*Spring Break: April 2009*

We had Thursday and Friday and Monday and Tuesday off of school this year, so on Monday we met my parents in Idaho Falls to pick up Max and stayed at my cousin Melissa's house. The kids had a great time. Swimming in the pool at her hotel and playing with her little puppies! Thanks Melissa for a great time.( I am so sad that I didn't get pictures of her and swimming) On the way home we stopped in Rexburg to see my dad's high school friend and ride his horses. It was really cold and snowy, so we just rode for a little bit, but it was fun all the same.My dad with Mara

Waiting to saddle up! Can you see the eternal grin on Max's face?

This horse is a team roping horse that has won in many rodeos. Max was in heaven.

Here's us all! :) minus Emma who was thankfully asleep in the house. The boys were quite impressed with Gary's land and spent almost the entire time saying..."If I lived here we could..." They loved the river and woods and all the cool places that they could play "wild men" They really wished it was warmer so that they could stay out all day!

Max's turn!

Mara and Gary

Sam solo

Me and Mara I made the horse run and she said "just walk mom, just walk"

Later the boys found the bear skin rug and had a great time with it. Noah got under it and started moving so that it looked like the bear was alive-Creepy! He was scaring all of Gary's granddaughters with it (not really, they were all just playing really well together) Sam and Noah got a hold of my camera and when I was looking at the pictures later I found this...

CRAZY BEAR ATTACK!!!!!

Like your going to punch an attacking bear :)

My leg, my leg....

Another one who thinks they can punch an attacking bear!

He's being eaten BY a bear...or is HE eating the bear?

Easter Morning

Easter Morning was a bright and sunny one! The Easter bunny hid eggs outside and in the front room. (thanks to great parenting about three years ago, my boys don't really believe in the easter bunny anymore.) They are really good to get the little girls involved though, and leave eggs for them to find. Noah and Sam really wanted to hide the eggs this year, so on Saturday night we had some friends over and we had a hunt in the front yard and Sam and Noah hid the eggs.
Just before church, the kids were looking really sharp, but the picture is missing something...or someone...MAX!
We were really hoping the easter bunny found him in Utah. He had an egg hunt at Ryan's parents. He got to find eggs all by himself. How odd for him to be all alone...Wierd! He said he loved it though, he didn't have to share anything with his brothers, and he didn't have to fight for the most eggs, they were just all his. It is so amazing how much diffrence just one kid makes. Each one really play a huge role in our family, I can't imagine not having each one of them.

Loved this picture of Mara. She has started to have so many facial expressions that really crack me up!

After church we went over to the Becker's for an egg hunt and dinner, here are all the kids waiting to find lots of eggs.

The dog "Trixie" wondering just what Mara was looking for!

He is about the size of three of her.

Rushing to the next one!

Emma with her bucket and her daddy! Life is good for a one year old.

Dad helping open her candy!

How sweet that picture is!

Counting all the eggs to make sure that all were found.

Diggin' in to the loot!

I had to post this crazy picture of me that Noah took, just for proof that I lived through this Easter! I actually was there, and it was a great one! Hope yours was just as great.

(On a side note, I lead the choir in our ward and the week before Easter, I found out that I was only going to have one Soprano there. So I frantically called a bunch of people and became that choir director that nags everyone to come to choir-I swore I'd never be that, desperate times call for desperate measures- we had a practice on Saturday, and I thought well, it will do. But when we actually performed, It was so good! Better than we had ever practiced, and you could totally tell we had divine help! It was so great...just goes to show that you do the best you can, and the Lord will make up the rest. I wonder how many times I've had to learn that lesson now...you'd think I would get it sooner or later.)

~Eggs and Such~

I have been waiting for Easter since we got the chickens last June! We have a few Arachana hens that lay "Easter Eggs". The eggs are light green, pink, and sometimes a blueish color, and the kids insist that they taste better than ordinary white or brown eggs.

It was really strange this year to color easter eggs without Max (He was in Utah) We got this tye dye kit that I thought would be fun and ended up just making the eggs ugly. Never again! We also got sand art. What idiot thought that up? And why was I such an idiot to buy the kit. Again, I was just thinking it would be fun to do...didn't think about peeling the eggs and getting sand all over what your supposed to eat. I vow next year to be smarter!

Here's all the crew getting ready to color...minus Max.

I gave the neighbors "Easter Eggs" this year. I had to, what good would it be to have easter egg chickens if you couldn't give them to your neighbors for easter. It was great fun, and they looked so cute!

So our colored eggs looked so ugly I wouldn't even take a picture of them, and the real eggs were so cute I had to take a picture of them...Moral of the story...mother nature's the best decorator this year.

Soaking up the Vitamin D! and F!

Finally the sun is peaking it's head out in our part of the country! We were so excited to be out in it all day today. We all got "kissed by the sun" and I am loving the touch of pink I see on me, Ryan and the kids! Love that vitaminD! we set to work this morning to put a fence up around our garden so the goats and chickens can't get in. Ryan went to Big "R" and three hundred dollars later came home with all the stuff he needed for the fence. Okay...that garden better produce a lot more than three hundred dollars worth of food, or it is all for not! No pressure this season, No Pressure. (In all truthfulness he bought a lot more than just what was needed for the fence, but he only went to get fence stuff)

The boys spent all day out there with us. Sometimes helping sometimes playing, but just having them around all day was great.

