Meet the newest members of our family

On Friday we took the kids to a nearby store and let them pick out their very own, pet. These pets aren't like most pets. Overtime they will give back to us for all the time and energy that we spend caring for them. Not in wet, slobbery kisses, but in more, um beneficial ways.

Are you ready for this?

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Meet (from left to right) Rachel, Bald Chicken (if you look closely you can see his bald spot), Sally Crystal Angel (yes, that is one name), and Sonny.

It is the hope that in a matter of a few short months that these chicks will give us eggs. That is if they don't all turn out to be roosters. We also have more chickens that are scheduled to hatch and arrive in our home in a couple of weeks (I won't tell you how many because I don't want anyone to think we've gone completely mad!). Hopefully all of them aren't roosters either. (As my husband put it, "you can't just lift up their leg and look to see if they are a boy or girl.") Hopefully our neighbors will find this as amusing as my friend Kendra did when I told her the other day that my husband was in the back yard building a chicken coop.

No, we haven't gone completely crazy. My husband actually grew up on a farm and raised all sorts of creatures from chickens to cows. In reality, if we had anymore property, we would have a cow too. There is wisdom in our seeming madness. With the price of everything going up, Scott has been feeling the need to find ways to save money. Some people clip coupons or tighten their budget. No, not us, we go out and buy chickens so we don't have to pay the outrageous price for eggs at the grocery store. Not to mention that when we decide that boneless, skinless, chicken breasts are too spendy, we can just kill our own. Unfortunately, if we want them boneless and skinless (and featherless) we'll have to do that ourselves. I think I'll be calling in sick that day.

Another reason behind the chickens is to give our children more responsibilities. We wouldn't want our kids to be bored this summer. Instead they will have a chicken coop to clean and if all goes well, by fall they will have eggs to collect. They are all really excited. That is because they have never come face to face with a rooster before. As for me, I have. I still remember the chickens and roosters we had when I was growing up. Sure it was fun at first watching the little chickies grow and then to collect their eggs. I also still remember the day when my Dad had finally had enough of the mean, nasty, ankle biting roosters and he, uh, took care of them.

So stay tuned for our feather brained adventures. I'm sure we'll have plenty to share, eggs too.

In other bird news. I swear the birds sit on top of our roof and wait until my husband leaves for work and then they "accidentally" fall into our chimney and wind up in our fireplace because it never happens when he is home! It happened again this morning. I heard rustling in the fireplace. Only this time I neglected to open a window first before opening the fireplace door. It flew around the family room hitting the window a couple of times before I could finally get the window open. I'm sure it had a good laugh with it's buddies after they were reunited. "Man that lady sure can scream loud. hahahahahahahaha".