Easter

Happy Easter! My commentary is below all the pics...I don't know why I can't copy it and put it all up here.

Happy Belated Easter!

We had a great easter weekend. Honestly I think this is the first year that we actually put effort into the holiday. Well, we were in Utah with our parents and cousins last year, so we all just did random egg hunts/colorings...by the time we got back home, I mean, we just didn't do anything at home because Easter was over. The year before that, Colt was 3 and Charley was 6 months. I mean, we kind of just colored eggs with our clueless 3 year old. So anyway, this year was great because Colt is really cool when it comes to just being happy no matter what. I wanted Easter to have its fun with egg hunts and easter baskets and treats. I also wanted to make sure that our home celebrated the real reason for easter. The Atonement and Ressurection. The most important event known to the history of man. I found a GREAT Family home evening idea online called Resurrection Eggs. You put tiny things into each one of 12 plastic eggs. Then the child opens one egg at a time and each thing represents something about Christ. It was very cool. On Saturday morning, we had a community easter egg hunt. The high school puts it on every year and there are games/prizes/egg hunts/music/cotton candy/popcorn. And its all free. Different stores around here donate treats and prizes and different things for the games. It was such a great community comming together fun day. Saturday night we had the family home evening. The next morning on sunday we just had two easter baskets for the kids when they woke up. Nothing too extravagant. Just a few things in there from the dollar store. After church that morning, we came home and had our own easter egg hunt, and colored eggs. Then while I cleaned everything, the boys watched Easter Veggie Tales that my mom sent us. Here are some pics

Update...

I've been posting a lot of pics of the outdoors/animals so here are some recent updates about the boys, including Nathan!Okay, so this was a typical scene every night for a few weeks when it was really cold. Flannel coat, fuzzy hat and light head band. Which, I laughed at him the first time he put it on but after using it personally a couple times, I want one. Its so handy for going out at night to close up the animal area or check on things hands free! Well here's Nathan getting ready to go rabbit hunting. Yes, shooting wild rabbits right on our property. And don't get all upset about poor bunnies with me. If you don't like our way of life up here, then stop reading my blog. Rabbits are nutritious and easy to skin. It makes for very good eats. AND every person around here HATES wild rabbits because they sabotage everybody's hard earned gardens every spring. So, we're just getting ready for gardening!



Here is Colt with his brown twin, Sale. Yes, his name is spelled Sale. But you pronounce it Sal-Aye, its polyneasian. Anyhow, Sale is like this little faced skinny preemie just like Colt. They are so cute together and in real life somebody at DQ actually asked if they were TWINS! HAHA


Colt is getting so big. I'm really proud of his progress too. I see so much improvement even in his school work from the beginning of the school year till now. Before, it was like pulling teeth just to get him to sit down for homework. (and no, that's not what happened in this picture!) But now, he has no problem sitting down at his seat for homework, and just concentrating right through it. He's really good at focusing and doing it. Can you believe he has about 30 minutes of homework a night!? No, no, no, he's not in middle school, he's in KINDERGARTEN! It hits me every so often that I'm going to be doing homework as a mom for the next several years...Ugh.


The boys are so different. Charley will take his time with toys and play with them. Focusing on little things like stacking blocks. I know I just talked about how cool it is that Colt is focusing on homework. I love that because Colt didn't focus on toys. He was always jumping and running and doing more physical things like digging and climbing. But here's Charley focusing on a block tower. Yes, I specifically remember now, taking a video of Colt climbing up our orange tree when he was 2 1/2. And here's what Charley does at 2 1/2.


There's always the occasional animal that comes through the house. Colt says "ooo you're so soft chicken, I love you so much!" He really has a bleeding heart for things. He tells the chickens that he loves them all the time.


And this is Charley's newest craze...STUFF! He calls it "duff". Any type of fluffy feather whether its from a down pillow or from a chicken feather outside. Any light fluffy airy fluff that floats in the air that he can catch and hold, then blow it up in the air again, he LOVES it. He's always finding "duff". Oh and it never gets old, he gets REALLY happy when he sees stuff on the ground.

March weather

Okay so March has definately been gloomy rainy wet and cold, and snowy! Above is looking out from our house. This was the typical scene in March. Just cold overcast. SO, because it does get rainy and snowy and wet, there are things that we need to be mindful of. Things that we normally would never think about in PD, because it NEVER rained in the desert.



