Little Chickadees ;)

It is the season for little baby animals :).  We decided it was time to add little chicks to our family for the kids to take care of.  We have done hens in the past so this isn't new, but we have never started with chicks before.  Monday night we took the kids to the local feed store and let them each pick out a baby chick.  We got 6 total to be sure each kid had a chick to care for and love.  6 is a lot and maybe we should have just gotten 4, but oh well.  

The kids really love their chicks!  They love helping take care of them, but especially holding them!  Here are all of the kids with their chicks...

Sandra with Goldie

Grant with Brownie

Talmage with Star

Mhari with Quiche' 

Clark with one of the other chicks.  His is yet to be named.

He is just so cute with them.  He isn't the softest, but he is good about not grabbing and such :)

Right now the chicks are living in a rubbermaid container until they are big enough to go outside.  Let's just say that they will be outside sooner than later.  These little gals are trying to learn to fly and have started perching up on the container :/.  Not so fun.  They stay in pretty well during the day, but when the kids want to hold them or take care of them we have had a few escape.  

We were told they were born around March 16th or so, but we wonder if they aren't a little older.  They really are growing fast and have small wing feathers already!  This is also our pest control for the yard.  There is a feast waiting out in the yard for these little gals.  We are enjoying our new little chicks and the kids are loving having an animal to love!  

Taking Down the Willow!

Our last entry ended with the falling of our Willow tree.  It was a pretty big tree and we are glad that there was not more damage when it fell.  I don't think it was just the Texas winds that brought it down, but the drought this summer probably weakened the root system to where it wasn't going to last much longer.  It was surprising to me to see how it just broke right at the roots.

Here are the broken roots.

Jeff was able to borrow a chain saw and get to work chopping up the tree before the big storm hit last night.  It took a while because it was so big.  

Jeff had good helpers though :)

This is what it looked like on the outside of the fence.  The whole top of the tree was basically outside of our yard.  

Sandra, Mhari, Grant and Talmage giving the tree one last hug.

Mhari saying "Poor Tree"

The storm we were trying to beat!

The boys hauling branches.  The pile started building up pretty fast.

Still cutting away at the top... 

Starting to make progress... trying to get it off the fence.

Bigger branches require more helpers ;)

The poor slide :(

Finally seeing some progress.

Getting to the bigger branches... harder to cut 

Taking down the stump.  By this time the rain had hit and we were under the patio.

What is left today... the tree still on the slide, but much less weight pushing on it.  You can see the huge piece Jeff cut off on the ground too.

Our huge tree pile.  It could be more compacted, but the kids did a great job helping!

I'm sad to lose the tree, but at the same time it has opened up more options for our backyard and maybe we will do something new and exciting ;).  We may have to actually buy a tree though, we will want the shade in the summer!  
Oh and besides one broken slat the fence seems to be fine, what a good fence Jeff built :)

Weeks Events!

Here are a few highlights from last week... and today:

Mhari was not feeling well last week Tuesday.  She needed to be well for us to go to the zoo on Wednesday and it wasn't looking promising ;(

Poor girl laid on the couch sleeping most of the day.  That evening she started throwing up :(.  Jeff stayed home with her while I went to volleyball.  When I got home she was still throwing up, restless, and had a fever.  Jeff had given her a blessing, but she seemed worse.  Later Jeff told me that he told Mhari that either she would feel better right away or she would start throwing up and do it a lot to get all of the ickies out.  Let's just say she took the second route.  She was done by about midnight and slept the rest of the night through.  She was up and ready for food in the morning and we enjoyed the crazy day at the zoo together! 




Talmage, our reader, finished Harry Potter through book 5 and now has earned 544.7 AR points for the year!  (Grant finished book two yesterday :))

His teacher will be doing a donut breakfast for the class on Friday for a reward for Talmage's hard work (not sure why the whole class gets a party?!)




I know it's tiny, but too cute not to share... we washed cars on Monday last week and Clark was being "helpful"  

If you can't tell from the picture he's licking the car.  In our defense it was all washed and it was being rinsed so he was really trying to drink the water.  I know not a very good defense, but still funny! 




Texas is having crazy weather today ... so far a bunch of wind and a little rain, but more is expected tonight (tornado warnings etc).  When we got home from picking up the kids from school the kids came in and got a snack.  Grant took his pear outside to eat and came back in after saying "Wow".  Yep, that about sums it up!  We had one tree and the wind took it down!  The kids are quite heartbroken about it too :(.  Mhari kept walking around saying "Poor Tree."  Talmage wants another willow to replace our willow that's down.  The willow tree was his friend ;(.  

It's crazy that the tree broke at the roots!  Its smushing the slide and leaning on the new fence... Jeff is going to chainsaw it apart when he gets home tonight.  Anyone need firewood?  I'm just hoping that's as much craziness as the storm brings us!

