Cedar's trip to the vet

The weather hasn't been quite as hot as last week.  Josh and I cut a half dead tree down that was by the paddock garden last weekend.  We also prepped (cleaned out, tilled) the flower garden around the fence in the front yard.  We're expanding it this year so we don't have to mow on the back side of the fence.  We plan to plant wild flower seeds there.  They seem to do the best out there.  The soil is sandy and the flowers get pretty wind whipped out there.  Josh had to dig/pull out a pea shrub.  It seemed really easy with the soft spring soil and new pickup truck.:)
Saturday and Sunday were cooler, so we spent most of our time indoors.  We worked on cleaning some more in the basement, planted more seeds in our dining room greenhouse, and watched some movies.
Last week I worked on repotting my house plants I got most of them done before I ran out of new potting soil.  Now I just have to get to the back of the pump house (behind the baby chicks and honey hives) to get the rest of my potting mix.
On Sunday, after watching a movie with Johnny, Josh went outside to check for eggs and found a black lab male tangled up in Cedar's chain.  We didn't see anything happen, but Josh figured that she was in heat, so....  Tuesday morning Cedar went to the vet to get fixed.  The vet said that there were 14 fertilized eggs!  She said that if they had all implanted, it wouldn't have been good for her.  So now Cedar is laid up in the house.  She doesn't like it at all!!  She feels much better today and just wants to go outside and run around, but we're not letting her.  We don't want her to hurt anything.  We take her out for walks and to go potty throughout the day on the leash, so she won't go ripping through the yard.  This afternoon while we were outside, Johnny and I were talking about a ball.  She wanted to play fetch so bad, that she found a big piece of bark and gave it to Johnny for him to throw to her.  He threw it a couple times, before they both got distracted by Daddy coming home.
Roger and Sue and the kids are coming out this weekend.  We're all really excited to see them.  It should be a lot of fun.  I've purposefully waited to tell Johnny until tonight, so he isn't constantly asking when they are coming.  Now when he asks I can truthfully say, "yes, they are coming tomorrow."  He always asks if he can do *whatever* tomorrow.
Monday night, Josh was supposed to have poker at our house.  Only one guy showed up (all the farmers are starting to get out in the fields now).  So we now have a very clean house with lots of good snacks to eat (most of which are already gone:).
We got some well needed rain this week.  The grass is really starting to green up now.  The lilac bushes are budding out and lots of the perennials are coming up in my flower gardens.  It's so exciting to have spring here!!
Here are some pictures of our plant stand.  It's lovely decor for our dining room.  Josh has it covered in blankets to keep the plants extra warm.  Of course he used the decent colored blankets in the back and the bright striped sheet and wildlife blanket for the front.  It makes beautiful wall paper!!  Oh well.  It won't last forever.  I'm already looking forward to getting them planted outside and taking the plant stand down.  I'm sure it'll be soon enough;).

Onions and Geraniums

Celery

Pepper and Cauliflower

Cabbage & Broccoli

Broccoli

Cabbage

Plant Stand (with blankets lifted up)

Plant stand

Cedar and Lu Lu

Lu Lu had been hugging Cedar.  Of course, we missed it again.  She was done hugging Cedar when Josh got the camera out.  But it was pretty cute!!!

