Easter Clearance Candy

Watching her enjoy this sucker might have been worth paying full price! 

Easter Weekend

Our neighborhood has an annual Easter egg hunt so we thought we should check it out!  

It was awesome.  The kids each got a hat when we arrived, then they were sent off to search with maybe 20 other kids for the 2500 eggs that were scattered over 4+ acres!  

The boys disappeared and I didn't see them until the hunt was basically over, with their bags (we forgot baskets but happily had Aldi bags in the back of the van!) full! 

Isla was easier to keep track of and therefore most of my pictures are of her, even if she didn't want me to take them. :) 

She had no idea why she was picking up eggs but she enjoyed every minute of it!  

She was doing a great job too until.. 

She discovered this guy and got sidetracked.  Oh well.  

Once the hunt was over our boys reappeared.  We were getting ready to leave when we found out that on top of the goodies in the eggs there was a prize table that all the kids could pick from.  Our kids made out like bandits!  

Sunday morning we had our own little hunt.  

It wasn't quite as spectacular as the day before but we still had fun.  

We had Jay and the kids over (Jamie had to work) for lunch/dinner.  Unfortunately we discovered that one of our children had taken our roast and put it back in the freezer.  I tendency to forget to put meat away after grocery shopping and said child is usually a great help to me, as he always checks the fridge for meat I didn't get around to putting in the freezer, this time it backfired.  So I shot out to the grocery store and paid top dollar for hamburger meat and buns. Oh well, it was yummy.  

After our lupper, the guys got to work on demoing the downstairs. 

Here are the before pictures.

The apartment kitchen. 

The apartment bathroom. 

The apartment bedroom area.

The hallway to the apartment.

The office area that we turned into the toy room. 

The demo crew and their safety gear. 

The first walls come down.  More pictures to come!  

Ford's Fourth!

My baby boy is growing up!  

His personality is really starting to shine through, now.  He's always been our most independent child and our quietest.  He's also very creative, tenderhearted and goofy.  We're pretty sure he's left handed and he loves to write letters and numbers on scrap pieces of paper.  He can usually be found playing Lego or coloring a picture.  He still has the most amazingly kissable cheeks, which I dread will disappear over the next year.  

 Happy Birthday Fordy! 

Can't wait to see what he'll do with these! 

Probably the most thoughtful gift given to Ford was from Seth. 

When we bought our first 4 chickens Ford chose Crete, which was fine until the girls started laying, since then he's been so sad that everyone gets their own eggs but him (eggs are kind of a big deal around here these days).  Seth, came to me one day a few weeks ago and asked if he could buy Ford a hen for his birthday.  So of course today we went to the feed store and Seth told Ford he could pick out his own chick!  

Of course we couldn't leave with just one chick! They had five different breeds to chose from so we decided to get one of each for each one of the kids!  

Chicken Coop!

One of the alluring features to our new house was that it came with a chicken coop! Ta da! 

Kidding, while resourcefully made, its rather unsightly and close to being condemnable. We were able to use it for a couple of months until Jed had time to make a new one. 

He started work on it a couple weeks ago with his many helpers! 

And finished everything except the roof and painting within a week!  

This will hold up to 10 chickens!  Once the nights are warm enough for the ducklings to leave the brooding bin we plan to order more chicks!  I'm so excited! I want Cochins so bad!  

Crete and his ladies are quite happy with their new home! :) 

Now if only these girls would start laying eggs! 

Birthday and Bluegill

We had a great day!  

Joe came out to the house and brought his four wheeler! Jed gave Evan, Seth and Isla rides, the other two were too afraid of the noise!  

Joe took the boys fishing.  

Seth caught his very first fish, reeling it in all by himself.  It also happened to be the first fish from our pond!  We weren't even sure if there were fish in the pond! Yay! 

Then Jed made my birthday dinner! 

SOOO good!  I wish we could stock the pond with crab and lobster! :) 

Flame Dude

Last week a cardinal flew into our screened in back porch.  It must have injured itself when going through the small hole in the screen because we discovered it couldn't fly.  Evan caught it, to let it go and let me tell you those things are vicious!  It bit him and Kane several times!  Finally we released it in the backyard but it could only hop from bush to bush.  Eventually it ended up back by our porch and we let it in for the night so it wouldn't be eaten by another animal.

Evan named him Flame Dude

In the morning the boys went out to check on him.  I was relieved when they reported that he could fly again!  I went out to prop the door open and help encourage him to fly out, hoping to avoid more bite injuries when I realized that there was actually a second cardinal in our porch and it was this one that flew not Flame Dude!   What the heck?!  

Seth named Flame Dudes buddy, Red Dasher.  

We propped the door open to let them leave, and they did but that hasn't stopped them from trying to get back in! Crazy birds! 

Spring

A small tree, that we thought was dead, sprung to life at the beginning of the month, with the prettiest pink blossoms!  

We've also discovered a few flowering blackberry bushes and another tree we thought dead, coming back to life!  We've never lived on a property with so many different kinds of trees and plants, we're really enjoying this spring here!