rainy crazy hair night

I love where we live. It seems like we have clear skies most of the time. A few weeks ago however we woke up to some much needed rain. The clouds make us all sleepy and lazy. Evie did not want to do school. Neither did Snap.

By that evening all the clouds were gone and it was time for Awana and crazy hair night. Usually I forget all about the special Awana nights but not this time. My kids pestered me nonstop. Noah desperately wanted hair dye so we made a special trip to Target the week before. 

Polka dots for Noah, Evie had her "buns" tipped blue, and Samuel was just all blue on top. I love how Ezra is holding his face like, "What am I supposed to do?"

 And again how Ezra is turned the wrong way. Ha!

Noah got a cross on the back of his head. I washed the boys' hair in the sink before bed that night since the dye came off if you merely touched it. I didn't do a good enough job of getting Noah's out though. He had a blue spot on the back of his head for like a week. 

This was Evie's very own idea; she instructed me on what to do. I loved it. Definitely crazy. 

They had a great time that night.  

headed to State

For 4H this year Noah is doing their BB gun shooting club. We meet on Monday nights and I quite enjoy taking him and watching him but I really enjoy the time on my own. It's nice to only have one child on my hands instead of four. But I digress.

While Terry and I were at D2S my dad took Noah to a 4H shooting competition here in town. Something was lost in translation however and I thought he didn't score well enough to go to the State competition; thinking he needed a 300 to qualify. Turns out all he needed was a 250 which he does the majority of the time. So next weekend we are headed to Pierre to shoot for State!

A couple weeks ago after the kids got done shooting their four positions they were given animal crackers to shoot. Awesome.

Moses and Noah - two great patriarchs. He he he.

easter and a birthday for Evie

All of our kids were born in the spring...and randomly on odd days. It's been three years since Evie's birthday was combined with Easter and even though it wasn't technically her birthday (3/31) on March 27th, we combined the two celebrations anyway. 

Easter has become the one holiday where the weather and light are fair enough to take a family photo in our back yard or outside at the ranch. I did my best to coordinate our outfits so we'd look decent and not clash. Unfortunately my red and Evie's pink did just that. Oh well. Here we are getting ready while Terry set up the tripod. I like it.

Here's what we came up with. I like it a lot except for the play set in the back ground. I was hoping we'd block it like in our Ezra baby announcement riddle, but actually the play set probably wasn't set up there yet I guess. 

Next we tried the same place as last year, like below for our Christmas card.

The light and shadows were too stark, but we do look nice.

Here's the money shot.  

After we ate lunch we headed out to the ranch. Jesse and Shari were busy with his family so we just hung out until they arrived. We spent a lot of time watching the Cow Cam trying to decide and hoping that some cows would calf that afternoon.

I love that because of the time change we have more light in the evening. Even though it was nearly five o'clock, we had plenty of beautiful warm light to play in for our Easter egg hunt. This was Ezra and Sarah's first time since last year they were napping. 

Off they go!

Daddies are good helpers. 

Somebody has to help the littles while the mommy takes photos... 

This was the only photo I took of Ezra by himself. Oops. 

Wait, I got this one too. Double oops.

Terry and Jesse hid the eggs. There were several down at the bottom of the yard. 

Mind those trees! 

But even though the guys tried not to hide any too hard, we still were several short. Evie was missing two! Everyone fanned out and searched but we never did find them.

Stop and count. Nope, still short. 

It was so beautiful out. 

I like those trees. 

I made this picture my cover photo on facebook. Love it. 

Evie

Samuel. 

Noah. 

Sarah.

Grace

Shari was due in only three weeks at this point so they are shortly to be expanding their family. Yay for more cousins!

Yeah, I love those trees.

Evie was so disappointed she was missing eggs that Terry hid two more inside. 

Going over the Resurrection Eggs. 

Cute little Dwidge. 

After a delicious supper we went into the barn to see the newest and tiniest calf. 

Button 

MOO COWS! 

After we cleaned up the mess we sang to Evie and she opened a few presents. I bought the Shopkins and Jazmine doll for the grandparents to give Evie right under her nose the previous week at Target. She was so mad I wouldn't let her buy them herself. That made me mad! It worked out in the end.

The kids had cupcakes and the adults had my pecan pie. I made one because we always crave it since I made one when we were there for Thanksgiving and Christmas. I think I'll just make one every time we're all out there. Yum!

Right when we were getting ready to leave at 8pm a lovely mommy cow gave birth just so Noah and I could finally witness it. A good end to a good day. 

reading punks

We like to read around here. This particular picture is from a sleepy, snowy day a couple weeks ago. Evie is the only one legitimately reading, but since the other two are so interested, I'm hoping they will catch on quickly when their time comes. Samuel is in Kindergarden next year!!!

Today Evie announced that she was missing a bunch of Boxcar Children books from our collection and wanted to buy more. We had bought a whole stack of them at a garage sale a year or two ago and are missing some. She needed an entire shelf under her Christmas loft for her book collection...

There are at least 76 Boxcar books (according to the library shelf) and perhaps more so we went to the library today to borrow the one she was immediately missing. Everyone else got a stack too. 

spring cleaning 2016

Prepare yourself for a boring gardening post. I, however, love before and after photos. 

This was our deck garden area last year before I tidied up and we added a brick path. 

This is that same area this year before I tidied it up for spring cleaning. It's messy, but nothing like last year!

It was even better after I cleaned it all up two weeks ago on a beautiful Monday afternoon. I figured I better go for it since it was going to snow a couple days later. Most of the work involved pushing back dirt that had been dumped under the edge of the deck when we made the path. I had to majorly engage my abs to move it since it was so dry. I transplanted a few perennials, evened out the dirt levels, and then had Noah water everything. 

Lastly I went out front to trim and pull stuff up. I was so happy that my hydrangeas were showing green buds. However, after like three spring snows, they are no longer green. I hope they can come back. I've invested a lot in those blessed hydrangeas! 

Time to grow, plants!! 

See? Spring snowstorm two days later.