Camel hooves, car doors and kitty paws

Life is busy, foks!  Busy, full and wonderful, but sure can be exhausting!  We have had so much going on lately, much of it quite random, that I am going to do this list style to fit everything in.  Here are some of the things that we have been up to, or that have made us laugh or sigh or think:

• I have started to read The Well-trained Mind this week and am feeling inspired in my homeschooling.  Several times over the past couple of months I have had the thought that I am homeschooling not only for my children, to give them an education tailored to them and their needs, but because I think maybe this is something I need in order to improve myself.  In one of my mission apartments, there was a sign hung above the doorway by a previous missionary which read, "Our trials are custom designed for our salvation."  I think I need to homeschool to learn somethings and improve myself in ways that I could not learn them otherwise.  I was reminded at church today that, "And if men come unto me I will show unto them their weakness. I give unto men weakness that they may be humble; and my grace is sufficient for all men that humble themselves before me; for if they humble themselves before me, and have faith in me, then will I make weak things become strong unto them." (Ether 12:27).  I felt such peace when I heard that scripture read today.  I need to humble myself more and really strive and pray for help in being the best mom I can be. 
•  The kids discovered good trees to climb after having another little boy (more adventurous than my own) over to play.  It is a favorite thing to do in the backyard now.



Climbing the tree in our yard.



• Kenneth went to Germany again for a week.  We survived. 
• On the way back from the airport he bought 5 more baby chicks!  The kids were delighted!  So, our total fowl is 8.  We almost had a fatality.  The kids were out in the garage playing with the chicks and Grant got frustrated and took it out on the chick and the poor thing conked out on the floor.  Emma came running in the house in hysterics and Kenneth and I went out and just about when Kenneth was going to pronounce the chick dead, it opened it's eyes and began to come to.  It was weak for a while after, but seems to be doing fine now.  Grant was grounded from playing with the chicks for a few days. 





Meeting the new chicks for the first time







Emma loves this little chick!  She named it White-ia.



Grant with the babies



They love to hold them all on their laps.



Emma with the five new ones



Here they are up close

• We really enjoyed General Conference weekend.  The kids had packets to work on that I printed from the internet.  And as we have the last few conferences, we put out little bowls of snacks with a picture from the Friend magazine attached (such as family, prayer, temple) and everytime they hear that word, they can eat something out of that bowl.  They love it.  So, I don't think they are really listening to any of the stories or are gleaning any grand messages, but they have at least an idea of what is talked about at Conference!
• Emma and I were reading a book about elk.  We read that when teh mother elk has a new baby in the Spring, she kicks last year's baby out and it goes on its own.  I turned to Emma and asked her how she would like it if when I had another baby I just kicked her out.  She giggled and said, "Mom, I don't even know how to cook my own dinner!"
• Arianna and I have started having learning to read sessions.  She is loving it!  Here she is reading some of the beginning reader books to Grant during Emma's piano lesson.



Arianna is so excited to learn to read!

• I started exercising again, now that Kate is on a more regular nap schedule and I feel great!!  I even went jogging on Saturday, which was a real treat to be all by myself for 20 minutes or so with just peace and quiet!
• We had a pretty cool ice storm this past week.  We lost quite a few limbs off our trees.  The kids loved going out and checking everything out, eating icicles, jumping on the icy trampoline, playing with ice chunks.  It was so neat to hear the crackle noise as the wind blew the icy branches.  



Tree in our backyard covered with ice






Arianna and Grant on the icy tramp






The view up our street all covered with ice shining in the morning sun






Beautiful spring blossoms have an icy start






Emma helping to clear some of the braches off the lawn






More icy tree branches






Our icy backyard

• A few days after the thaw, the kids and I cleared the branches from the lawn so Kenneth could mow our lawn for the first time.  Arianna and Grant got the biggest kick out of the path he left behind in the grass and followed him around for quite a while.  




Two little duckings following their Daddy.


