April (snow) showers

Hooray for some warmer weather finally!  I personally don't think it's quite warm enough to play with water outside, but I am outnumbered.  They've been very busy making stews and things.

So I have a love-hate relationship with the honeysuckle vines growing on our fence.  On the one hand, they provide great privacy from the cemetery and the flowers are lovely; on the other hand they hide all sorts of nasty vine-y weeds and volunteer trees and were horrendously overgrown.  It didn't help that the cemetery side got no maintenance whatsoever....they mow, that's it. This picture was from a few weeks ago and is what we look at all winter.  

 We've tried to trim them back before but it's just been too big of a job, so we hired it out finally.  It took two people half a day to cut them all back... and they filled this trailer completely full.  I'm really glad I talked Bob out of burning them off the fence... haha... 

 The fence looks so empty!  And there is actually room to walk between the fence and the shed! So weird.  We'll see if the vines come back healthier this spring, or if this is our new view.  Either way, it's probably an improvement.

 They found some ants.  And were "helping them."  With water.  Yeah.  

 Poor girl came running into the house one afternoon with blood dripping down her finger. She cut it on the swing-set somehow.  Doctor McStuffins bandaids made it all better.

 "Blanky yike outside."  Um... no.  How about Blanky watches you from the window?  "Ok."  

 There are flowers blooming!!  And they have discovered them...  #noblossomleftbehind

Bob and I went to communion last Saturday evening.  I realized a little too late that it was the same day as W-ton's.  Soooo.... I had to find an actual babysitter, which I hardly know how to do.  We ended up with Kate, who the girls loved and were very sad when we came home.  It's too bad we so rarely do anything that requires a babysitter, because they definitely want her to come back.  

Sunday evening was the Easter program... and it had snowed.  Yay. (Not.)  So we had to do tights again... ugh... and I had to scramble a little to find actual shoes that weren't black and were dressy enough for Easter dresses.  It didn't end up being that difficult, we pretty much have one of every type of shoe in every size up to 13 now... ha.  And a spreadsheet to keep track of it all... because I can't help myself.  I hated to match my sister, but I love it that they want to match for some reason.  It was a good winter project and so fun on my new sewing machine.  Aren't they so cute?  

 And then there's the squirrel-y one. 

 "Eh-cess home!!"  

 The sandbox was finally dry enough!  When it's wet it seems to stain their clothes and they bring more into the house with them.

 Emmy got her eyes checked for school one afternoon... and this little goose had to get out of the sandbox because she was trying to eat sand.   

 I've finally hit my due-month. Woot.  Don't get me started on due dates... it's an estimate... nothing more.... and yes, my midwives will 'let me go that long'... I'm sorry if your doctor pushed you to have your baby too early based on an arbitrary date pulled out of thin air, but there is nothing bad about going to 40 plus weeks.  I mean, it's no secret that I despise being pregnant, but even so, it's almost always better to let nature take its course.  And before I stop being all crunchy-granola about birth- you can all say it with me: my body knows how to give birth; my baby knows how to be born.  Ha.  Anyways..... These two goofballs are pretty good with the doctors office routine by now...

 Cecily got out of school early today so we all ate lunch at Chik-fil-a.  "Me yuv Chik-a-lay!" Then we did the quick chat with the midwife and came home.  Our neighbor brought over some Easter treats for the girls, including these super cool sugar cookies.  They came with food coloring 'paint' so they could decorate the eggs themselves. 

 They tasted really good too.

 We celebrated Passover at supper. Even more loosely than previous years because I'm tired.  And my pelvis is trying to fall apart and I ache.  The girls are mostly in it for the deviled eggs, watermelon, and grape juice.  Oh, and they love eating off of china. 

 Not this one.  I don't trust her... hehe.  

So now we take a deep breath and get ready for Easter weekend... 
Blessings.

Catching up and detoxing

So Emmy got a cookbook for Christmas.  She always wants to make something out of it when it's not a good time (right before bed), or we don't have all of the ingredients.  I finally told her to pick out a recipe right before we went to the grocery store and then we could cook.  She picked carrot cake.  Nobody likes carrot cake.  But they were super excited to bake it!  Haha.  It was not the prettiest cake... and heavily orange flavored... they all tried it and then I think I ate the rest of it alone for the next week.  Even though I don't like orange flavored carrot cake... 

 I went to the doctor, again.  woot. I'm tired of the doctor, even though I never see doctors, it's a long drive just to talk to the midwife for a few minutes.  Sewing club that evening was more fun.  I made a little bit of progress on the baby quilt I'm working on.  
The big girls got to go to the dentist, which they love.  There were no cavities this time!!  And there was great rejoicing!
The girls and I spent an evening at the farm for Clayton and Jessica's wedding shower.  They mostly stayed in the basement and played with Grandpa and Jack and Gideon.  They were a little bit unsure about meeting Jessica.... but... "maybe now Clayton won't tickle us." haha.  
Cadence is a little excited about her new dresser...

 The plan is to move Cadence in with the older two, at least until school starts in the fall.  So we took the bottom bunk out and replaced it with a double bed.  They think it's pretty cool, although she hasn't actually slept in there yet.  

