Easter and other happenings

Once again, it's been busy and not busy, it was the best of times, it was the worst of times, and I'm not really sure about anything. :)

The mice were out in force one morning.  

They're so cute! (maileg makes the cutest toys...)

The neighborhood owls were no match for the high winds we had- both hatchlings ended up falling out of the nest.  The neighbors were keeping a close eye on them and called a wildlife rehab-er and both are doing well. Owls are such cool birds. 

We had a busy Saturday- first Cadence got to go to Brielle's birthday party.  She was so excited to go and so excited to tell me all about it.  It was a princess party and they learned how to use fans- they taught them some fan language too, which cracks me up. 

Emmy's beloved teacher got married in the afternoon.  She has been counting down the days.  So excited.  I was not up to taking Perrin to a wedding, so she went with Sharon and her girls.  The new Mrs. A had a brief reception for the kids after the ceremony.

And Mrs K. (Cadence's teacher) had them all dancing.  hehe.  :D  She had the best time.

Bob and I (and Perrin) went to communion that night while the girls stayed with Grace and Eden.  Then Sunday was another big day with the Easter program in the evening.  Lets get a quick picture of you all dressed up.... haha. 

Miri was being so sweet and letting Perrin play with her Mousies too.  

I've been enjoying this surprise Easter Lily.  :)

This is the second really large carrot Bob has grown in the basement.  Too bad he doesn't like carrots!

The girls were off school on Good Friday, so we dyed eggs.

So many eggs.  And they don't love hard boiled egg breakfast casserole as much as I do, so I'm not sure what I'll do with them all.

Perrin just chilled...

The girls love getting out the china for Passover.  It was a bit of a rush to get to church that evening.

I found a 'color your own' Resurrection Egg kit so the girls worked on that on Saturday.

Jake and Rachel brought their girls over Saturday  afternoon to play. Jake and Bob went and wandered in the woods.

Then I completely forgot about filling Easter baskets until 2am Sunday morning... so I did not got to sleep as long as I hoped... :P  Oh well. 

So excited.

They got some practical things like new flip flops this year.... and fun band-aids (one of my friends gives her grandkids band-aids as a treat and I thought it was a genius idea).

Perrin's basket was a little slim- just a book. But a fun book! Humphrey's First Palm Sunday is great. (Humphrey's First Christmas is also.)

He likes to smile and coo at people now. 😍 In his polka dot bow tie.

Lets try again for a picture!  um....  poor Perrin looks rather uncomfortable. 😂

After church band aid party. Ha.

The girls got to hunt eggs at Koch Easter.

So many eggs... so. much. candy.

Poor buddy was all tired out...

Michelle and Nathan were still in town on Monday and Mom invited the Schlipfs over for the evening so we headed to the farm after school.   There was much running up and down stairs and dropping stuffed animals down the laundry chute... :P 

Emmy's a budding naturalist.  Or something. We've seen a few uncommon birds this spring, and since I got a bird book for my birthday/Christmas she's been identifying all of them. Bob helped them identify a "Sora" (never seen one before) and there were multiple sketches made and this succinct description written.  

Cecily is in garden club at school. We'll see if she's this gung-ho about weeding ours. 😁

 We spent a couple of hours in the woods on Saturday.  The kids and I walked the creek while Bob and Ben B. looked for mushrooms and explored. 

This tree has white bark, Mom.

Me: *squealing* Ooooo it's a sycamore!  I have a sycamore! (or several 😁)  I may have always wanted a sycamore and Dad never planted one and we haven't had a good spot in town and I am inordinately excited about these trees.   

Perrin slept again.  In his adorable U of I hat.

It was a beautiful day.

I haven't looked to far or deeply to see if this creek/stream has an actual name, but the girls have decided that it is "Firefly Creek."  They got quite dirty. 

And were quite brave.

Miri is a trouper.  She followed the big girls all over which is hard when you're only 2-almost-3.

Ha. Bob has had too many bad experiences with helping kids go to the bathroom outside, so the first thing on his list was a portable outdoor bathroom setup.  😋

And of course snacks. 

I brought up the tubs of summer clothes and Miri has new tractor jammies.  She was pretty sure she needed to go to Logan's house to show him. 

He's so neglected. haha. 

Spring has finally sprung and it is my favorite.