Hot Spring Weather

This last week has been gorgeous!  On Sunday we even had to pull the shorts out to play outside.  We've been playing outside everyday this week.  John and Olue love playing in the sandbox, playing with the kitties (Lu hugs them and Johnny plays with them with baler twine), playing ball with Cedar, driving trucks, riding Mater (Johnny's electric 4-wheeler), going for rides on the big 4-wheeler (all 5 of us at once!), and helping Mommy and Daddy (Johnny helps, Lu Lu just watches).
Josh was in Fargo until late Wednesday, so I didn't have any "assigned" projects to work on while I was outside with the kids, so I just played with them.  That changed on Thursday...We were supposed to get baby laying hen chicks in the mail that morning.  I was waiting for the post office to call and ask me to take the noisy little guys off their hands.  I finally called them at 8 to see if they had come in...They hadn't, so we went about our Thursday as normal...Preparing for the weekend (getting meals ready, so I don't have to be in the kitchen while Josh is working outside and picking up the house...since it's usually a disaster by the end of the weekend-it's nice to start off clean) and then heading to the church.  Not long after we got to the church, Josh called to tell me that I was going to Bismarck to pick up the chicks.  They had made it to the Bismarck processing office, but not all the way to New Salem.  So in the car we went and off to Bismarck to pick up Johnny's baby chicks.  He loves them.  I've let him hold a couple and Lu got to pet one, but their a little fragile to let either of them play with them for long.  We were able to make it back to the church for lunch (during lent they have mass at 11:30 with soup and bread to follow).  Most of the people that come are either retired or farmer's wives.  Johnny had to tell everyone that he had new baby chicks!(Most of the older people need help understanding what he's saying, so I need to stand in as translator.;)  It was still his topic of conversation on Sunday after church.  He loves helping us check on the chicks throughout the day.  He's so cute.
Josh did some shopping for me after work on Thursday.  I very much appreciate him doing it for me, but sometimes it's kinda funny how he deciphers my lists.  When he got home, I started to unload the truck while he went to look at the new chicks.  I had to laugh out loud when I found the 3-pk of Puffs I had put on the list came in the form of Baby Snacks rather than tissues to blow my nose.  I was a little disappointed since there was only one tissue left in the whole house, but it was so funny that he got 3 whole containers of baby snacks (all different flavors, by the way!).  He said next time I should just call them Kleenex...Oh well!  The kids enjoyed the snacks.  It was kind of nice to have something to keep them busy while I made breakfast this weekend, since we slept in everyday.  During the week I usually have breakfast ready for them when they wake up.  They are usually both starving and are ready to eat as soon as they open their eyes!
We spent the weekend outside working on a number of different projects to get a jump start on spring...Mulching the strawberries, Mowing new areas in the pasture to be made into new garden space, campfire area, and chicken pens, cleaning out the old paddock fence area, and little spruce up projects.  It was a lot of fun working together outside.  It got a little hot, we broke a few records for the heat and I had to find some shorts for Johnny (they were all put away last fall).  It should be jacket weather this week which will be great for working outdoors some more.  We already have next weekend planned out and Josh has given me some projects to do during the week.
Johnny didn't like the idea of taking a nap while Mom and Dad were outside working, so we decided to let him stay out with us on Saturday (after fighting it on Friday).  He's been our little insomniac, not falling asleep til 9:30-10.  He must just not need as much sleep in the spring/summer.  He gets plenty in the winter, so I'm not too worried.  We had to run to Bismarck on Saturday evening for Sheetrock for the church.  Johnny crashed in the truck on the way to town, but he wanted to stay up and play with his new ball when we got home.

Lu Lu playing with a stick.  She had been playing with the kitty, but by the time I came back outside with the camera she had moved on.

Johnny's always gotta have his picture taken too!

Sunday brunch on the porch.  We ate supper outside too.  The best part is No Bugs!

Lu Lu is learning how to talk.  If I listen to her, she can say a lot of things!  She understands a lot too.  But she uses "No" for yes and no.  Probably because she hears Johnny saying no a lot.  I have to watch her body language and listen to her tone to figure out if her no means yes or if it really does mean no.  I've started to tell her if she wants it to say please (that helps if I'm not sure).  She baby signs please while saying "pls" in a whisper.  It's pretty cute!  I've started to try to potty train her.  She always wants to be in the bathroom and sit on the potty.  (Since Mommy's always in there...gotta love that pregnancy bladder) and Johnny's always in there.  So she has her own potty and she sits on it a couple times a day.  Neither of us have the patience for her to sit there long enough, so she hasn't got potty on it yet.  But we'll get there.  She almost always pees on the floor while waiting for the tub to fill up for a bath (this really upsets her).  But she won't sit on the potty while waiting to get into the tub.  She thinks she might miss out on her favorite activity of the day!  Oh well.  We'll figure it out.
Lu Lu loves her "Teddy".  She got it in the mail for her birthday from her aunt/Godmother Katie.  When we're in the car she'll sing "Teddy, Teddy, Teddy" eve if he's not there.  It's kinda funny.  Josh said he thought she was saying Daddy.  Nope...She's got another love in her life!
Some of the words I hear her say a lot are potty, bath, Mommy (I always say back Lu-ee), kitty, Cedar.  She also says chicken (it sounds really funny), No (very pronounced), and outside.  She repeats a lot of what we say and uses the same phrases that Johnny uses.  The other day I asked her if she wanted to eat lunch and she replied "No Eat," and walked away.
Lu Lu is finally walking most of the time.  She's pretty good at it, but still falls down when she tries to go too fast or walk through/over things like toys.
Well I better get some things done while the kids are both napping!

