The Birthday Horse

I was looking at some dates on the refrigerator and saw that one of our miniature horses was born on April 18, 2005 and he was turning 10 this year. I told the kids, half joking, that we should celebrate his birthday with party hats and a cake. Oh boy were they on board! Every day for more than two weeks Greta has asked me when Rocky's birthday was. Well it is today. So he got brushed out (he's still losing his winter coat) and got a lovely red party hat. Sean took pictures. Happy birthday Rocky!

Miniature horses routinely live into their 30's, so he's considered young.

Easter, Reenactments & Crazy Canines

Was Easter really a week and a half ago? Yikes, time flies when you're having fun! We did all the traditional Easter stuff: dyed eggs, hunted for them at the city park and at home. This year they put quarters in a lot of the plastic eggs and Greta made out with $5.50 worth of quarters. She was super excited. My folks came over for an Easter meal of snow crab and pork loin. It was a fun Easter weekend.

My parents are preparing for a reenactment of President Lincoln's funeral that is around the end of April. It's to commemorate the 150 year anniversary of his death. They've never been part of a reenactment before so for the past few months they've been doing extensive research on mid 1800 clothing. They wanted some pictures so I went over and took some while they posed in their period attire. I'd say they are having an interesting retirement.

I made her pose for this one. Definitely my favorite.

I had the fun experience of taking all three dogs to the vet for their shots. They were all due for them and I'd been putting it off since they are insane at the vet clinic. Oh who and I kidding, they are insane all the time. I had a slow day last week and decided to just get it done. So into the car Greta, Sophie, Chance, Cody and I piled. They are lunatics in the car and jump from front seat to back seat to cargo area and then back again. Sophie decided to start barking a few minutes after we left, so that was fun. Then Chance jumped up on the passenger seat armrest and pushed on the window control with his paw. He did this to two different windows. He'd lower them, I raise them back up. Greta thought all of this was hilarious. I was not laughing. Two hundred dollars later it is done and I don't have to think about it for quite some time. I often wonder what it's like to have well trained dogs.

Dogs don't pose when they're jumping around a car.

Kindergarten Round-Up

 Last week I signed my youngest up for kindergarten. I'm far more emotional during this process than I was when I signed up Wesley. I really had no clue how I'd feel when Wesley went to kindergarten. It was a completely new phase having a child in school. Now three years later I have a 2nd grader who is flourishing. I do miss him when he's at school but I have Greta so it isn't too bad. Now Greta's going to school soon and I'm kind of sad. It's going to be lonely around here for seven hours a day. It will be so strange working again. I haven't worked full time in eight years.

Now Greta on the other hand. She is very excited to go to kindergarten. I can't be happier for her. When she turned five she went through an anxiety phase that I was scared she'd never emerge from. She'd cling to me during preschool drop off, crying and pleading with me not to leave her. At bedtime she'd apprehensively ask if preschool was tomorrow and then start worrying if I said yes. This behavior overlapped into doctor and dentist visits. She'd freak out if I said we had to do to the doctors. She's not completely out of that phase yet but when it comes to school she's 110% better. She LOVES preschool again. She even will go inside on her own without me. The teacher and even other parents have commented on her 180 degree behavioral change. I couldn't be more happy for her.

I am not worried at all about her entry into kindergarten. She has her best friend from preschool going into the same school with her and I've been assured that they will be in the same class. Oh and she's excited that she'll get to see her big brother in the hallways.  This is a win win situation.

A Weekend Away

Well jury duty turned out to be a bust. I drove in, they put us all in a room and selected 31 out of the 45 people there. I was not one of the 31 so I got in my car and drove home. It wasn't a bad experience, it was actually quite interesting hearing the 31 people being questioned by the judge. I learned all sorts of things about those 31 people. I have to call back next week so perhaps I'll be one of those selected people soon enough.

I thought I'd share some pictures from last weekend. We traveled up to see my sister as it was my youngest nephews birthday. Little Bennett turned 4 years old.

