Has anyone seen Care Bear?

Missing: Small pink bear with a rainbow on her tummy and hearts on her feet. Orange eyes. Hello Kitty bandaid on her head. She may be wearing a purple fleece diaper. Responds to the names Care Bear, Honeybunch, Sweetie and Teddy Bear. We miss her. Reward if found.

Meet Betsy

This is Betsy, our new chicken! She is a New Hampshire Red, a direct descendant of the Rhode Island Reds (Miss Scarlett.) I originally thought she was a Delaware Red, so named her Betsy Ross... Anyhow, the name stuck. She is a great hen with a calm disposition, and apparently won many blue ribbons at the State Fair for best of breed. That's kind of neat, but the best news yet is that she is actively laying eggs!! So tomorrow of the next day, we will get our very first fresh eggs! Hooray!!

Here are the other girls meeting Betsy for the first time. We put her in the coop and the others outside to keep them from fighting. Miss Scarlett is the dark redish brown hen, Daisy is the buff hen, and Maybelle is the lacey hen.

First adventure in the new van

The children were nestled all snug in their car seats...
Oops, pictures out of order... We got this ENORMOUS Christmas tree. It is so huge, we are not sure where to put it.
Elena has her first candy cane at the Christmas tree farm.
Kevin loves driving the Krentzmobile.

Just some pictures

Jesse has this super cute way of sticking out his tongue when he is concentrating on something. It is hard to capture it in a photo... here is my best attempt.
Elena is currently very into Babar (or Bara, as she often calls him.) After reading "Babar and his Children" a few dozen times (from the library of course), she was thrilled to re-discover the elephants lovingly made by Nola. They are now 'Alexander" and "Flora" and go on many adventures with Care Bear every day.

Miss Scarlett is alive!

I found her freezing and soaking wet next to the coop this afternoon. Hooray!! If I could only ask her about her adventures... Ah, the dangers of being a free range chicken! The girls are staying safely in their coop for the next few days so that we can all recover.

In memory of Tallulah and Miss Scarlett

We mourn the loss of...

our chickens! Tallulah and Miss Scarlett were mauled by a beast this afternoon. I found Tallulah in the backyard and Miss Scarlett is MIA. Daisy and Maybelle seem to be unharmed. We will especially miss our sweet Tallulah, so docile and funny. And Miss Scarlett-- the beautiful queen of the roost-- will never be replaced!

Elena has had some comments about the incident:
1. Let's go to the Tallulah and Miss Scarlett store and get another Tallulah and Miss Scarlett!
2. Why did Tallulah die?
3. How did Tallulah die?
4. Maybelle and Daisy will miss their friends.
5. Now Tallulah will never lay me any eggs!!

Huh?

Ellie: "Mommy, Daddy smells like hate today."

From the mouths of babes

Ellie: "Mommy, it makes God sad when I push Jesse down and it makes God happy when Daddy cleans the house."

News

The kitchette has been tiled and the walls stripped of the horrid wall paper. Kevin will tile the backsplash next.
The tiling of the floor is done!!! Kevin finally laid down the last tile today. He also built a wall at the back of the room to separate off the basement storage and back bedroom from the apartment. Eventually, we will put in a spiral staircase to access the back basement area. The walls have been smoothed down and the next step is painting and trim work.
We got two new koi this week off of Criagslist. The guy on the left is Zeus and Athena is on the right. It is hard to tell how beautiful they are from this picture, but they are really stunning fish. We also got about 50 goldfish at the pet store.
And last, but not least, we bought a minivan! Yes, we have officially gone to the darkside! It is a 1996 Kia Sedona EX (yes, Boris, the same van you guys rented!) It has lots of awesome features and tons of room and drives great. Unfortunately, it has a few quirks we need to work out... like the rear doors automatically open while I am driving. Scary! We think it might be a poltergeist so we are going to get the car de-ghosted first before we head to the Kia dealership. Anyhow, we got it for a sweet deal from a Russian guy off Craigslist and don't feel too bad if we need to get a few things fixed. All in all a welcome addition to the family.

We mourn the loss of...

Our fish!! A 5-year-old neighbor was over with his family last Sunday and switched on the waterfall without letting us know. Unfortunately, Kevin had rigged up the pump so that water would run out of the pond, not in it...( to avoid winter flooding.) So the next morning, we woke up to a dry pond and about 50 dead fish. We told Elena that a terrible thing had happened and she said, "oh mommy, do we need to save the day?" Fortunately, Kevin already found some elderly koi on Craigslist that need adopting, and the big tanks of 10 cent goldfish at the pet store are a mere 5 minutes away, so by next weekend we should be well stocked again.

Please stop the harassment.

We have been getting lots of complaints about the fact that our chickens have not started laying eggs yet. We ask that you try to accept our chickens as they are-- cute, smelly, poopy, and yes... eggless. Imagine how you would feel living in a world of egg-laying chickens when you not only can't lay an egg, but don't even want to. Imagine the shame, confusion, despair that must overwhelm you every day that you do not lay an egg, that you do not do what hens DO. We ask that you give our chickens compassion and patience. We still have hope that the eggs will come. It is this faith that keeps us going every day, scooping poop, pouring grain, changing water, and enjoying the daily tasks that keep our chickens alive and healthy.

Thank you for your continued support and understanding through this difficult time,
The Krentz Family

A girl and her chickens

Daisy enjoys the sun.


Four little chickens all in a row. It is the cutest thing to see the chickens napping in the sun together.

Happy Halloween!

Halloween was pretty fun this year. Elena totally got it and Jesse went along for the ride. Ellie was a "fairy princess ballerina" (thank you gender identity!) and Jesse was a doggy. He calls doggies "woof woof," which is super cute. One hugely dissapointing part of Halloween was that apparently we moved into a really lame neighborhood because only about every 5th house had candy and we got only two groups of trick-or-treaters. I consider it my civic duty to provide candy for children on Halloween. The word on the street is that most kids go to the MALL for trick-or-treating. Are you kidding me??? Very sad. Never, ever, will my children collect candy from Bed Bath and Beyond.