 If you stand back and squint, the dresser didn't turn out too bad.  Ha.  Please don't look too closely.  As I was working on it, I kept thinking, man I should have done another year in 4-H woodworking... (I can see my dad shaking his head NO... hehe).  

 This is what I started with.  Basic solid pine dresser from Ikea, nice and cheap, which is obvious up close, but it will hold her clothes just fine.  It's small but ideally, we'd be able to move to the country and spread out a little more and upgrade to bigger/ better quality furniture as they grow up... someday.  Anyway, I painted it, which exposed flaws that I did my best to fix.  I added some trim to the bottom to match Cecily's dresser.  Then I attempted to add the oak top to coordinate with Emmy's dresser.  I forgot to account for the width of my saw blade, plus the blade chewed up the edge a little more than I liked, plus the dresser sides stuck up and looked funny.  *sigh*  I almost redid the whole thing, but then I bought myself a router (which caused some more problems- but they aren't obvious, thankfully) and got it to a point that I could live with.  

Then when I was all done and ready to put the ikea knobs on the drawers that I had spent lots of time staining, half of them split completely in half because the pilot holes weren't drilled big enough at the factory. Gah!  So far, clamps and glue fixed them and they are holding together.  I'm not sure I would recommend trying to upgrade this particular ikea dresser....  the final product is cute, but I probably could have bought something similar for less time and hassle.  
The girls got to hang out with the Beutel kids one evening and even got to visit Restmor.  They were also pretty excited about McDonald's afterwards... haha.  They are easy to please.
Outside with piggy-tails... life is good.  Bob and Matt and Susan were busy burning the stick pile.  It had gotten pretty massive over the fall and winter.

 We went to the annual potato supper.  I was tired and sore from working outside all day, and Cadence was uncharacteristically clingy and grouchy so we didn't stay late. 
That week was spring break! Hooray!  We were pretty lazy the first few days, although the girls were so excited about our mini-vacation that they tried to pack every day. Cadence filled her bag with stuffed animals and toys and told me she was ready for 'cation.  

The girls got to play at Kenna's ("I yike Beh-ee's house") one afternoon and I went grocery shopping and pretty much bought out Walmart. 
We watched the Beutel kids one morning.  They might be as dragon obsessed as our kids... they played Dragons with the legos, the duplos, outside.... the girls were in heaven.  They are all getting old enough now, too, that it hardly feels like there are extra kids.

 Thursday afternoon we packed up and headed out on our great adventure to the great state of Iowa!  haha.  I don't have anything against Iowa, it just amused me how excited the girls were- it's not exactly a premier spring break destination. :P  But I guess if Grandma and Grandpa and cousins and playgrounds and indoor water parks are involved you don't really need warmth or tropical scenery... 
We stayed at two cottages on Lake Rathbun.  It was a little chilly all weekend but we did get to go to the playground when it was sunny and not quite as cold. 

 Playgrounds are not just for kids.... 

 So many things to climb!  

 The prairie is so beautiful.  And contrary to popular opinion (*cough* Bob) it isn't necessarily flat and treeless...  

 It's not a Wyss vacation without injuries. Poor Gideon cut his head open after falling off a bunk bed.  We didn't even need Uncle Randy- Matt ran out and got some super glue from a gas station and Shells glued him up.  

 Cecily sliced her foot open on a toy tractor.... this is not her injured face, this is her freaking out because we wanted to try gluing it before swimming (I forgot waterproof band aids).

 The pool wasn't super full on Friday, which was nice.  Cadence loved the slides and even got a lecture for going down head first. Not that she had any idea what they were telling her.

 Pirate Emmy!

 Gideon isn't picky about who reads to him.  :)  

 The three musketeers didn't learn anything from their previous bunk bed injuries...

 The boys decided our bedroom floor would be the best place to farm.  But then when we were still asleep in the morning and their tractors were unavailable.... 

 Lena brought play-dough.

 There was lots of relaxing and playing and eating inside where it was warm and not raining.

 So after another trip to the pool and more being lazy, we packed up Sunday morning and came home.  Most of the rest of the family went to Bloomfield for church... we did not.  Honestly, I just don't really want to deal with people right now.  Which is terrible, I know, but give me 4-6 weeks and I'll be feeling slightly more social again.  Plus, we had three tired, overstimulated kids that would have been a wreck after a day in church.  As it was, one child cried half the way home because she "missed vacation," and one was super grouchy and picking fights with her sisters when she wasn't sleeping.  The other one was happy as a clam- "McDonald's?! For me!? Inside!?"  
This week has been vacation detox.  Cecily's back to school and the other two are boooooorrrrreeeeed.  Or getting into trouble.  At one point, "The only thing that will make me happy is Aurelia!"  Um. K. 
Bob's birthday was Monday.  My attempt at a Dr. Pepper chocolate cake from scratch didn't turn out well since I accidentally used Baking Powder instead of Baking Soda.... the girls keep telling me they are really good brownies.  ooops. This is why I make box cake mixes.   Emmy and Cadence helped me wrap presents and wrapped up some of their toys for daddy too.  They had to help open them, of course.