Kansas Trip

Josh had some training in Kansas this last week, so John, Olue, and I were home alone from Wednesday-Saturday afternoon.  It doesn't sound like very long, but we're used to having Daddy come home Thursday night from work and the weekend fun/work starting then and lasting through Sunday.  His trip made for a short weekend for all of us.  Josh learned a lot at his signal inspection training and was very happy to see us when we picked him up at the airport on Saturday.
The kids and I spent a lot of time at the church, watching movies, playing outside, and taking baths (because they got so dirty playing outside:).  The time went by fairly fast.  Now we're looking forward to him coming home again.  Daddy now has a conference in Fargo until Wednesday.  With the weather being so nice and the time change, we look forward to Daddy coming home in the evenings so we can play and work outside for a while before bedtime.

For the short weekend, we did do a lot of fun stuff...
After we picked up Josh at the airport, we stopped at Runnings to buy a few seeds, potting soil, and rubber boots for Johnny.  He had been playing in the water and mud all week in just his snow boots, which didn't dry out very well.
When we got home, we played and worked outside for a while before we started our first campfire of the year and had hotdogs and marshmallows for supper.

Johnny roasting his first hotdog.

 After supper, we took a walk to the playground.  Johnny had a lot of fun on the slide.  Lu Lu was scared to do almost anything, except crawl/walk around on the top of the pre-school play set (she didn't want to come down the slide though).

Johnny Sliding

Whirlee Slide

 Johnny liked this slide until the one time that Josh didn't slow him down on the final turn and he hit his head.  He wanted to try it again later though!  What a trooper!  He's pretty brave.

Mommy and Lu Lu swinging

Going up the steps

"I'll catch you Daddy!"

On Sunday, we ate fresh muffins, coffee, and frozen strawberries outside on the porch for brunch after mass.  It was so nice to be outside together.  The kids then played while Josh and I made plans for outside projects, CSA work, and chickens.  We all took a needed nap in the afternoon.  It was a nice relaxing Sunday.

Today is beautiful outside again, except for the wind.  I was outside with the kids for a while before they both started complaining about being cold from it.  It looks like the rest of the week should be nice, sunny, and warm without the wind, so we look forward to spending lots of time outside playing.  John has been playing golf with a kid sized club and golf ball and riding his electric Mater around the yard.  Lu Lu loves playing in the sandbox, playing ball with Cedar, and petting her kitties.  She's finally doing most of her moving by foot...aka she's finally walking more that crawling and knee walking.  She's still getting used to walking on her feet outside though.  I like it when she walks, because it keeps her knees from getting so dirty and wet outside. 

Johnny got a new car seat last week, and Lu moved into his old one.  They both like their new seats and seem more comfortable with the added space.

Cold Weekend

We spent most of the first weekend of March indoors.  It was too cold to be outside for long.  We spent some time cleaning out the basement (our storage area and "catch-all").  I've been going through some things down there off and on all winter.  I have a little corner that I put all the things I plan to take to Good Will until I can get them to Bismarck.  It seems like as soon as I get a load delivered, I find more things that we really don't need to keep.

We did take the kids outside to go sledding for a little while.  Josh tried to take John sledding behind the 4-wheeler, but he got scared.  He's still a little too small for that fast of fun.

Lu Lu watching the sledding.  She had had enough and just wanted to sit in the snow.

Josh pulling John down the hill.  There wasn't quite enough snow to cover the grass.

Daddy showing Johnny how to make a snow angel.

Daddy & Johnny walkin in the snow.

Lu Lu and Johnny.  We played by the straw bales for a while.  Lu had fun picking at the straw while John and Josh ran around hiding from each other and throwing snow.

 We invited Tyler and Randa out for supper on Saturday night, so we spent part of the day cleaning the house.  Josh moved the coffee table to better vacuum the living room carpet.  When Daddy wasn't looking, Lu Lu decided to roll up the carpet...

Lu Lu rolling up the carpet.

Sitting on her masterpiece.

Johnny wanted to play too.

Making pizza for supper

 John and Lu helped us make pizza for supper for Tyler and Randa.  We had a great meal, then watch the state B boys BB championship games.

