Monday, April 30, 2018

Chicken Spring

Once upon a time a Papa had a birthday.  He has one every year, of course, and it seems like we all gather together and end up celebrating.  We are getting to the age that we don't need  to celebrate on our birthdays, or get lots of stuff.  However, little boys can't imagine a birthday going by without a celebration.  So, when we celebrated a Sunday by all eating dinner together, there were birthday greeting also going on. 


That Sunday was one of the few absolutely gorgeous days of April seeings as how the week before we had a blizzard, so we spent a lot of the afternoon outside.  

Jim decided this day to move the chickens from inside their little coop to outside.  He thought it would be fun for the boys to watch.  However, they wanted to help.  How often will they ever get to carry a chicken!









Besides chickens there is a dog.
Barry and Paislee especially love him. 



However, he is prone to run way.




Fun in the shop








Sunday, April 15, 2018

Snowy Eggs

Did you know that Nebraskan's are the nosiest people in this country?
Our newspaper said so.  
The gist of the article was that there is so little domestic terrorism in our state because we are snoops.  We pay attention to our neighbors.  
And out of state license plates.  
Whether my mom and I spent part of an afternoon watching and trying to figure out what was in the big box our neighbors got off the Fed Ex truck, has nothing to do with the matter. 

I have said before and I will say it again, and many, many times that Christian is a very creative youngster.  This again is his own unique take on a portrait of Gramma.
He also likes flat cheese. You know, as opposed to cheese sticks or rounds.  



Little Miss Paislee almost 20 months.


The best time to get cool Easter supplies is ...
after Easter, of course.
Lorene got this really cool egg decorator with a motor.
The egg spins and you do the coloring with paint pens.  
We boiled far too many to color, and I did a few raw ones.  
It was so much fun.








Winter isn't over yet.  
April 14th, we had a regular blizzard with around
 6" of very wet blowing snow. 
I love a good blizzard. I like to hole up in the house in front of the fire and knit.
It was the perfect weather for doughnuts, but I needed to get too many
other things done, so I made cinnamon rolls instead. 



I used up the rest of my potatoes just in time to plant more.
This is all that Jim left for me after he cut potato sets. 
He didn't want to use the big ones. 


I just love this little note Barry got from his teacher. 





Sunday, April 1, 2018

Another Year Older

Here it is the end of March already.  The countdown stands at 5 weeks left before graduation for both Lorene and Lynette.
The grand total of grocery money spent this month was $130.  I don't think I'll be able to cut so close every month.  I'm depleting my "on hand" supplies quickly. Except for meat.  

I hardly remember what I had for supper last night, let alone what I did the last half of the month.  The days seem to run together except for a few standouts highlighted in pictures.  
This is my birthday month, it is also the month for kindergarten round-up which isn't a big thing since most of next year's class is already in the pre-school.  I wondered if there were any extras that weren't in the pre-school and asked Christian to that effect that day when I picked him up from school.  He said, "no."  However, the next day he was telling about one new kid that joined them for that hour.  It is hard for me to communicate with the boys sometimes since I don't hear very well, but there is also the communication glitch between the understanding of a 
four year old vs. a 54 year old.  
The kindergartners, who went to the first grade room during the round up, made little goodie bags for Christian's class.  They each drew a picture and signed it.  I had and "awww" moment when the back of Christian's picture was signed by Barry.  It ending up in Christian's bag was the teacher's doing since Barry denied any knowledge of it.  

Christian is wearing his absolutely best favorite pajamas.  As soon as he gets home from school, he puts on his pajamas.  



Most years I go to my folk's to celebrate my birthday on a weekend near the actual date.  It has become a tradition to eat corned beef and cabbage and strawberry pie.  Mom and I always make two, but we didn't get the second one down since we ate our Sunday dinner at Pizza Ranch.  
We finished the first one off after supper and when I went to bed I was still hungry so after the house was dark I quietly went downstairs and snitched a piece of the second uncut pie.  I told no one but Jim and waited to see when mom would say when she found it.  She didn't see it until it was about time for us to leave.  She was surprised for sure; we had a good laugh over it and took a couple of pieces home.  


The boys were absolutely appalled at the thought of having no birthday party with me, so I planned to make small birthday cakes for them to frost, decorate and stuff with candles.  I was going to use the cute little 4" cake pan we got for the wedding and didn't use and bake them on my birthday.  
However, Lynette offered to watch the boys that day and I took her up on it, cake or no cake.  
We just frosted cakes the next day.  







I was impressed with Zane's handling of the frosting spatula (I can't believe I had to go look that up, the word just totally left me) and it was his idea to put the frosting in the bag to decorate.  The boys could choose their own color of frosting and the number of candles to put on the cake.  They asked for my age and when I said, "54," they were stunned at the thought of, "that many candles!!!!"
So, each put as many on as they desired.  Zane learned how to light candles with another candle, scratching matches on the box seems to be beyond him at the moment.  

Zane's Cake

Barry's Cake
 

Christan's Cake
He got a bit carried away with the candles and it looks like the whole thing is on fire.  


Zane was also zealous in cutting his cake so we could all have some.  However, there was too much cake for the four of us to eat in one setting, so some had to be saved for the next day. 


So, another month is gone and the new one started with a heavy 4 inch snow storm.  
Is spring around the corner, or not?