We love Animals!

For Spring break we decided it was time to take another trip to the zoo.  We hadn't gone to the zoo since Mhari was little so we were long overdue for a visit.  Our zoo is AWESOME and you can get some great views of the animals (one of the top 5 zoos in the nation).  Along with that every Wednesday is  half price day!   Somehow other people know about this too and the combination of half price day and spring break was really horrible!  We ended up parking out in the grass and had to walk to the zoo.  It felt more like an amusement park with the lines to get in!  There was even a helicopter and news crew to capture all of the action!


Besides all of the craziness the kids had a great time and really enjoyed seeing all of the animals!  Here are the highlights of the day... mostly of the kids, though I have plenty of animal pictures too ;).


Clark loving it already!

Looking at a crocodile... checking through the water.  I just loved that Talmage had turned around right when I took this picture :). 

Flamingos

Cute Chica

In the penguin house

Sandra is as tall as an emperor penguin... she was very happy :)

Grant with the awesome sign.  This is where he got lost the last time we were here... he left the penguin house while we were still inside.  Luckily we found him after just a few minutes.

Grant with the wallabies.  

Clark loving the fish... water and everything he wishes he was really touching!

Mhari climbing the alligator back.

The awesome jaguar... she was pacing - action shot :)  She was so close to us by the fence too!

One more try at a good picture of the jaguar

The elephants.  They were playing around... it was cute.

The giraffes

I lined up the kids for a group shot.  Wish they all looked happy.  They really did have a great time!

On our way out of the zoo... this is the lines of people still coming into the zoo at 2 pm!  Seriously crazy day!

Just outside the zoo they had some workers with animals.  We saw a huge snake, a turtle, and owls.  The kids are showing off their animals from the gift shop to the zoo lady.  Too cute!

It was a crazy day, but so great to let the kids experience the zoo again.  I'm not sure that I'll ever do the zoo during spring break again though!  

Sickie Hunny

Last week Jeff told me that his coworker was out 2 days with the flu... hmmm, not exactly fun news.  Jeff was starting to feel worn down Wed night, but nothing serious...Thurs night he was feeling it, but not sick yet... 

Then Friday morning hit and I knew he was down for the day... and off to get some meds.  He woke up with 102 degree fever that didn't go away.  He went to urgent care later and it was confirmed that he had the flu.  Poor guy.  He slept the day away.  

He was so cute I had to take a picture :)

Luckily his fever broke that evening, but he had to wait 24 hours before he wasn't contagious anymore.  That meant that he missed coaching the Friday practice and Saturday game.  Luckily his assistant, Liz, was there to help out.  It really was a shame because Saturday's game was great and the boys even pulled out a win 3 to 2!  They were so excited!  


It was nice to have him feeling better on Saturday, but he was was still pretty weak.  
Sunday he survived church, but his body still needs rest... by 8:30 he was out on the couch:

He got up a little bit later, but we were tucked into bed by 10 pm and anyone who knows us knows that is crazy talk!  I think that was the longest nights sleep I've had in a long time.  


The kids were so tired that even they were all out by 8:30 (or at least reading quietly that they let everyone else sleep too).  The kids have been staying up late and getting up early so it was really nice to have them sleep good too!


Even today he is pretty tired... man that flu is a pain!  Now to keep hoping and praying it doesn't spread!!!

From Straight to Curly!

I did my girls hair curly last week... it was a bit different than I've done in the past so I was curious to see how it turned out.  I must say I didn't come up with this on my own, but found it on pinterest from someone esle... the way we share fun ideas and all :).

First you ponytail the hair - when it's wet and has some product in it.  Then you twirl the hair around to make a bun.  When you do the whole head it looks like this:

After letting it dry (all night long) you undo it all for curly hair...

Sandra showing off the curls

a good back shot... so much curl!

I took Mhari's down but left them in the ponytails.  It was a fun look too!  The last day I took hers out all of the way for a curly look.  

The best part was how long it lasted... seriously Sandra's hair was still curly when we washed it 3 days later.  Her hair does take curl really well though.  They may even let me do it again.  I may hold back and not do as many little buns, but man was that a lot of curl.




Last Friday was Dr. Seuss's birthday and the kids were allowed to dress up as a Dr. Seuss character for the day.  Grant told me he didn't want to dress up (same for Talmage), but Sandra was sure set on the idea.  Now what to dress up as that's even possible to make into a costume?!  I was stumped.  


Until I remembered Daisy Head Mazie.  She wore a pink dress and had a daisy growing out of her head.  I figured that was doable :).  


Here she is all ready for school that day:

In case you aren't familiar with Daisy Head Mazie...

Her teacher showed her off to all of the other teachers.  Sandra was so happy to be dressed up and something girly too.  What a fun day :).  Maybe we'll be more creative and involve the boys next year... there were some fun costumes for lots of the kids that day!