Johnny's rocking horse

 Josh finally got the handle in for the rocking horse for Johnny (his Christmas present).  He can now use it.  It still needs to be varnished, but it rocks just fine.  Johnny loves playing on it.  And it's one toy that Lu Lu isn't even interested in yet, so he gets it all to himself...Kinda nice.:)

Josh had plans to go play poker on Monday night, and didn't want to just eat and run so he came home early from work to play with us.  It was a gorgeous day and we had a lot of fun playing outside.

Daddy made Johnny a big snowman.

Johnny wanted Daddy to make a snow-family, so Josh made mini snowmen of John, Lu, Mom and Dad.  Of course he thought he should make them anatomically correct, so he made my middle snowball very large and told Johnny that that was the baby in Mommy's tummy.  I didn't think it was very funny.:)

Lu Lu playing in the dry grass.

Johnny looking at the snowman's face and wondering why he was wearing his hat.

Johnny and his snowman.

I had a ruff day on Monday (before Josh came home early), so he brought me flowers.  It was really sweet.  He makes me feel so special!!!

Thomas' Bachelor Party

Josh went to Fargo to Thomas' Bachelor Party on Friday and came home Saturday night (in a pretty bad snow storm).  I was happy to have him back home safe and sound.  His overnighter away was good prep for his trip to Kansas and Conference in Fargo.  It's been quite a long time since he has been gone overnight.  Me and the kids had a fun weekend together and Josh had fun too, although he was pretty soar from the hockey game they played.:)

Going sledding

Johnny's little snowman

 The snow was just sticky enough to make little snowballs, so we made snowmen to kick over.

Kicking the Baby Snowman

Johnny then wanted me to make a family (Mommy, Daddy, and Baby) of Snowmen

 Johnny's at the age were he wants to know how everything is in relation to one another and he only knows the family unit.  So to him everything has a Mommy, Daddy, and one or more babies.  It's pretty cute when we talk about it.  He especially wants to know who is the Mommy and Daddy when we watch animal shows (Nature/March of the Penguins) and read animal books.

Kicking the family over.

Lu Lu watching Johnny from the sled

Johnny pulling Lu Lu in the sled

Johnny pulling Lu Lu and Mommy in the sled.  It was hard work and he could only go downhill with Mommy pushing along the ground...Fun!

Lu Lu in her Sunday best

Playing with the soccer ball

Mommy & Lu

Finishing Supper

Katie's Bachelorette Party

So I didn't keep up with my New Years Resolution and I'm about a month behind in posting...Ooops.  I think I'll still keep the weekly format just so it's not so overwhelming.  I just uploaded 77 photos onto the computer from my camera, so it might take me a while to get up to date.:)

Johnny & Lu hiding in their kitchen coupboard.

Peek-a-boo!

 We went to Jake and Ruth's for Katie's Bachelorette Party over President's Day weekend.  It was a lot of fun.  It was good to see all the girls (and Jake) and meet some of Thomas' family.  We made the coursages for Katie's wedding on Saturday...Fun!  Sometimes I miss doing projects like that.

Johnny, Lu-Lu, and Addy watching us make pizza for supper.

Stacie's coming to getcha!

Tickling fun!

Josh, John, and Cy playing ball

Josh, John, Addy, Jake, and Cy playing on the air mattress.  Olue just sat on the threshold and watched the crazy activity.

Cy taking out Josh

What a ham!

The "Chinese" Boys

Josh had President's Day off, and the weather was gorgeous, so we made some more tomato hoops and a new baby chick brooder.  Josh even let me help pound in some of the nails.  (He usually just lets me hand him screws and nails for projects like that.)  John learned his lesson in throwing rocks that day.  He threw one (in my direction), while I was pounding those nails, and it hit me in the lip.  My tooth cut my lip and made it puff up and bleed a little bit.  It took me more by surprise than anything and I kinda freaked out.  But I don't think John will EVER throw rocks again.  I'm just glad he threw it in my direction and not in Olue's!
The beautiful weather of President's Day (we were outside in just sweatshirts and jeans) didn't last.  That Thursday we woke up to almost a foot of snow on the ground.  Josh finally got to use his truck for the purpose he bought it (getting to work in the snow and ice).  The kids were really excited to be able to play in the snow again and go sledding.  We still haven't gotten enough to go downhill sledding, so that means Mom gets her workout pulling them around.:)