We celebrated 13 years today with Texas Roadhouse take out and telling the girls our 'story'. They think the proposal chain is so funny (Daddy called Chuck, Chuck called Ron, Ron called me then I prayed about it and I called Ron and Ron called Chuck and Chuck called Daddy.... 😂) Except this time I mentioned that I asked Ron if I could say yes right away, and Ron said I needed to wait a week and could call him back next Thursday.... and when he picked up the phone he said, 'Is it Thursday already?' They thought that was hilarious, and then Cecily said- wait! I thought you said you prayed about it, I don't think you prayed about it! 😁  Oh trust me kiddo....

Blessings.

News

So. About a month or more ago (Perrin was two weeks old) I was checking zillow, like I do regularly, and there was a new listing.... it was an acreage (more than we wanted) and it was expensive, but it was actually in our school district!  It happened to be a lovely Saturday and Matt was at our house with the boys so he and Bob went to go see it. (Our favorite realtor was out of state....) 

Logan got to come along too.  They left me at home with our five and Jack.  Ha. 

And Matt was sending me pictures like this of Bob on the phone, "cutting deals."  Turns out, the neighbors were interested in the cropland part of the acreage, but didn't want to pay for the woods too.

Bob pretty much fell in love with it and it really was a once in a lifetime opportunity- land doesn't often come on the market around here.  There was much phone calling between us, the neighbors, and realtors, and Sunday evening we put in an offer when Kerry got home and it was accepted later that night. Whew.  And I hadn't seen any of it yet.  So then Monday, we took our two week old to the bank to make sure we were good there (he hadn't even been to church yet! ha), and that evening the neighbors came over and we signed a contract with them to sell the crop land we didn't own yet.  Legal stuff and real estate is weird.  :P

Then of course you get to wait until closing and hope nothing falls through.  It got pushed back a couple of days because one lawyer was on vacation who needed to do one thing, that had to be done before they could do this other thing, etc, etc. I understand a very little bit of it.  Every day the girls would ask if we got the land yet and if they could tell people yet.  No, not quite yet, just be patient.  haha.  I can't imagine that their friends will be nearly excited as they think they will be.  :) 

Closing was at the office where my Mom works, so that was fun.  I had Perrin along, and he ended up sleeping through everything thankfully, but I'm sure she would have gladly taken care of a fussy baby for me while we signed our lives away.  haha.  

It was fun to pick the girls up from school that day- guess what!? we officially own the land!  Also, since I am weird, I told them we were going to name it but I wasn't going to tell them what it was until we went and explored.  (I mean, all of the houses in all of the best books have names, so why not?)  

This has not been the best spring for wandering in the woods- it was in the 40's and sleeting, but they were too excited to wait for a nicer day and off we went to explore. Bob cut us a path through the brush... 

Poor Perrin had to wear the girly snowsuit because that's all we had.  He was not so sure about the carrier, but ended up falling asleep and slept through most of our time out there.

So excited.

It's a bit wild and overgrown...  have I mentioned that I much prefer the wide open prairie?  haha. The things we do for love.... :P 

There is a creek, which I kind of love.  Two creeks actually, one is much bigger (and more dangerous) but this one looks like a lot of fun to play in.  Everybody look at me and say "Welcome to Firefly Woods!"

Oh, and randomly, we can't seem to get away from weird pieces of land tacked on to the main property... this quarter acre triangle was attached to ours, even though it is not even close by.  I forget what they thought the reason was, but they said they're going to make it go away.  haha.  Thank goodness.  

Poor Perrin slept through his first hike, and then, of all the indignities, got put in sister's cradle.  He looks so worried.  :)

Little Miriel was quite worn out from tromping through the woods. 

 Because we were splitting the property, and because the people that know things at the county office were on vacation, we only just closed with the neighbors today. 

So we are pretty excited. Bob is pretty much giddy.  It's nice to finally have something to pursue.  Before we were open to buying, and remodeling or adding on, or building, and there were just so many different scenarios that could have been options.  Now we can focus on saving because land costs a lot, and building costs a lot, and nothing is getting cheaper.  It will probably be awhile before we can afford to build anything, so we'll still be in a small house with a lot of little people, but now we can go hang out in our woods when we get claustrophobic.  😝

Also I've been told I'm not allowed to check zillow any more, just in case the perfect house gets listed... 

Blessings.