 These two are double trouble.

 Michelle is making Aurelia's Easter dress and came over to use my machines. She's so domestic... hehe. 

 These two are fond of each other.

 I heard the freezer door open so I went to check on them.  Rain boots, buckets, and graphing calculators.  Why, I don't know.  

Yesterday was another quick visit with the midwife.  And today Emmy had her Kindergarten screening.  
Blessings.

In like a Lion

Way back in July, at the U of I reunion, I mentioned to Amber that I would love to have her and Kaleigh come over some time since they both work 10 minutes away from us.... and yet we never get to hang out.  And then life happened, and then I was sick for so long, and more life happened.  I did finally get around to it and they spent a Thursday evening with us, which was so fun!  The girls thought that they were great.  And probably got to talk to them more than Bob and I did.  ha.  Cecily talked them into playing Mario with her... and Emmy had them both taking ballet lessons from her... which was hilarious.  Good times.

Bob and Nathan wanted to talk game design so they had us over that Saturday with Mom and Dad for supper.  And milkshakes.      

 Sometimes when you're tired of winter and tired of the same old, same old you just need to shake things up a little bit and have a picnic lunch on the kitchen floor.  They thought it was the best thing ever.

 Did you know they make Mr. Potato Head fabric??  And he needed a new storage bag.... Yes, I know I have a problem. 

 Cadence is fond of "To-wee" and likes to do "me piano lesson."  She was singing "quarter, quarter, quarter, quarter, half-note, half-note, whole-note-hold-it" in church the other Sunday.  

 Hopefully this video uploaded correctly:  Cadence, what makes you beautiful?

Bob is not impressed that her two favorite shirts are John Deere.... so he came home with CAT shirts for all the girls one afternoon.  (She still likes the tractor shirts best though... shhh)

 Cecily asked a "was Grandma alive when..." question and the answer turned into a brief history of the world starting at the Roman empire.  They were up to the Korean war at this point and Emmy was not super impressed.  hehe. 

 Then we got out the Timechart History of the World, which is one of the coolest books/timelines ever.

 We hosted potluck at our house that night, so the girls got to go eat supper at Grandma Beutel's house.  I cheated and made pre-seasoned cook-in-the-bag pork tenderloin and bought coffee at Eli's so I didn't feel like I did much besides setting the table.  It was nice.  
The next day it rained, and rained, and rained and we were anxiously watching puddles.  Our basement stayed dry, though! 

 The FFA sold strawberries and they just happened to be delivered the day we had potluck, so the next day I made a batch of strawberry jam.  And of course, I ran out of sugar about halfway through the strawberries so I ended up just freezing a bunch too.  Serendipitously, I had attempted to make bread bowls for soup the week before and they turned out super huge and I froze the extra to use as bread. There's nothing better than fresh strawberry jam on warm homemade bread on a rainy day....  

 After having been on my feet all day for practically three days straight I was tired and sore, but it was the soup supper, so we went to that.
Cadence is fond of sleeping with toys and stuffed animals.  I found her little Tupperware pitcher outside her door when I went to bed one night.  Why, we'll never know.    

 Sun and slightly warmer weather calls for riding bikes outside!  "Me blanky outside.  In me coat."  Whatever.  

 We knew he was brilliant... Bob's car was in the shop so he worked from home one day.  He's using the equivalent of 3 normal monitors at once.  I'm not sure I could keep track of all that.

 Lazy morning in our pj's watching videos of Gideon and herself over and over and over on my phone.

 It was windy.  So windy.  The poor playhouse blew over.  Sadly, when we tried to stand it up today it collapsed.  Alas, poor playhouse, I knew him, Horatio.  Or something like that.  

 The first graders were supposed to build a leprechaun trap to take to school... insert eye roll from me... so we made one.  Cecily drew up the design and it turned out pretty cute.  

 It was pi day so I made pie while the girls made a large paper and glue mess on the table.  This is a cheeseburger pie from the Farm Journal Complete Pie Cookbook.  It has a cheddar cheese pastry crust, and turned out pretty good.  Although more than one of my adorable childrens' "tongue doesn't like the taste."  

 And of course I ran out of regular flour because I'm terrible at planning ahead.  So the peach pie crust was made from mostly cake flour.  It was a little bit more finicky than normal... but... I kind of liked the end texture a bit better.  *gasp*  Is that heresy?  I may have to do more experimenting... 

 Our finished Leprechaun trap.  Not quite as pinterest-y as some of the others, but definitely original and executed by her. It's a little tent shaped house in the woods with a paper couch, chair and table inside... shamrocks and a pot of gold... homey and inviting for luring in a leprechaun, only for the door to slam shut on the poor guy!  

 Isn't that an adorable woodland scene?  They did not catch a leprechaun in class, but she remains convinced that they are real.  *sigh*  Seriously, first grade teachers?    

And if this video uploaded...  big sisters think it's fun to teach her all kinds of things.  Brethren, pray for us, the two and a half year old knows how to "shake me booty."  

Blessings.