Easter 2011

Has it really only been a week since easter? it seems so much longer...although I'm not sure why...maybe because things have slowed down in our lives this last week?

Been giving Easter a lot of thought this month and how I wanted to make sure my kids understand that although the Easter Bunny, baskets and eggs are fun, they aren't the reason we have Easter. A good friend of mine made us "Resurrection Eggs" which are a dozen plastic eggs filled with little symbols of the Resurrection. It was a great way to bring the scriptures and the understanding of what really happened to a level that my girls could comprehend. The day before on the ride home from the Tulip Festival we went through the 12 eggs and read the scriptures for each symbol. Afterwards we talked about it and how Christ is really the reason behind Easter and then I asked them what the Easter Bunny and everything else has to do with Easter-we decided it was a celebration of Spring.

Sunday was a great and fun day-it started out with a great Easter program in both Sacrament and Primary. I was able to teach the Sunbeams which was a great experience! We went through the Resurrection Eggs, colored pictures of Christ and the tomb and had snacks.

When we got home from church we found the Easter Bunny had paid us a visit. Leaving a trail of Jelly Beans and candy on the floor and up the stairs to where they found their Easter baskets on their beds. It did become a big joke that the Easter Bunny put the wrong basket on the wrong bed in the girls room. They giggled about it all night calling him Silly Easter Bunny.

Tate-well Tate came home a lil tired and although he was excited to find his Easter basket in his bed he was just as happy to sit in his bed with his binki and his blanket and play with his toys there while the girls did their own little easter egg hunt in the Family room.

Among all that candy-the girls mostly just played with it using it to make gardens and pathways for their new lil easter Dolls.

As for Easter Egg Dying we did things a little diffferently this year. Instead of Dying Easter eggs we painted ceramic eggs. It was still fun and an added a little twist to things. It was also a great activity for the girls to do while Mom and Dad had a little afternoon snooze.

Loved waking up to the results.

It was a really great day and we had a great time celebrating!

New Home

The Chicken coop is finally finished and not a moment too soon as the chickens heads were starting to hit the roof of their temporary home.

They were trying to escape anytime we went to feed them.

It's a nice little place-2 floors a nice place to roost, heat lamp when it's cold and lots of protection from the outside life. You just move it every couple of days and we're all happy. The lawn, the chickens...well maybe not the grubs or the moles but that just makes us all that much happier.

The kids were sooo excited to introduce the chickens to their new home. I'm actually surprised they still want to hold them, despite the many lessons on washing your hands afterward.

I was most impressed with Tate who has been pecked and still fearless.

The chickens were not too bright through this all though. They huddled on the cold hard ground till after the sun set and until John finally chased and threw them into the top where their roosting bar stood and the nice warm heat lamp. We're all hoping they make it through the night.

Good job on the new house John-looks fantastic!

Ta-ta for now....

Our dear Grandma Payne left us this morning. :( She been with us for 9 weeks, although I have to tell you the time has FLOWN by and it feels like she just got here. I haven't taken a lot of pictures not because we don't love her but mostly because we know how much she loves having her picture taken so we've mostly just been enjoying having her here. There are many posts started but not finished we've been so busy with all the fun things we do and the adventures we've gone on.

Grandma Payne has introduced us to the fun new world of Sam's Club where they actually mark down their meat which has allowed us to do more canning. We've done canning of meat-both chicken and beef as she's taught me to use the Pressure cooker. We also experimented with the steamer making Mango Relish that we're both excited to find something to use it with. We've even dehydrated Bananas-which were Delish and didn't last too long! Now if we can just fix the thermostat I think I'll become a dehydrating fool. I can't put into words how nice it has been to have her around. She's a great listener, sounding board, and empathizer. She's one of the easiest people I have lived with-she cleans up after herself, is patient, tolerates and plays with the kids and often swoops in at the end of the day when my energy level has been depleted usually having the dishes done by the time we come down from putting the kids in bed.

Tyler has taken up most of grandma's extra time it began with her talking to Grandma and played in the rocker while Grandma laid in bed. It quickly progressed to game playing and puzzles and then just before Grandma left they were playing no less than 2-3 games of Candyland a day with Tyler usually winning those. Grandma has been very patient and taught Tyler not to cheat and to lose a little more gracefully than she has in the past. There have been many pictures colored and painted with the joint effort of the 2 of them. I think Grandma has even played her fair share of Polly Pockets and Barbies.

Tate took a little warming up to but eventually he too spent a lot of time visiting Grandma in her room while she iced her leg, although during that time she'd also be subject to his climbing and jumping on the bed. I tried to keep it to a minimum, but thankfully she was always a good sport. Especially these last couple of weeks he's learned when he needs his horse, a cookie or treat he knows where to go. He just grabs Grandma by the hand and leads her to whatever he needs or wants. He's also been found on her lap in the evenings with a blanket or two in hand and his binki for an evening snuggle while dinner is being finished. I think she's even learned his toddler ease language and understood quite a bit of what he says.

McKenna didn't get as much time with Grandma since she was in school much of the time and then doing homework or hiding in the room with Tyler playing dolls.

John was at work or with the missionaries much of the time, where 3 times a week he was able to push and pull as he tried to help his mom bend and straighten her leg. Those of us who have not been through a knee replacement don't truly appreciate the ability to do so without too much effort-most of the time. I'm happy to report that John and his Mom left on good terms and are still speaking too each other so he must not have been too bad. In the evenings when John was able to be home you'd find the three of sitting around the computer watching American Pickers, and then once we'd gone through all the episodes we discovered American Restoration, both on the History Channel.