He's such a cute little ham of a kid. He really worked at blowing out that last candle from three feet away. There was face painting involved and lots of cake and ice cream. What's not to like?

Children and adults alike enjoyed the hulk hands. Although I think my father might have appreciated them more.

There was plenty of playing and a nice walk to the park nearby. Walkie talkies were a big hit among young children and fathers alike. I find it hilarious that my daughter can strike a pose if I tell her I'm taking a picture.

I had my very first trip to Ikea (one of my parents favorite stores). It was a massive store full of great ideas. It made me want to come home and organize (which I've been doing all week!). It was great fun! We even ate lunch there which was very tasty. I'd definitely go back.

We stopped at a McDonalds for coffee on the way up there and found a very cool interactive table with lights that change colors with pressure from your hands. Wesley was quite intrigued. Good times! That was my fun weekend.

Well Armed

I got the dreaded jury summons in the mail a few weeks ago.

I dodged it a few years ago because I was, sort of, breastfeeding my youngest daughter. Apparently breast feeding in a courthouse is distracting so they let me have a pass on that one. This time I wasn't so lucky (if you consider breast feeding lucky).

This morning I trudged into the courthouse, which is about half a hour away. Upon entry into the building I was greeted with metal detectors and police officers. One officer took my purse and pulled me aside to inquire about its contents.

Officer: "Ma'am do you have any pepper spray in here?"

Me: "Hmm you know, I think I do." 

Officer: "Do you have any knives?"

Me: "Gosh, yeah I think I have two." 

At this point I start digging around in the purse to locate all my weapons. I pulled out my keys and on my key ring is a Safety Cat personal defense keychain my father got me.

Officer: (chuckling) "I'll need that too"

Me: "Sorry, I was really not prepared for this!"

Officer: (puts his hands up) "Man, I'm not going to mess with you!"

All my seized contraband. It's a good thing I don't fly much.

Seedlings

What to do on a lazy Tuesday morning. Oh yea, re-pot oodles of baby tomatoes. They were quickly out growing their little peat pots and needed more room. Greta was a big helper taking over soil duties. She's very gentle with the seedlings. We got 35 replanted. It's a bit much, but we do love home grown tomatoes. This year we are trying three varieties called Heritage, Atkinson and (or course) Cherry tomatoes. Yum!

Spring Break

Whew! I somehow survived Spring Break 2015 with the kids. By the end of the week I wasn't sure I was going to make it though. I should have planned more activities but we had fun. It was cold and rainy for a large majority of the week so we stayed indoors for the most part. I took them shopping with me and out to eat, which they loved. Release these kids in a craft store and they can entertain themselves for hours.

If I get the camera out and say "smile" these are the faces I get. Silly kids. I wanted to take them to the movies one day and our options were Paddington (a cute bear movie) or SpongeBob Movie. I voted Paddington, they voted SpongeBob. They won. It was an excruciating hour and 45 minutes. They loved it though and that's all that counts.

The Hubby was busy all day Saturday putting new front and rear brakes on the Edge. It had been squealing when I backed it out of the garage and grinding a bit when stopping. Sure enough the pads on the back where well worn and in need of replacement.  Man, new brakes are nice! A big thanks to my awesome husband.

The 3D printer is still getting a work out. Greta asked to have a 3D printed Olaf made so Sean found the plans and set forth printing each part of Olaf. There were several parts: the body, head, nose, buttons, feet, teeth and arms. I had some modeling glue that did a fabulous job of welding the parts together. Then after a paint job we have the finished Olaf. That's pretty much my spring break in a nut shell.

Update through pictures

As I write this post I'm smelling the lovely scent of dehydrating mango and bananas. Every time I go to the grocery store I scope out the produce section for new and exciting fruits to throw in the dehydrator. This past weekend I found organic mango! Score! They smell heavenly. I'm enjoying the dehydrator.

