egg coloring

This year, we celebrated Easter with my side of the family on the Saturday before. We had our cousin Dan, his wife Brooke & their girls Summer & Kara down from Portland & Dan's dad (my dad's brother) Uncle Tom, his wife Kathy & her sister Mary up from California. My mom came up with the idea of having a Progressive Easter Celebration so that everyone could see all of our houses (for the first time), all decorated for Spring.


We started the celebration with egg coloring & light appetizers at my parent's house.

Griffin & Gretchen

Sadie & Becca

Kara & Brooke - Kara wasn't feeling very well, but she was a good sport!

Gretchen & Josh

Summer & Cedar playing together. Cedar is actually bigger than Summer, who is 8 months older! Cedar's a little on the big side but Summer is very tiny! :)

Kenton actually joined in on the egg coloring this year! He made some cool eggs. :)

Uncle Aaron teasing Cedar!

Proof that I was there. :)

Love the bright colors! All of the kids joined in & we colored over 50 eggs!

spring cleaning

With Easter weekend just around the corner & friends/family coming into town, I was inspired to do some Spring cleaning & sprucing up around the house.


The entrance to the house got a mini face-lift with Pottery Barn knock-off jar candle holders, some newly potted flowers & furniture shuffling.

One of my favorite additions is the pot with our broken garden tools poking out. Bummer we broke the tools, but they look cute! They were pretty old & used, anyway. :)

I've been stalking the thrift stores for these aqua mason jars - just so cute! And baby food jars are perfect for all of the grape hyacinths that pop up EVERYWHERE this time of year.

I'd been on the lookout for a "new" lamp to replace the lamp I "refurbished" for our first apartment 7 years ago. I found the shade first while at Goodwill & managed to find a base that worked with it...still not sure if I'll keep it gold, but I'm liking it right now.

Finally, the first of our guests: Chris (one of Kenton's best friends from High School) came up to visit his parents in Kaiser for Easter & stopped by for a quick visit. After a little while, Finn told us that Chris looked different. We realized he was expecting our friend Kris Elkinton (Charis' dad) & couldn't figure out how he had changed so much since our last visit with the Elkinton's. :P

Anyway, Kenton & Chris had a great time visiting & Finn loved showing Chris all of his favorite toys & games. :)

chicken coop & such

A couple of weeks ago, Kenton started building our chicken coop, with some help from his dad.

Finn has been excited to work outside with Dad & even has his own work gloves for the tough jobs. :)

Unfortunately, I haven't been very good at getting much of the process photographed...

This was done on the first day...

...this too.

Jump ahead a week or so & we have walls, doors & a roof! In my defense, we've had one of the rainiest Spring Breaks that I can remember. It seemed like every time I thought about photographing the latest progress, it was raining.

Here's the front. We got the glass door from BRING Recycling. It has a little key so that we can lock the chickens in safely at night. :) It's also big enough that we can get into the coop to clean it out, when needed.

Inside the coop.
Kenton made the nest boxes out of a storage shelf that had been left in the garage when we bought the house. He also covered the floors with linoleum (for easy clean up) that had been left here too! Much of the wood was left in the shed in the backyard & we've only had to buy a few boards & sheets of plywood here & there. We've been able to keep the costs down, so far. I love free stuff! :)

We brought the chicks out to the coop once the roof & doors had been installed to get a sneak peek at their new home. From top to bottom, here are Opal, Hazel, Fern & Stella waiting for their turn to go in the coop. I love how Fern looks like she has fancy eye-liner on. :)

The chickies mostly stood in one place, a little huddled together, & took turns pooping. It cracks me up that they poop as soon as we put them in a new place...like the empty bath tub, when we clean out their box. Silly chickens!

Left to right: Brunhilde, Opal (hiding behind Brunhilde), Fern, Hazel & Stella
You can already see their feather filling in on their wings & tails & they're just over a week old! They get more feathers every day! But if you click on the picture, you might be able to see Brunhilde's soft, downy head. :)

All 6 (barely)
Brunhilde, Stella, Opal, Hazel, Fern & Dorothy's backside.

It has been so much fun getting to know their little personalities. Opal is the most tame & doesn't mind being held. Fern & Brunhilde freak out, peep loudly & jump from any height to get away. :)

spring break - week one

Our first week of Spring Break ended with a very sick baby. We thought he was teething for several days/nights but when his temperature hit 103.4, I called his doctor. Turns out he had an ear infection. Sad story!