Another bonus of having Grandma stay at our house is that we were able to chat with many of our family memebers we don't usually hear too much from. Communication goes both ways and everyone's busy but you always have time for Grandma-so it was fun for us to keep up on the lives of John's siblings and to have Uncle Steven and his family come and visit.

Grandma Thanks for coming all the way to Washington to get your knee replaced, we LOVED having you here and hope you'll come up for a couple of weeks every year. We'd take you another 8 or 9 but I'm pretty sure Grandpa wouldn't go along with that. From what John tells me coming home to an empty house gets old pretty quick. Grandpa thanks for letting us have her so long.

Sunny Days

It's been a very cold and much rainier Spring than usual (about 10 degrees lower) so when the sun came out and it was actually warm the kids were outside running and playing in it.

The girls were using their imaginations and at some point mentioned something about they pyramids in Egypt, which impressed me until John reminded me that was the Please and Thank You episode on The Backyardigans. :) Although they were flying like planes with bunny ears and then an all time favorite played on the swings.

Tate-well he's all about the dirt. He's rediscovered his dirt box, although I'm thrilled to find him NOT eating it this year. Every time the sun comes out and even when it's cold if I let him he runs out there and just fills the bucket and dumps it out

Eventually we all gravitate and get a little dirty. I garden-they make mud/dirt cakes.

Head Shoulders Knees & Toes...New Shoes

A big surprise came in the mail this week.

Just a Few More...hens

Is it sad that the biggest news around here mostly has to do with Chickens...

Well John surprised us with a couple of new chicks on Saturday when he came home from work. I can't say we were disappointed-we love lil baby animals and chicks so soft and fuzzy are cute as can be. Too bad they can't stay that size. They also make the other 4 look Huge-although they are really only midsize. Our new Chicks will be Red/Brown-making it a very colorful clan.

Their names:

Goldilocks (hence the current color) & Shiver (cuz it was leftover from the last round of name giving).

We won't put them in with the other chickens quite yet. Something to do with the pecking order. But they do share a warming light. They seem to be ok with that much.

A night Out

Employee appreciation party at the Tacoma Rainier Baseball Game. We don't get out with just the two of us very often and it was almost awkward, I mean really fun to spend some time together. No it really was fun to be with him and to see and get to know his "co-workers" although I think he was the only one from his clinic there. It was fun to see Adam & Becky Jo and their families, and the Steele Klan, old and new friends.

My only complaint was the wind and the very cold chill factor in the air. It was FREEZING!!!

Thanks Mom Payne for watching the kids so we could have some time together!

There's an article in the Friend Magazine this month re-featuring a recipe from 1980-an orange roll called Bunny Buns.

We couldn't wait to try it out-well I guess we could since we've had the magazine for about a month now. My kids aren't fond of orange flavoring-so I just added a lil extra sugar to the dough to make up for the lack of OJ and the results were fantastic!

We even got an "Oohhh" from Tate.

The girls had a lot of fun making them and eating them.

In case you wanted to try them out here's the recipe:

Bunny Buns

1 package active dry yeast

1/4 cup warm water

1 cup milk, warmed not quite to boiling

1/3 cup sugar

1/2 cup shortening

1 teaspoon salt

2 eggs, beaten

1/4 cup orange juice

2 tablespoons grated orange peel

5 1/2 cups flour, sifted

Glaze: 2 cups powdered sugar, 1/4 cup hot water, 1 teaspoon butter

1. 1.

   Wash hands with soap and water.

2. 2.

   Sprinkle yeast in the warm water and set aside.

3. 3.

   In another bowl, blend milk, sugar, shortening, and salt. Cool until lukewarm, then add eggs, water with yeast, orange juice, and orange peel.

4. 4.

   Stir in flour a few cups at a time to make a soft dough. Let stand for 10 minutes.

5. 5.

   Knead dough 5–10 minutes on a lightly floured surface until dough is smooth and elastic. Place it in a lightly greased bowl, turning once to grease surface. Cover bowl with a clean towel and put it in a warm place. Let dough rise for 2 hours, or until double in size. Punch dough down and let stand for 10 minutes.

6. 6.

   On a lightly floured surface, roll dough into a rectangle 1/2 inch thick. Cut dough into strips 1/2 inch wide and 14 inches long. Roll between hands into rounded snake shapes. Cut one strip into pieces 1/2 inch long, and roll into balls.

7. 7.

   Place one long piece of dough on a greased cookie sheet. Place one end of the strip over the other to make a loop; bring the end that is underneath up and cross it over the other end. Place a ball of dough on top of the bottom loop.

8. 8.

   Cover bunnies and let rise in a warm place for 45–60 minutes, until nearly double in size. Bake at 375ºF (190ºC) for 12–15 minutes.

9. 9.

   For the glaze, stir powdered sugar, water, and butter together. Frost bunnies with the glaze while they are still warm.

10. 

Chicken Update

Still can't believe that Chickens have joined the family...kind of.

04-2-11

Tate prefers to hold onto the heads-we're working on that one.

Can't believe the rate at which they've been growing.

And that's not the only thing that's grown-although they haven't made it out of the garage their home continues to go up

as their more more permant-roaming home home comes together.

Tyler visits the chickens several times a day-always such a sweet girl making sure everyone is well taken care of an happy.

White Cloud

In a moment when my back was turned Tyler yelled,"Mom look at Tate" which is never a good sign. And I found this, a big white Cloud from the box of Kleenexes we'd just bought.

He was all too pleased with himself-my taking pictures pry didn't help, but it was too funny!