We've encountered a new challenge to dog ownership. Chance, our little 13 year old terrier mix, has decided to start marking our house. He does it primarily when he gets super excited. So, for instance, say the neighbors dog walks past the back fence, he and the other two idiots go barking madly at the window. Then he finds the nearest thing to urinate on and lets loose. It is incredibly maddening. Sean mentioned perhaps he needed a diaper (the dog, not Sean) and so after a search on Amazon I discovered this is a common problem amongst male dogs. So much in fact that they make a product called a "male wrap" that wraps up the problem area much like a diaper. So I ordered one and once it arrived I strapped it on the little leaky terror terrier. He absolutely hates it. He's normally a frisky little dog, with oodles of personality. Well he turns into a statue when I put on his diaper. Will not move. He just moves his eye balls around in their sockets, head perfectly still. It's pretty funny, but also a little sad. I don't want him to stop being Chance, I just want him to stop urinating. Maybe he just needs to get used to it.

Greta and I started a whole lot of seeds last week. We planted kale, cabbage, lettuce and three varieties of tomatoes. Now a week later and they have all come up and look pretty good. The nice weather is enticing me to think about garden designs and ponder tilling methods. Greta seems to find enjoyment in watching seeds grow so perhaps I've passed that hobby on to my youngest.

The beautiful Spring like weather is making all the outside livestock happy campers. The goat family has weathered another semi rough winter. Each winter I think might be Dym's last, but she keeps on truckin'. I've created a pretty good combination of warm beet pulp, alfalfa pellets, a nice warm fleece jacket and regular de-wormings to keep her in decent condition. Older animals take quite a bit more work to maintain, but she's worth it. Such a sweet goat.

Wesley is a crazy tooth losing second grader. He lost his other big front tooth so he's got no teeth when he smiles. It's actually his sixth tooth. Poor kid can't figure out how to take bites out of food. I bet it feels odd to say the least.

With the nicer weather comes more eggs! The chickens have been ramping up production with Spring on its way. This winter I didn't try to force egg production with a light bulb in their hen house. I usually do that and it keeps me in eggs year round. But after last winter and the dreaded January molt (losing feathers in the coldest month sucks) I decided to give them a break. They look great this winter, five fat and happy hens. They are back up to giving me three eggs a day, which seems to be the perfect number for our family. It's great not buying eggs anymore.

Fun Weekend

It hit 73 degrees yesterday. It was glorious. To me, it means Spring is coming. Technically Spring is coming, it starts in 13 days. The kids and I laid on the trampoline and soaked up the sun yesterday. Then we proceeded to try and clean up the yard. The yard looked similar to the house after a week with no clean up attempted. Sand box toys, baseballs, logs and boards all spread around the back yard. Oh and cat food cans, we mustn't forget those. The highlight of the dogs day is waiting for me to unlock the shop door and open it so I can feed the horses and goats. The dogs then run in there and retrieve their favorite cat food can (with just a morsel of last nights cat dinner in it). They carry them out to the yard and lick each can for a good 20 minutes before going in to retrieve another. This has been going on all winter and there are cans spread all over the two acre back yard. I gave each kid a grocery sack and told them we are going to have a redneck Easter "egg" hunt where instead of eggs, they get to hunt cat food cans. And to sweeten the deal I would pay out a nickle for each can they found. Boy were they determined, each filling their grocery sack in record time. Best couple of bucks I've ever spent.

It's been a long winter and I seem to be lacking the typical Spring motivation I usually have. I did start seeds last week but the thought of actually tilling up the garden and planting them (and the sack of seeds I ordered) is ranking pretty low on the list of things to do. Usually I'm rip roaring to go in the Spring. I did get the leaf blower out yesterday and attempted to start blowing the giant piles of leaves that have accumulated in every corner of the property. We have several mature oak trees and they don't drop their leaves until Spring instead of the traditional fall drop like most trees. So I don't even try to get rid of leaves until Spring. It's going to take several more weekends to get the job done but I got a good start in the front yard.

