Giggles

Tonight at dinner Ryan was giving the kids instructions:

Ryan - Fold your arms, and until you hear "Amen", you will keep your eyes closed.
Jeff - What's "a menu".

Later the conversation turned to a recent skirmish between Jeff and Tessa and I just thought what Tessa said was funny, it went something like, "He didn't punch me on the trampoline - he punched me on the swing set!" Who knows why it tickled me but I think I was already giggling from the "menu" comment so I just kept finding them entertaining. But the incident with the punching was funny too, it was a couple of days ago and these are the complaints I heard between sobs and tears;

Tessa - Mom! Jeff punched me in the face! (lip bleeding)
Jeff - (with a completely straight face, he totally bought what he was selling me) Mom! Tessa bit my knuckle! (he had a little bit of Tessa's blood on his knuckle).

Summer Fun

Post swim team practice Sponge Bob Squarepants marathon. Good times.

Lake Pleasant

On Saturday we got invited to go play at the lake with Jessica and Mitch on his Dad's boat. Sweet.

There's the lovebirds. The wedding is in 16 days!

Ryan showed off his huge muscles and his fantastic tan
(I was kidding about the tan part but serious about the muscle part).

The kids were taught by Mitch's sister Leah who is an expert 10 year old knee-boarder. She really did a great job teaching them how to do it and they all took to it very quickly. Here's Jeffey, he did great, he could have ridden all day. He never tired of being dragged by the boat,

and he grinned the whole time.

Here's the two Leah's. Our Leah did great, she grinned and loved it. She and "Almost Uncle" Mitchell rode together later and were fun to watch.

Tessa was up on her knees the fastest of all our kids
(but don't say that near Jeff or Leah or you will have a big argument on your hands.)
She was great at it but did get tuckered out earlier than the other beasts.

Then there was me and Jessi. I liked it a lot even though I was laughing so hard at how weak I was it weakened me even more. I'm not sore anymore though so that is good.
Sunday was a painful day for me.

I like this picture of Ryan, he had fun and he is so cute.

Thanks Clerc's, Mitch and Jess for the wonderful day.
And Big Thanks to Terry and Arnon for watching Alana and Pete for us!

Bye Bye Birdie and Hello Chicks!

Tessa and I went to see Bye Bye Birdie today, it was so fun! I got the movie from the library yesterday and we watched it and she loved the music and story so she was excited to see the live action play.


Her birthday is tomorrow and she feels pretty fancy. We went and got her some nifty new shoes before the show and she was so cute walking around in them. When we went down steps in the theatre she would say, "Watch me walk down the steps." and she would gently step down the two steps like a lady, so cute.


And then. . . We have baby chicks! We checked them today and found that Dotty and Fish Blob (Blobby jumped on the chick band wagon just last week, she's been cozied up next to Dot trying to snatch chick glory) had managed to hatch three little chicks. There are two fluffies that look like they've been hatched for a day or so and one that looks like it just hatched. There are also two eggs under Fish Blob that are in the process of hatching. We'll keep you posted on chick totals :)



Sad that the video is so dark here, but you can hear them. Here's a picture.

That's all three chicks amongst their adopted mothers, Fish Blob on the left and Dot on the right.


Smile and say "Cheep!"

The Best Thing I've Ever Seen

Ryan was asked to dance with these boys at a graduation party on Saturday night. I am so very in love with him.

Broody Hens

Rainbow and Dotty when we first got them over a year ago, aren't they cute?!

Two of our dear hens (Rainbow and Dot) have gone "broody" -that means they just sit on their little nest spot and stare all day long because they imagine they are hatching an egg, apparently it is fairly common. So I did a little bit of research and there were several ideas on how to snap them out of it ranging from picking them up by the feet and shaking them (but I don't think it was a serious suggestion, right?) to cooping them up and not letting them get to their nesting area for like a week so the spell would be broken. Well, I felt kind of sad for them, they just want to be mothers, the poor dears. So I called my great uncle Keith who has lots of hens, peafowl, quail, etc, and he suggested I get some fertilized eggs, slip them under our girls and let them hatch them. He then got me 10 fertilized eggs from a friend and Mom brought them to me on Tuesday. We slipped them under Dotty and Rainbow and they didn't mind a bit (Dotty was sitting on four of FishBlob's eggs and didn't mind when I took those and replaced them with the real thing). Ever since then they've been dutifully sitting on the eggs and taking good care of them. It takes 21 days to hatch a chicken egg and they were laid around the 15th so we've got a couple of weeks before we'll know if we'll have any babies.

The kids are ever so excited, they've already divvied up the chicks (Jeff gets 3, Leah gets 3, Tess 2 and Alana 2 - I guess Pete is out of luck). We've had discussions about how they aren't supposed to touch the eggs or go near them when they hatch so hopefully we won't have any disasters. The kids even made a sign to warn any potential egg molesters. I'm pretty excited about having babies too, it will be an exciting summer!

*Ples (Please) don't touch the eggs. Thar (there) are relle (really) chicse (chicks) in them. No gathring (gathering) eggs! No eggs

It isn't notarized so I'm not sure how binding this document is. . .

Snippets

Driving home from Grandma Livingstones:

Jeff: Can't we stay up late tonight? It's Friday.
Mom: It is 7:30, by the time we get home and you get your pj's on, brush your teeth, fight with your sisters, and get a drink it will be way past your bed time and you will have stayed up late.
Jeff: Is it okay if I spend time reading a book instead of fighting with my sisters?

*He does take his responsibilities as an older brother very seriously and I know would feel he had shirked his duty if he missed any prime fighting time.

Another One

We are thinking of taking the kids to the Grand Canyon in a couple of weeks and at dinner we were dropping hints about summer time plans, I said, "We might go see a big hole." Tessa caught on quickly and said, "Oh, I know, we're going to the Turley's." (Friends of ours who had to replace their main plumbing line and had to dig a huge trench in their backyard.)

*I'm grateful that they haven't got big expectations for family trips and fun yet :)