Mara had a great time just following the boys around and I have to say she is by far the most dedicated worker. When the boys have long since lost interest she will still just follow Ryan around to wherever he goes. It is the sweetest thing.

We just happened to have a spare gate in a field by the chicken coup that went to nothing so we dug it out of the ground(It was only in there three full feet) and put it up for the fence around our garden.

Tell me you don't love the feel of soft garden dirt between your toes.

Here is the fence. It is hard to see, but it goes all around our garden.

Soaking up some rays and having so much fun. A garden is definately Fun work!

Caleb and Noah with their "hobbit" feet.

Love this lady!

One day he will do that and muscles will actually pop through, but for now...skin and bones is his lot in life.

Taking a break from all the work(play). Notice that Max is not in any of these pictures. He was in Utah for Easter this year. He went home with the Bouck's to have his teeth worked on my Uncle Wade, and we sure missed him. All day long everyone kept saying..."someone is missing.." or "it's so wierd without Max here." it really was wierd.

Learning New Things!

Noah has learned how to make eggs! I love it that my boys will help me in the kitchen with cooking and washing dishes and setting the table. I am so glad that Noah can cook his own eggs(not that I think he needs to, but a boy who can cook is a plus for his future wife :)!

Emma just crawled over to the fridge one day with a pencil in her hand and started coloring on a paper that Mara had hung on the fridge

She thinks she is so big...dangit she is!

Horray for Friends!

The Bouck's came for a visit over conference weekend, and I decided that if an event happens two years in a row, it's grounds for tradition! Hope it holds true for the Bouck's. We had such a great time! One might think that 10 kids and 4 adults in one small house for seven days might get cramped, but we loved every second of it, and I mean that literally. Our kids thought it was great to have friends all the time, and they got along so well! And what mom could complain about having an extra set of hands for meal time and laundry? Joy and Kevin were so great to help with everything. I truly have missed not having them here! Lucy and Mara were so cute together! They had a hay day, and I was so thankful that Lucy gave Mara a few pointers on how to be a girl and play with girl things.

Sam, Noah and I had been preparing for the Bouck's arrival for weeks. Sam and Noah had it all planned that they would take them to see the chickens...

and have them gather eggs...

(here is Sam with blown out eggs in his pockets...waiting for the strike)

(Noah, Noah, waiting to chuck "empty" eggs at Joy and Kevin)

When everyone got out of the chicken coup, and were heading to see the goats, Sam and Noah pelted them with empty eggs. It was just April Fools, and who can resist a trick like that. I'm pretty sure it caught them off guard. Noah wanted to chuck a real egg when they caught on to the fact that they were all empty. Luckily, he advised me of that plan and I put a stop to it. So no real eggs were thrown, just empty ones.

Lucy and Mara petting "LULU" she is my favorite baby goat to date!

Yes, that is our riding lawn mower that Ryan picked up for dirt cheap, it still works even though it looks completely like PWT and it beats having to push the lawnmower all over our five acres. Usually the goats aren't crawling all over it.

The kids had a great time playing dress up. Baylee was "Elizabeth Swan" and Lucy was a princess always. Max of course a cowboy and Mara,even though she likes princess stuff, had to be a pirate the whole time...that's what brothers do to you.

Emma Loved Joy!

ON April 6th, our goat "Snowbell" (okay really the boys call her "Pickles" but that is a dumb name for a female goat if you ask me) had her babies and the Bouck's were here to see it. Everyone waited so patiently to see what she would have! We were hoping for girls. Lucy and Mara waited in the feeder

(I love this picture of them)

Baylee and Noah (he was home sick) waited in the sunshine.

Ryan got there just in time to see them be born. (Kevin had been out in the morning when "Snowbell just ran over to him then started having contractions. He called me and we quickly got ready to wait...and wait...)

Here's me anxiously watching her change positions over and over and over again.

I can't believe how much you can learn from mother nature. Finally she had one little boy, and then after a while another little boy that came out breech. Ryan had to gently pull him out. He struggled for a while trying to breath, and we didnt' think he would make it for a while, but he pulled through, his name is "Luckie" I think that name is appropriate, but Mara says "Yuckie" and that's stinkin cute when she says it. What is funny is that earlier that week, I had my own first delivery and Ryan didn't make that big of a deal about it, but Elaine sent me flowers. After Ryan's first "catch" I asked him if he wanted flowers sent...(HA HA HA!)

One night, after a long day of fencing, Kevin and Ryan decided to burn the field. The boys thought that was great fun! They all got little piles of dried weeds and started them on fire with sticks that they lit off of other piles. I know your probably thinking that is real safe in Great Falls where the wind blows non-stop, but for once, it actually was not blowing one IODA. We were actually wishing it would blow, because the field wouldn't burn unless the boys carried the fire from place to place. They thought that was the FUNNEST work ever. (When ever I ask Caleb or Max to do a job for me, they say is it "fun work"?)

Mara and Lucy went off by the fence and had their own fun time.

Caleb and Baylee had the best of time together.

Kevin and Joy!We did actually try to keep the babies away from the smoke, but every child smelled so smoky that they all required major scrubbing and sweet smelling soap before they fell into bed after such a long, fun day!

Nick and Max by "their fire"! They kept feeding it with the weeds, it stayed in one place and never really got much bigger than that. I thought the purpose of a field burning was to get the fire to move throught the field and burn as it went, this field burning, the boys brought the weeds to the fire. It kept them so busy and they loved it.

We were so glad the Bouck's came! Hope to see you up here next year if not sooner!