It's my birthday today! Kaitlyn and I don't have to do any work all day. We get to choose our dinner. We chose meatballs and italian beef sandwiches and for dessert, icecream cake! We have got one card in the mail, and we hope we get some e-cards!  

Mille one of our goats, gave birth to triplets yesterday! Penny, Another one looks like it's going to give birth today!

This is the whole family! Rose,Isaac( suprisingly, his dad was  named    Abraham)! And Nellie.   

Well, keep checking my blog. If Penny goes in to labor, I'll let you know! 

Our goat, Millie, just gave birth today! She had TRIPLETS, too! They all are alive and well, unlike last year when we walked down to the barn to find Penny, another goat, with 2 live kids and 1 dead. ):

^This one is Isaac, the boy. Believe it or not, his father's name was Abraham, just like in the bible!

^ Here are Rose (left) and Nellie the 2 girls. 

^And here she is, Millie, the 3-year prizewinner for best mom award.

^ Here they all are, Millie and Family.

Congragulations, Millie!!!!!!!!!

Hello! I just wanted to let you know that my brother Kyle hasen't been on in a long time and he just started up again. Gotta go!

-Kenny

I'm soooooooooo sorry I havent posted anything in so long!  I kept saying I would post something soon but I never get to it. Well, I promise to get on more often.                                                                             

Kenny, Kaitlyn, and I got a fishtank on a website that you can get free stuff. Its called Freecycle.It came with a heater, an airpump, a bunch of tubing, a filter, and some fake plants. We used every thing but the filter. It was kind of complicated so we bought a simpler one. We just bought 3 serpae tetras, we bought 5 white cloud minows but 2 of them died, 1 placosomos, (sucker fish) named placoso, and 4 ghost shrimp (they eat bits of food that gets stuck in the rocks).  None of them besides placoso have a name so were open to suggestions!    

These are serpae tetras:

 These are white cloud minnows:

            And this is Placoso:                         

I couldn't get a photo of the shrimp.  Remember,if you think of a good name,leave it in a comment!

well, our aquarium finally has fish in it! We have 3 kinds of fish. There are 3 Red Serpae Tetras, 3 White Cloud Mountain Minnows, and 1 Suckermouth catfish (Plecostomus) named Plicasso (because of the name in parenthesies.:) We also have 4 Ghost Shrimp, but I couldn't get a good picture. They're very light brown and almost transparent. Here are some pics of the other ones:

 These are the Tetras^

Plicasso^

 These are the White Cloud Mountain Minnows.^

Here are the thermometer and a plant bulb. (I trust you can tell them apart)

Well, there it is-our aquarium. 

I'm 13 today! My mom made sweet cornbread for breakfast, and I don't have to clean up after meals, I don't have to do my chores, there's no shool, and when I usually take care of the babies, I get a day off!

I also get to choose the dinner. I picked burgers, nachos and my mom suggested french fries from the store. we're having them with dinner.

For dessert I chose a chocolate cake called "crazy cake." It's called that because during the great depression people went crazy to make it because it doesn't have milk or eggs in it. And believe it or not, it has VINEGAR!

Also, instead of just ice cream, I chose root beer floats. After dinner I'll open presents. (Kyle and Kaitlyn and I said our gift to each other was the aquarium.)

I'll probably get e-cards from my aunts and uncles. I can tell it's going to be a good birthday! 

You might have heard of freecycle. It's a website where people give stuff away on. We got a ten-gallon fish tank on it. not only was it a tank, but it came with tons of supplies. We somehow wrestled it all together-the tank, hood, light, air pump, heater, and  plants. It also had a filter, but we couldn't figure it out, so we bought one from the store.

                                                                   BEFORE-AND-AFTER'S

 tank-Before

After

artificial plants-Before

After

filter-Before

After

If you look close, you can see a brown thing in the middle of this picture. it's a bulb for a live plant that will grow 6"-8" in 15 days. 

This is the heater.

 This blue thing you see is called an airstone. It's attatched to a plastic tube that leads to an air pump outside the tank that gives the fish oxygen. This is called an aeration system.

Here's all our supplies. Now maybe you can see why I said we "wrestled it together.":)

Here's the air pump...

   ...and here are the air bubbles it makes.

