Friday, May 23, 2014

Birthday Shopping Trip

I finally got all the kids signed up for the Toys R Us birthday club so every year they'll receive a $3 gift card. So after Ford got his in the mail, we of course had to spend our next date spending it!  

We looked at Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Avengers and Batman, he had almost settled on a Hulk action figure when we found Stuart! Minions are all the rage around here.  

After he made his final selection we went and test drove the Power Wheels. 
They had a Mario Cart!  I had to explain to Ford that $3 wasn't close to sufficient to cover the cost.  

 And a TMNT dune buggy! 

I finally pulled him away to check out. 
 I asked him to show me his Minion and gift card, he did this. :)
He looked so big waiting to pay for his new toy and he did a great job checking out by himself!  

Friday, May 2, 2014

Chicken Humor

The boys called me out to the back deck, "Mom, the chicks did something amazing, come quick!" 

I walk out there and what do I find? This: 

 
And four boys laughing hysterically. 

Easter Clearance Candy

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

Thursday, May 1, 2014

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!  

Monday, April 14, 2014

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!  

Tuesday, April 1, 2014

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! 

Monday, March 31, 2014

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! :)