About a month ago we told Wesley if he read 75 books and wrote them down then we would take him to the local arcade and play games for an afternoon. Well last week he did it. Got 75 books written down. He was super excited! Yesterday we all piled in the car and went out to eat and then to the arcade. We all had a blast playing games, even Greta joined in on the fun with an Ice Age whack a mole type game. It's definitely something we'll do again. The kids favorite part was each game spit out tickets which they collected and got to spend on trinket toys. Kids love those cheap little trinket toys!

Paleo Muffins

I always like to challenge myself for a month at a time. Whether it's getting more exercise or eating better, keeps me motivated. This month it's been a sugar free February. It's hard in the beginning but by the end of the month it gets easier. As a result I tend to go searching for healthier snack ideas. Some of the best websites for sugar free ideas are Paleo websites. If your not familiar with Paleo it's eating strictly meat, veggies, nuts and fruit. No flour or sugar. There's more to it, but that's it in a nut shell. I'm not going paleo, I don't think all that meat is real good for ya. But I do like their snack ideas. One of my favorite this month is Paleo Banana Nut Muffins. No flour or sugar, lots of good stuff can be added. Here is the recipe:

Paleo Banana Nut Muffins

1. 4 bananas, mashed with a fork (the more ripe, the better)
2. 4 eggs
3. 1/2 cup almond butter
4. 2 tbsp coconut oil, melted
5. 1 tsp vanilla
6. 1/2 cup coconut flour
7. 2 tsp cinnamon
8. 1/2 tsp nutmeg
9. 1 tsp baking powder
10. 1 tsp baking soda
11. 1/4 tsp salt

350 degrees for 20-25 minutes.
I threw in some raisins, unsweetened coconut, a shredded carrot and topped with pecan pieces. These are awesome for breakfast or a quick snack. This made 16-18 muffins and can be stored in a zip lock bag in the refrigerator. 

The Octopus

The first 3D printed item went so smoothly that Sean decided to make something for Greta. So they went to thingiverse.com and let Greta pick something out. This website has free design files you can download for your 3D printer. She wanted an octopus so they went through several designs before finding the perfect octopus to print. Man, it was super cool watching this one print! The legs were mesmerizing. I had initially gotten video at the beginning when it was printing the legs and shared that one to facebook, but this second video of the body was almost more fascinating than the legs. Take a look:

An Indoor Weekend

We woke up to this lovely winter landscape this morning. It's around 18 degrees with some strong winds, definitely a day to stay indoors and work on projects. This week I was given an older dollhouse and, after a trip to Lowes, am ready to start the restoration. I loved my dollhouse when I was little and I hope Greta finds this one just as fun. It's blue exterior is getting a fresh coat of sage green paint to freshen it up. I'll show some before and after pictures once it's done. I'm having fun with it.

 Sean has been in the basement working on the calibration of the 3D printer. He was ready for the maiden print yesterday and found an appropriate first project. Wesley woke up to find a freshly printed Minecraft Creeper head. I put a short video at the bottom of the post. It was fascinating to watch it print the honeycomb design that made up the interior body of the cube. Very cool piece of machinery.

My New Fruity Pastime

What's in the box you ask? Well! I was watching a Friends rerun the other evening....it was the one with Chandler and the crazy roommate. The crazy roommate was really into dehydrating foods. I mentioned to Sean that I've always thought it'd be fun to dehydrate fruit. He told me how much he'd like to eat dehydrated fruit. So off to Amazon we went and bought a highly rated, not too expensive dehydrator.

Now the fun part begins! I do not know the first thing about dehydrating. This was bought on a whim. So I opened up the instruction manual and gave myself a quick lesson and then started chopping. Being unprepared means I didn't even have much fruit to dehydrate. But we generally always have apples and bananas on hand so that's what I chopped.

