Memorial Day family time:)

We used to have a tradition every Memorial Weekend. We would get together with several other couples to canoe then head back to one of our houses for a campfire and drinks. We still get together with those same couples, but it's a little bit different now:) Now there are 8 kids age 4 & under in the mix, we take turns hosting at our homes instead of canoeing, there are sippy cups and pack n plays as far as the eye can see and we're all home by about 7:00 pm for 8:00 bedtimes! We had a great time this weekend with great friends & even got together with some of them again the next day to enjoy the parade and great weather:)

A couple of the daddy-o's with some of the kiddos. This is where Alton was parked for most of the parade. He loved waving the flag and bouncing & dancing along to the music on John's shoulders when the marching bands came through:)

Our sweet ballerina

We had a busy, fun day on Saturday. It was Athena's first dance recital and it was so darling! There were 2 performances and all of the grandparents were able to make it see her:) We of course weren't allowed to take pictures of her on stage, but I think her beaming smile with her princess bouquet she recieved afterwards says it all:) She's been in dance class for a year and seems to be enjoying it so she's going to continue & I just enrolled her in the next session for summer.

Fishing Champs!

Dr. Shier and I decided to celebrate his birthday by entering a small local fishing tournament. There were 10 boats entered and it was a large-mouth bass catch and release format. To the surprise of many (including us) we took 1st place. We boated 20 fish and our top 5 were the biggest.

Special thanks to my neighbor Ben who hand made the plastic lure that you see here!

Dr. Shier and a nice looking bucket mouth.

The champs and our trophy.

So. Much. Excitement!

There is so much excitement around the zoo this week:) Alton took his first few steps all by himself! He did his best walking when we were visiting my parents the other night. He was standing holding on to one of the living room chairs and let go to walk about 4 feet all by himself over to the other living room chair! I of course didn't catch a picture of it, by I took this one of him and John practicing walking last night:) Big boy's other excitment is that he cut 2 more teeth this week. We're all pretty happy about this because it's been a long time coming! These 2 teeth have been trying to cut through forever and have been causing him quite a bit of havoc.

One of his favorite things to do lately is pull a pillow off of the couch, throw it on the floor and then lounge on it with a huge grin on his face.

Ena has had her fair share of excitement this week too. Friday was pajama day at school which she was incredibly excited for! Here she is modeling her pj choice for the big event:)

She also had some garden excitment when we walked down after school to check the garden and she about flipped her lid yelling "The radishes are growing! The radishes are growing! Mom! Mom! The radishes are growing" Sure enough, a neat little row of cute little radish sprouts have made their appearance:)

Yet more excitment was had by all when she did an awesome job peddling a 2 wheeler for the first time! (with training wheels of course:) Large motor abilities are not her thing so I was so proud of her for doing so awesome with this. Every night that it hasn't been raining, the first thing her and John do when he gets home from work is go out and take a few practice laps around the culdisac.
Our other family excitment was that Uncle Joe had his first calf of the spring born this week. We went to see the little cutie the other night and Uncle Joe surprised Ena by letting her name it:) It's a little boy calf and she named it Jake which I think is incredibly cute:)

I am feeling pretty excited that today was also the last day that Ena had to take her last and final dose from all the medications she has been on the last week and a half for her pnuemonia. Yippy!!!

Here's looking forward to a fun and exciting weekend to cap off our great week:)

Let the farming begin!

For several years Nicole and I have been talking about expanding our farming operation, so for Mother's Day this year Nicole got her first set of raised garden beds. We modeled them off of Ralph and Janet's beds that have provided us with many yummy treats in the past.

Stage 1 - Assembly


Ralph and I spent last Sunday constructing the boxes. The raw materials (and all good projects start with a 30 pack of beer... no we did not drink all of them).

Ralph, John and our team of helpers.

Here's Athena inspecting the placement of the garden boxes. We played around with several locations, but this is the one that got the most sun and is protected from the wind.

Athena and I ended up taking 3 trips to the local garden center/nursery in town. Our 1st trip was for a load of oak mulch that we used to make the bottom layer. Underneath the mulch we put some old news paper to help kill the grass. We then got 2 loads of gardening soil (1 yard total) and some peat moss to fill in the boxes.

Once the boxes were prepped we moved on to:

Stage 2 - Planting

While Nicole put the finishing touches on the trestle, Alton made sure the remaining boxes were plowed, tilled and ready to go.

In the first box Nicole and Athena planted beans and sugar snap peas. In the second box they planted carrots and radishes.

The final step was a good healthy dose of water and then we had 2 fully planted garden boxes. We are waiting a couple more weeks to plant some of the more temperature sensitive produce, but stay tuned for more updates.

The happy farming family!

Awwwww:)

Ena and Alton have been doing this on the way to school/daycare in the morning lately. Seriously. It's as if they read a manual on how to melt mamma's heart. I thought to throw the camera in my purse today so I could turn around to take a picture when we stopped at the stop sign.

Daycare drop off is going better and better for Alton. I'm beginning to notice a pattern of when he does and does not cry at drop off. If they are just setting out food for breakfast and he can eat right away as a distraction right after I give him his goodbye kiss he doesn't cry. He also doesn't cry when I am able to hand him off to one certain teacher. He actually reaches for her when I go to hand him over to her. She happens to be a young, drop dead gorgeous blonde. He's such a guy already! He likes the food and the pretty ladies:)

It stopped raining for a few minutes:)

We've had a break in the cold rainy crud weather we've been having. We were able to finally get outside for a bit. John snapped this cute picture while we were doing the egg hunt at my parents house last Sunday.

We also went up north to visit Grandpa Jim and Grandma Julie for a day:) There's always plenty of new animals around there for the kids to check out!

John and Athena had fun driving around in grandma's ATV thingy:) Crazy drivers on the loose!

Alton was interested in giving this guy a pet. Not sure if it's a sheep? Goat? I was just trying to get good pictures of Alton's first trip to grandma and grandpa's farm:) These guys are a new addition to the ranch since the last time I've been there. I"ll have to ask next time we go back:) Alton loved the sweet guard dogs that live with all the alpaca's:)

One of the alpaca's had a crush on John. Hopefully we'll have some more nice days in the forcast for the upcoming weeks! Can't wait to get outside more with the kids:)