He seemed to be doing better after antibiotics, but then he had signs of a perforated ear drum in the other ear (a nurse-friend of mine pointed that one out to me). I feel pretty bad that I wasn't clued into any of the symptoms of an ear infection, but Finn has only had one, ever. :(

So now Cedar has been started on the most expensive ear drops I've ever heard of! I'm still in shock that I had to pay $55 after insurance for 7.5 mL! Craziness! Each drop of that stuff must cost several dollars...I'm being VERY careful not to waste ANY! Ok, I think I'm done venting... Hopefully, Cedar will show quick signs of improvement.


Other sweet moments from the weekend:

"Helping" Dad make french toast

Cute new jammies from Stu & Jacque as a souvenir from Sun Valley (for watching their rats). :)

Love the matching hat!

And the bear on the bum...

...A Little Bear Bum
So cute! Thanks guys! :)

visits

On Thursday, we had a couple of visitors. Kenton's Papa John was in town & stopped by with Kevin to check out the progress on our coop (photos coming soon) & to see us, of course! :)


Four Generations

Then later, the Chase family came over for dinner & games. They were on Spring Break too & we thought it would be fun to get together & play on a week night. We really need to do it more often cause all of the kids played really well together.


Aaron, Tyler & Kenton playing Heroscape

Finn, Cohen & Sadie watched some shows, but I didn't catch of photo of the three of them. You can see the cage in the background - we were "rat-sitting" for our friends, Stu & Jacque, while they were out of town.

A quick cuddle from Cedar. Cedar really loves his cousin Sadie. It's pretty obvious by the way he smiles at her & reaches for her. So sweet. :)

With the rats & the chicks, we had quite the little zoo in our home. But it was very entertaining for everyone. I need to get some photos of us holding the chicks, cause they're just so cute. But I'm always too busy keeping the chicks safe from the small children to grab the camera. I'll try to get Kenton to take some photos soon! :)

welcome, babies!

We picked out our baby chicks this morning! They are so cute, we just love them!

We got 6 chicks: 3 Araucanas, 1 Black Australorp, 1 Silver Laced Wyandotte & 1 Blue Andalusian. Hopefully, they are all hens?? Their names are Stella, Hazel, Fern, Dorothy, Opal & Brunhilde. Guess which one Kenton got to name?? ;)

Both boys are super curious about them.

Finn's working on learning their names. Cedar's trying to be a good sport while experiencing major teething discomfort. :( Aside from the pain, he seems to enjoy watching the babies.

We have another week & a half left of our Spring Break & we're so happy to have that time to enjoy the chicks while they're little. What an adventure! :)

novruz

Carolyn & Jesse hosted the 2nd Annual Novruz Celebration: the Islamic New Year that is celebrated in Azerbaijan. They made some of their favorite foods (plov, cutlets, dolmas, & bahklava, I think) from their time in Azerbaijan for the Peace Corps.

We played the egg-cracking game. Stu's egg cracked my egg, but this year Helen won! :)

Then Jesse built a small fire for us to jump over.

Jesse, Brian, Carolyn, Jacque & Helen

Mama & Finn being silly, waiting for the fire to get big enough!

Our little family getting ready to help Finn jump over the fire.

Jump!
We all say "Ağırlıgım- uğurluğum bu odda qalsın!" before jumping over the fire & we do this 3 times. It means "All my troubles, fall in the fire" so we can start the New Year with a clean slate. We had a lot of fun guys! Thanks for another great Novruz!

visit with great grandparents

Nanalee & Papa Lew came from Utah to visit for a few days. We sure have missed them since they moved away! It was a lot of fun for our boys to have so much play time with them while they were visiting!

Nanalee is always up for playing games! Cedar wants to get involved too. :)

These last 3 photos show Cedar's latest trick - cruising around the ottoman. :)

On the move!

I took these photos with Outi's camera because I kept forgetting mine. But I am very thankful to have captured these memories. Finn & Cedar sure love their great grandparents! What a blessing to have them in our lives!

Made it to the other side...but Finn is blocking the path. :)

Thanks for visiting, Nanalee & Papa Lew! We hope to come out to Utah, sooner than later! :)