Take the cushions off the chairs


Cover the hay. If hay gets wet, it gets moldy and it will make animals die. Except for Cows. Cows have 4 stomachs so they can eat anything. (in case you were wondering)


Look at the chickens, they are hiding from the wind inside the goat shelter.


And in case you didn't see this pic of me on fb, this is what I look like the whole winter. Scarves/coats/furry hats are a must.

Cows

Okay I know. We are seriously farm geeks. So we got cows. Not for milking. We got meat cows. So in the cow world: castrated cows are called steer. And the ones that still have their manhood, those are the bulls...the mean bulls! Female cows are literally called heifers. HAHAHA! Seriously, so when someone calls you a heifer, they are literally calling you a cow. HA.

We got 2 baby Holstein Steer. There are many different breeds of cows. Holstein is just a random breed well known for backyard farming and being generally easy to raise.

Cows are usually sold at $1.00 or $1.50 / lb. These cows are 5 months old and are around 300 lbs each. We bought them from a guy that just kind of needed to sell them so we got them for a good price. A full grown cow that is ready to go to slaughter is usually around 1200 lbs. And they are usually about a year and a half. So we will raise these guys for about a year....hopefully we don't get too attached!
Hank meeting the cows for the first time. He's our official animal checker.



They have about an acre and a half fenced off to roam freely right now. Eventually, we are going to fence off this 5 acre area in our yard and have the cows there. Then we will put the goats where the cows are now. We love that we can have happy roaming animals!

Frizzles!!

Well we have quite a collection of chickens now. 18 total. 15 of those are hens, and 3 are roosters. Aparently you can have roosters together from all different breeds. They just take a few days to figure out who's boss. Seriously, when we added another full grown rooster to our pack, the two roosters duked it out for a couple days. Now they are all fine. Anyway, the reason for the post: we got theee cutest fuzzy little chicks! They are called frizzles, and they are totally full grown! Its just everything about them is tiny! They are tiny, their eggs are tiny, and here's the kicker: one of these frizzles is a rooster! And he is just the tiniest little thing, and he is full grown. AND he has a TINY LITTLE CROW!!! It is so cute! So here are a few pics of the frizzles, and the last one is a video of the rooster frizzle crowing...enjoy! (And I don't know why this is all underlined, I am a retard and I won't even try to figure it out.)




They are just little tiny fur balls!


And here is the video...prepare for cuteness!

Snow in Anza!

Wow! So we were told that February in Anza is true winter. We're enjoying the changes in weather here. So far, its been a sunny, pretty warm winter. Then suddenly we get clouds rolling in. This is what it looked like last night when it started...so pretty!

It kept snowing through the night, so it called for some serious snow play the next morning...



Look at the Chickens! They are hanging out under their coop, the only place with no snow.



It was sunny though throughout the day today and a lot of it melted. Next week will probably go back to being 70's and sunny!

The Boys

Colt and Charley are buds. And especially out here, they have to be. Here are just a few pics of them doing all the things together that they do...


They fall asleep on the big stuffed chair together...



This is the one tiny week a while back where we thought Charley was ready to ditch the diapers. No such luck. But here's Colt right after he gave Charley a hug and said, "Charley, I'm so proud of you! You can wear underwear now!" So, they encourage each other...


They get dirty together! "Mom! The rain made the driveway all muddy...can we play in it!?"



They watch toons together..


Yes, Charley's there too. They zone out in imaginary play together...



They play with chickies together...



Take huge bubble baths...

Colt is our sensitive caring boy. He has always watched out for Charley and Colt is very in tune with mama'a feelings too. If I'm having a bad morning or am a little pissy, Colt asks me if I'm okay. Then he goes through the list of things that I might be mad about. "Are you mad because there are so many dishes? Are you made because Hank is in the way? Are you made because we woke up so early..." Haha.
Charley is just this little person and everything he does is a little version of a big person. He is really chill and goes along with just about any plans. He is very stubborn. And I've heard other moms always say that about one child or another. I always thought it was just an excuse. Like oh okay, your child is stubborn so just leave it at that? YEAH, just leave it at that! Everything that Colt did relatively easy, Charley puts up a fight. Its funny to see the difference. But they are my dudes and we have a blast together. And yes, the boys do have their moments where they fight. So they enjoy time apart too!