• We grilled steaks and asparagus the evening we mowed the lawn.  It was such a perfect day except for the blasted Kansas wind which  almost blew over out umbrella over our table along with the table itself!!
• So the title of this post originated from a family prayer we had this past week.  Ever since my mom was staying with us after Kate's birth, we have been holding hands each time we have family prayer.  It was something my family did growing up, but Kenneth and I have never done it.  But, my mom started doing it when she was here and the kids really liked it.  Anyway, each evening a new animal joins in the circle and the kids make us hold hands with these animals.  Sometimes it is a puppy or a teddy bear, or like tonight, Arianna's 6 foot snake.  One evening though, all 3 of the kids decided to invite a 'friend' to join us.  Arianna invited her camel, Emma her kitten beany baby and Grant had his 10 inch long car with opening side doors, which we were required to hold.  Oh my. 
• For the past couple months, I have been practicing the piano each night.  The girls really love it when I play as they are going to sleep.  With their encouragement, I practice every evening and I love it! If it weren't for them I would probably make excuses (like too many dishes to do) and not MAKE the time for it.   I really want to be able to play and I can tell that I have improved.  I have learned a couple of the accompaniments to Emma's songs for her piano lessons and we are learning to play together.  It is so great! 
• Kate was blessed today!  She is such a sweet baby.  Kenneth said that when he took her in his arms in the circle she looked up and gave him the biggest ear-to-ear smile that he had ever seen.  He said it was very special.  It was a beautiful blessing of health and love and wisdom.  She wore the blessing dress my mom had made for Emma.  After the blessing and during the sacrament, Emma got a bloody nose and before she realized it, leaned over to give Kate a kiss and dripped a few drops of blood on the blessing dress.  I was able to get it all out, thank goodness!  Needless to say, she only wore the dress for a few minutes at church!

  

  Mom and Kate on Kate's blessing day

  
  

  

  Dad and Kate

  
   

  

  Mom and Dad and Kate- taken by Arianna

  

  

  After Arianna took the picture for us, she wanted to be in one!

Kate Update: 2 months old

This sums up how we feel about Kate!  Emma drew this- she's holding Kate, as she loves to do.

I can't believe our little lady is already 2 months old!  Kate is growing so fast.  As of April 3, Kate weighs already 12 pounds 4.2 ounces!  That puts her in the 90th percentile for her weight.  Her height was 23.6 inches.  I think that was somewhere in the 80%.  She is a big lady!  She is becoming so social and loves to smile at all of us.  She loves to be held by Emma and is very calm with her.  She seems to especially love smiling at Arianna.  As of today, Kate started to play with the animal hanging on her swing!

Kate playing!

  She is nursing during the day about every 2 1/2- 3 1/2 hours.  She takes great naps in her bassinet.  She is a very content baby.  As long as she gets milk when she wants it and gets her sleep, she is very happy.  In fact, the other day when Grant was interacting with her and she smiled at him he said, "Mom, she smiled at me!!!  We should call her Smiley!"  She really is such a delight.  The longest stretch she has slept at night was 8 hours!  Too bad it was from 8 to 4.  She gets up once each night to eat and goes right back to sleep.  I certainly cannot complain.  She is a great baby, for which I am VERY grateful.  It's kind of laughable, but our infant daughter has our master bedroom to herself at this point.  Little did we know that our fourth child would kick us out of our room!  Kenneth and I are sharing a room with Grant right now (there is an extra Queen sized bed in his room).  Kenneth moved out a few weeks ago when Kate was up several times in the night and he really needed his sleep.  I stayed in our room for a week or so after that, but knew that I would sleep better if I were not hearing all her little noises.  So, once she was pretty consistently getting up just once a night to eat, I moved out, too.  This home only has 3 bedrooms.  I keep thinking I should just put her in with the girls or Grant, but when it comes right down to it I can't seem to get myself to do it.  I am so afraid she will bother them or vice-versa.  So, for right now, I guess we'll keep it this way for a while, as crazy as it is!
And, as is the tradition with my babies, I take a picture of them at 2 months old in the same blanket.  So, see if you can guess who is who (scroll down to see if you were right):

Clockwise starting in the top left corner: Arianna, Grant, Kate, Emma

Oh!  I have so many other things to blog about, but my days go by way too quickly and there are never enough hours during the day.  We had an incredible ice storm, we more than doubled our chick population (and almost had a fatality!) and there are always fun times to share.  Hopefully, I can share more in the next few days.  For now, I'll just give you a couple more pictures of Kate:

What are you doing, Mom?

Mom- I think I swallowed a football.

She went thatta way!

Easter

Easter was so wonderful around here.  We spent quite a bit of time leading up to Easter talking about its real meaning.  We did a fun puzzle from the Friend Magazine and talked about the resurrection, watched an Animated New Testament Video called He is Risen, sang Easter songs, etc.  Kenneth had Good Friday off and we went to Hesston (the next town up and where Kenneth works) for their town Easter Egg Hunt.  The kids had a blast.  On Easter morning, I had a new water bottle for each of the kids with a scripture attached about Jesus giving us Living Water.  We ate bunnies for breakfast and hard-boiled eggs.  We didn't get new Easter dresses this year (I am hoping to buy some on clearance here in the next few days- I am cheap, I know!).  Church was wonderful.  There were some wonderful musical numbers and the speakers were great.  There was just a great spirit of rejoicing.  I am so thankful to know about the Savior and what He has done for us. 
We had Kenneth's cousin and his family over for an Easter feast that afternoon.  After the meal we had an egg hunt in the backyard for all the kids and then Kenneth did a scavenger hunt for them.  We had some other friends from church come over for dessert the the egg hunt as well.  We all had so much fun.  Here are some pictures:

Grant ready for the hunt.