This particular model came with a fruit leather tray (think fruit roll-up). My kids (and myself) love fruit roll-ups so to be able to make my own was definitely a selling feature. One of the recipes for the fruit roll-ups was a pina colada leather that consists of a can of pineapple, a banana and some coconut that you put in a blender then pour out on the tray in the dehydrator. Sure sounded good to me and I had all the ingredients. Score!

The apples required a little prep work before they could go in. First you must chop them super thin. Luckily I bought a mandoline slicer at the same time we got the dehydrator. How have I lived this long without a mandoline?! Those things are awesome! One apple fills two trays. They must be soaked in orange juice or lemon juice for five minutes so they don't turn brown. I sprinkled them with cinnamon after their soaking.

After 8 hours everything was thoroughly dried out. The bananas didn't turn out like I imagined. For some reason I was thinking of those delicious banana chips you buy in the grocery store. Those are actually fried in coconut oil and sprayed with a sugar solution (I had to look it up). These banana chips are more like leather chips, not crispy. Still very good, just not what I had imagined. The apple chips were awesome. Nice and crisp. The pineapple fruit roll-up was good even if my kids didn't like it (have I mentioned how picky they are?).  I just bought a fresh pineapple to dehydrate tomorrow, can't wait! So much to dehydrate out there, I better get truckin'.

I Love....

I haven't done a Love post on Valentine's Day for a few years now.  I thought I'd attempt to do one today in honor of Valentine's Day.

I love....the sweet construction paper Valentine's my children made me.....going out with my hubby on a Friday night....listening to Wesley read so well......giving goat scratches......laying with my kids on the trampoline and soaking up the sun......Amazon boxes sitting on the porch......warm 70 degree days in February.....Greta's face when I pick her up from preschool......my awesome parents and their awesome babysitting skills.....listening to the kids sing every word to their favorite songs on the radio (Oh how they love Imagine Dragons)......getting flowers delivered from my sweet hubby.....my quiet kid-free time during preschool....playing dolls with my daughter....Wesley's toothless smile.....watching Supernatural with my hubby on the couch.......green tea in the mornings......getting 10,000 steps on the FitBit......hunting for treasure with Greta at the thrift stores....eating dinner together as a family.....hearing all about Wesley's day at school on the drive home.....being a mom to these two incredible little people.

Happy Valentine's Day everyone!

 

Party Prep

"So what have you been up to lately?"


Well it's so nice of you to ask! I have been pretty busy this week. Every available moment during the day I have been sculpting. This year I wanted to do something special for the kids in Greta's preschool class for Valentine's Day. There are only ten kids so sculpting each child something wouldn't take too much time right? Well that's what I thought too. It seems like everything takes longer than I plan, but it was all worth it. I think the kids will like their little sculptures. I made sure to put their names on them too. I got little bags and put the Valentine card, Hershey kisses and each little teddy bear in. Oh and Greta is ecstatic to give them out tomorrow at her preschool party.

Zombie Fog

I had to stop on the dirt road to take a picture of this lovely sun rise. There was a nice haze of fog floating on the grass. The kids refer to this as "zombie fog".

Scouting

So the kids and I decided to scout out a new park yesterday. It's not a new park mind you, just new to us. This town is about twelve minutes away and I always figured there was a park I just had never happened upon it. Finally I Googled it. Sure enough there was a park, and an awesome one at that. Most playgrounds are pretty cookie cutter playgrounds. This one has some new and cool stuff I've never seen before.

The down side? Everyone in a 50 mile vicinity also thought going to park yesterday would be great. After all it was a 70 degree day in February. It was packed! Very fun though.

Whenever a tree is cut down they form the stump into a chair. So the kids ran from tree chair to tree chair posing for the camera.

I took them shoe shopping afterwards followed up by a rousing trip to the natural grocery store. They were completely and utterly worn out by the end of it and I got a very quiet and peaceful trip home.

I hope everyone is having a nice and relaxing weekend!