You probably noticed 2 things-1,we have a red backround. We taped up a piece of poster board. And 2, we don't have any fish! This is because you are supposed to wait a week or so before you put fish in, because you want the tank to mature a little, give the heater some time to heat up the water, the air pump to oxygenate the water, the filter to filter the water, etc. However, our filter came with a bio-bag,which is something in the filter that helps correct the water conditions. Also, we put a tablet in that dissolves and helps get the water ready for the fish. 

Kyle and I once tried to keep an aquarium. We already had a tank. We bought rocks, a filter, food and 2 Guppies, a small aquarium fish. They died after a while, probably because we didn't do the research we're doing now. When we do get our fish, we'll get Guppies, Tetras, and probably lots more. we might get an Angelfish, a beautiful tropical fish.

It's going to be a freshwater tank. Our dad used to have a saltwater one, and he said it's a lot of work to maintain the correct water conditions, and that the salt could get expensive. He also used to have a freshwater tank and knows a lot about them.

I'll be sure to add more pictures when we get the fish in it. If you think it looks good now, wait till you see it with the fish!

We live right on the border of two counties: Boone and Winnebego. When Kyle walked down to do the chores, he called me over to look at a snowdrift that started at the top of a small hill running through our property, and ended at the bottom, going through a wire fence into a vacant goat pen. Later that day, Kyle, Kaitlyn, Kevin and I all went down to the hill and all got started on a tunnel through the huge drift. we supposed it was somewhere around the line of the 2 counties, and so we called it "Boonebego" (BOON-uh-BAY-go).

We all went down to the drift and started building the tunnel.  Kyle and Kaitlyn dug into the bottom, and I took the top. A little way down I came to a forgotten plastic sled, which was a big job to get out. During the process of freeing it, however, we broke through. After we'd freed the sled, it was just a matter of clearing snow out of the opening. We finished that, and Kyle Became the first person ever to crawl completely through Boonebego. Kaitlyn went next, then I went. It was a job well done. We showed our mom, went through the tunnel a little longer, then went in the house for a well- deserved cup of cocoa. Here are some pictures of the tunnel Boonebego:

On February 3rd was the Super Bowl. The Super Bowl is when the best football teams compete against each other at the end of the year until it gets down to 2 teams who haven't lost yet, and those 2 teams play against each other in the Super Bowl.

This year the New York Giants (which is my favorite team) Played the New England Patriots. the Patriots went through the whole year without losing a single game. The Giants, on the other hand, lost a few. However, they made it to the playoffs. First they played the Buccaneers, and everyone thought they would lose, but they won. It was the same with the Cowboys AND the Packers (my second favorite team). Then in the Super Bowl, they Played the Patriots, and guess what? They won!  

That same day we went to church for the first time. We sang a few songs, then Kyle, Kaitlyn and Kevin went downstairs and listened to the story of Adam and Eve.  Kyle will now probably stay upstairs for normal service, though.

I'm gonna be 13 in 17 days! It'll be the first 13th Birthday of my life!                                                           

P.S.- I ran through the snow barefoot today.

I haven't been on for a long time! You must all be wondering about me. 

Kyle got me a minnow trap for Christmas. It is designed so that minnows can swim in but not get out. It looks just like a wire trash can with two closed ends. On each end there is an indent with a hole in it. it's held together with a pin-like thing. You bait the trap with bread, dough, or meat. I used balls of bread mixed with butter so it would be waterproof.

Me, my brother and my sister went down to a creek near our house. (when down there, we saw an animal that we didn't know the name of. I found that the name of it was the marsh rice rat). Anyway, It was a particulary warm day (63 degrees!) for the dead of January, and we saw some minnows. We thought it would be a good day to set the trap. So we baited it with the bait I mentioned, and checked it from time to time. No minnows.

There was a tornado warning that day, so we had to come in. Today I checked it. I saw flashes in it. Now, apparently minnows swim into the hole in either side, but are not smart enough to know to swim out. I lifted up the trap and was rewarded with 40 MINNOWS! We put them in a black plastic sled with water, stones, mud grass and food. We had set the trap again and caught another 10 or 15.

There is one problem, though. what to do with them all. I know you can use them for bait for large fish, but we really don't have a fishing trip planned, and it's supposed to be 0 degrees next week. I tried feeding them to the cat, but she didn't want them. Any ideas, please leave them in a comment. Thanks!