What's Up Doc?

I decided to go ahead and pull up some carrots. We might as well get to them before the gopher does. They are so sweet. Yum. Definately planting more next year. I'll let the rest of the pictures speak for themselves. Oh and Jade eventually fed hers to the dog but trust me they were good. She was just sharing.

Mini Egg Or Mini Chicken?

This is most likely something that just happens when you have hens. We have never seen it before so it was new for us. We got a mini egg. I haven't cracked it open yet. Perhaps the yolk was small for some reason or perhaps one of the chickens great-great grandmother's was a Bantam (kidding :P). We don't know. Reading yesterday I found someone that had gotten an egg with no shell. I'll take mini eggs over blob eggs anyday thank you.

This was our haul for the day. All the rest were normal size.

Here is proof that all the chickens are normal size. We have in an order for about ten more. I'm very excited. These girls have been doing great. I only bought eggs for Easter but we are not eating as many eggs as we normally do. With ten more ladies we will have enough eggs to scramble, fry and boil to our little hearts content. Plus we will have some to share. We are also thinking about rabbits in the next 6 months to a year. If you know anyone that keeps rabbits let me know. I'm looking for New Zealands or Californians. Even if that is not what they keep still put me in touch with them. They may be able to point me in the right direction.

I love our little farm.

No GLPHrs!

You have to look at the sign carefully but it is a picture of a gopher stealing a flower from below ground. We have lost all of our brussel sprouts (since these pictures were taken) most of our lettuce, several carrots. Oh and all my peas in persuit of him. You will see Ian sticking a flair into the ground. Pea roots don't like super hot soil. Imagine that. Teagan took the time to go inside and make this sign to keep the gopher away.

We posted the sign and it was ignored. Can't we now take some sort of legal action?

He did leave us some carrots. Something I'm going to plant more of next year. Even without a gopher munching them we need more.

Teagan is his overalls. This is his gopher hunting gear.

Ian just about to kill my peas. Frankly he could have killed the whole garden and I would have forgiven him if it meant the gopher died.

Don't they look sweet working together?

Teagan takes a break to play with Raider.

Jade takes a break to get a drink. This same day we moved the chickens from the little coop to the big one. Ian wanted to grab them but with the help of the kids and I they got to walk in on their own. I provided a trail of grapes. The kids stood between the garden boxes and Ian wrangled the straglers. Teagan proved to be a very good chicken wrangler too. Ian was very proud of him. It was a good day outdoors but unfortunately the gopher still lives.

Easter Sunday

4/12/09
I'm going to really need Ian's help to blog about this one. I can tell you about the first part on my own but then I will have to turn to Ian for some help. It was really great to get up Easter Sunday and focus on Sunday. No rushing through baskets and bargaining on how much candy they can take to church. It was great. Next year I want to make some resurrection rolls for breakfast. I think it's a fun way to start off Easter morning.

Church was great. Once again I am humbled by all that Christ and Heavenly Father has done for us. Jade wasn't able to get a nap because we needed to be to Ian's parents by one. We had prime rib which was yum. The reason I can't tell you about the rest of the day is I was so exhausted from Jade's party on Friday then our Easter celebration on Saturday that I just couldn't think straight. I waited until almost three and they hadn't started the egg hunt. I couldn't wait anymore I had to get some rest. So Ian took me home. I gave him the camera with instructions to take lots of pictures.

Since I can't wait anymore for him to help me with this I'll just do my best. There was a cute story about the egg hunt. I guess they did the hunt without Stanley. He has been sleeping during the day a lot lately. When it was over Stanley came out of the house with his Easter basket. Teagan and Jazmine (Teagan's cousin) volunteered some of their eggs. While Stanley was on one side of the yard searching for eggs they would hide some on the other side. How sweet is that?

Uncle Jason

Isabelle

Jazmine

Grandma John

Great Grandma John

Man Around The House

I had to show off all the stuff Ian has been doing lately. He planted the tomatoes. There are three boxes like this one.

He built a bigger chicken house.

Check out how easy it will be to get eggs now.

He put the twisty slide on the swingset. Teagan loves it!

And he built Raider a dog house out of scraps from the chicken house. Really this guy is amazing. He deserves applause when you see him. Love you honey!

Our Easter Saturday

We decided to do our Easter Bunny type stuff on Saturday. It was wonderful. Not only did it allow us to go to church the next day without being sugared up but it was such a nice relaxing day. The kids woke to find their Easter baskets and that Raider had come home. Mind you this was the day after Jade's party so Raider ran off that night and came home at 5am. Needless to say Mommy and Daddy were a little tired from looking for the dog most of the night. Ian told me I better hurry and get the camera so I bolted out of bed in time to get the kids opening their treats. Here is Jade enjoying a Cadbury egg first thing in the morning. Mmmm.

Daddy is showing her how it's done. He is the Cadbury egg expert.

These eggs the kids got were great. They are still playing with them. You hide them and they make noise and giggle and when you find and open them they say, "Surprise! You found me!". Totally cute.

Teagan just wanted me to take a picture of his blimp. He was turning the dial while I was taking the picture so it was a total coincidence I snapped the picture when it said HI MOM. Cool huh!?

After baskets we got out to play with Raider for a while.

Ugh isn't he such a pretty dog?

See Jade is covered in chocolate.

Teagan and Ian working off some sugar.

Time to do eggs. I just couldn't bring myself to sit jade down with a bunch of pots of dye. I thought for a bit and then I grabbed Teagan's water colors. She was more than happy to paint her eggs instead of dye them. It worked out great.

Teagan of course is allowed to dye eggs. He and Ian did them while I started dinner.

Look at her. You see while she can't be trusted with dye. She did a great job on her eggs though.

For dinner we had carne asada (from Oscar's of course) and I made rice and beans. The beans were terrible but the kids liked them. The recipe called for butter which was so gross to me. I made my usual rice recipe which we all like. This time I added carrots. Ian and I went to a place in Palm Desert that puts carrots in their rice. It absorbs the flavor of the rice and adds a little sweetness. It was really good.

We did our traditional night time hunt. This started because it was the only time of day available to do something with just our little family. Now we do it because it's fun and closes the gap because little kids and big kids hunting for eggs. The flash gives you a false idea of light. It's actually really dark out there. Teagan was upset this year because we didn't invite friends to hunt with. I hadn't even thought about it especially after having a big hunt the day before of Jade's birthday. Next year.

Daddy & Mommy

After the kids were done we turned on the lights while they checked out their goodies.

Raider kept chewing on Jade's foot. She was so into her eggs she didn't care.

We really enjoyed our Saturday Easter activities. We are going to do the same next year.