I love these little cuties!

Arianna playing after on the playground after the hunt was over. 

Jeff, Kenneth and the kids on the merry-go-round.

The kids woke up to this.  I kept it simple and they were delighted.

Except that Arianna decided she would rather have a Stegasaurus than a bunny.

 

 

 

 

Egg hunt in our backyard.  You can see the garden Kenneth planted off to the left there.

 

 

Arianna is in to monochromatic dressing lately.  She cracks me up.

 

Emma the egg hunter

Happy Grant!

Enjoying their spoils.  My friend, Amanda, is holding Kate to the right.

 

Grant was so glad to have other males around.  He couldn't get enough of them!

Here he goes again.  Poor Zachary!

Finding the treasure at the end of the scavenger hunt.  Each family got a Spot It game.

Here's my new dining room table.  I really need to paint this room!  I can't decide on colors, though.

Didn't mean to keep you hanging for that long!

Sorry to those of you who have been left wondering for the last week what the 'excitement' around here is.  One of my friends called to find out what it was when I didn't post for a couple of days.  She guessed maybe it was that Kenneth finally stopped working his other job.  Sadly, no that is not the excitement (yes, he is STILL working part-time for his former job!).  If you ask him when he is going to wrap up his work for them, he will say, "Oh, maybe 2 or 3 more weeks" just like he has been since mid-January.  I've been having flashbacks to a few years ago when he was in school and working and I had a newborn and he was NEVER around.   It will be nice to have him around more soon.  Anyway, the excitement is. . .drumroll please. . .we bought chicks!!!  No, this is not an April Fool's Day joke and here are the pictures to prove it:

Here are the kids the day we brought the chicks home.

They have named them (from left to right) Noisy, Pecky and Blacky.  Oh, these poor chicks!  They have been put through the wringer with these three as their owners.  A couple days after we got them, the first thing Kenneth asked when he came home from work was whether the chicks were still alive or not.  They love them to near-death, it seems.  One day I walked in to find them swinging the chicks around in a small bucket- much like a roller-coaster for chicks.  Another day I came into the garage to find Emma riding around on her scooter with 2 chicks perched on the handlebars.  Oh dear.

So, here is their home:

Kenneth made it out of a wardrobe box.

Here are the kids reaching in to torture play with the chicks.

We started them off in an unfinished room in our basement since it was so cold the day we brought them home.

Here's what it was like outside the weekend we brought them home!  The kids had a blast on the trampoline in the snow!

 They were down there for a week and I thought I would go insane.  I mean, I am so happy that they have 'pets' and that they are having so much fun and all, but between worrying about the safety of the chicks, and the germs they may be spreading all over the house, keeping on top of making sure the kids wash their hands thoroughly after touching them, the wood shavings the kids were tracking everywhere and the chick poop we were constantly cleaning up (just in the unfinished room, mind you!  We had very strict rules about where the chicks could be!) I was starting to go mad!  Once it warmed up and we moved them into the garage, the kids haven't played with them as much.  I don't know if it's that the novelty wore off already or that it isn't as pleasant or convenient to play with them out there.  But, the chicks are growing well and we are excited to have our own eggs when they are grown up!

So, now Kenneth has a new project on this hands to build their chicken house to live in.  He has come up with a pretty cool design and is excited to build.  But, his to- do list is a mile long, so hopefully he will get to it before the chicks outgrow their wardrobe box!  He spent this past weekend installing a water softener.  That was interesting in and of itself.  He was supposed to complete the installation on Friday, but as most projects go, it took way longer than he hoped and way too many trips to the hardware store.  So, he ended up working on it all day Saturday, too, and didn't finish until almost 11 pm.  Of course, we were having family over for Easter Dinner and Saturday was my cooking and baking day.  So, I got to work in the kitchen all day without running water!  Boy, absence really does make the heart grow fonder!  I am so thankful for running water.  You should have seen my mound of dishes when the day was over!  I must say, though, it is very nice to finally have soft water.  I actually had a great hair day on Sunday because of it!

Here are some more pictures of the kids and the chicks and a video that you HAVE to watch.  It is hilarious!!!

Here is a close-up of one of these little ladies.

They love these chicks!

Grant insisted that I take a picture of Noisy's claws.

So, of course, Blacky wanted her claws photographed as well.

And Pecky couldn't be left out!

I kid you not, they spent HOURS playing with them everyday that first week!  And we still have 3 living chicks!

They discovered they could make the chicks flap their wings.  My favorite is to watch Grant concentrating so hard.

Pictures of Easter to come soon!  And my new dining room table.  Stay tuned!