.. I mean i know that my boys will change peoples lives... but i guess i just thought that their testimony when they were older would make a huge impact. I never thought that today, right now, my boys are changing peoples lives for the better. Don't get me wrong, my boys change me each and every day for the better and bring me closer to Jesus ... but now i see that they can reach more then just their family. It's amazing how each and every day God reveils so much more the depth of His love and grace through my children's unique personalities. Is it possible to feel both so blessed and overwhelmed and worn out at the same time? I'm just so amazed at how God continuely reminds me of His presence, His love, His grace and continues to remind me that He has a plan and is using all things for good.