Baby Diva

Being a teenager, Emily is not a big fan of having her picture taken unless it's on her terms. HOWEVER, yesterday she was feeling silly and transformed herself into "nerd swimmer" I think she is the funniest kid sometimes (when she isn't having one of those teen dark mood moments...then i'd like to bang my head against the wall)

Happy Memorial Day Weekend!

Ahhhhhhh Memorial Day Weekend! The un-official start of summer here, long weekend off from school/work and the weather as usual is cooperating nicely! Think BBQ and swimming in the pool...both of which we have planned, along with some home projects that need to get done and a quick jaunt over to the barn so the boys can ride :) yesterday my little cub scout Cody marched in the Memorial parade downtown honoring our veterans and to remember the soldiers still fighting, he did me proud.

then we all came home and jumped in the pool because it was toasty out! Brendan stayed in most of the afternoon...that kid is part fish I swear!

cody also spent some quality bonding time with the chickens....so they wouldn't feel left out of the fun :)

A chick and her chookies

I had a really funny flashback today, while cleaning out the chickens I remembered my great grandmother "Granny" making me "chookie eggs" for lunch. I never thought much of it but i remember being little and thinking they were some sort of delicacy that nobody else (unless they too were the proud owners of the cutest little old Granny from Scotland like I was blessed with) got made for them. I realized much later it was just plain old scrambled eggs. But she used more butter than Paula Dean ever did (gasp! is that possible) and they were never ever burned.

I decided today that my kids would eat chookie eggs too...and never again scrambled eggs. :)

I will miss cookies no more!

oh cookies...how i have missed you....but not anymore! finally after trial and error and searching i have found a decent gluten free peanut butter cookie recipe! YES!!!!!! It's a yucky rainy day..perfect for baking cookies, so I entered the kitchen with determination and a mish mash of different recipes, i took what i liked from each and sha-zam I made my cookies ala peanut butter goodness. ohh how i have been enjoying them all afternoon with a cup of coffee, or two. the best part is my children all came home and ate some, not even suspecting that they were sans the gluten. victory! i'm saving a few for a midnight snack.

Anyone else have a good gluten free recipe or two? I am still in search of a good homemade cake..those packaged Betty Crocker ones taste like clay dough...gross!!!!

The Ballad of Sweet Gibblets

I awoke this morning to see how the hens had made out being their first night out in their coop, only to discover that our old friend Sweet Gibblets the turkey had returned....uh oh. We figured the male (aka Prince Charming) had managed to woooo her away, but there she was, hunkered down next to the chickens waiting for her "babies" to come out. I'm starting to get more concerned for her mental health..is she having an identity crisis? Does she think she is a chicken?? Is is a co-dependency thing? We will keep an eye on the situation (and hope that Prince Charming comes back to find her) but I'm thinking a call to animal control might be in order...just to make sure she is safe.

Poultry in Motion

So today was a very interesting kind of day. I put the chicks out into their little "chick tractor" to get them some fresh air and get them used to being outside. When along came this lone turkey. Now it's not weird to see turkies in our backyard but they are usually in a large group. This one sort of circled the tractor, looking at the chicks (who were ok with this large bird) and quietly clucking at them. Then she proceeded to sit down and hang out with the chickens. Now I know...I can hear the "AWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW isn't that cute" and it would have been had this turkey not gotten all ninja on me when i went to put the chicks back in the house. Oh she was NOT happy. I got them in, and she wandered off. So I went to start dinner....only to discover this looking in at me:

A large turkey is stalking me, glaring at me with her beady little turkey eyes. I'm worried...does she think I have her babies? Does she have babies? Is she a flock reject? Did we just inherit a pet turkey! (we named her Sweet Giblets just in case)

Play Ball!

I have been living on the baseball fields the last few weeks! So far so good, games have been exciting, weather has been freezing, you can find all the mommies bundled up against the cold with our blankets, sweatshirts and electric blankets (ok maybe not the last one..we are considering all buying Snuggies though) cheering our kids on! Gavin seems to like t-ball a little more this year but it definatly looses it's appeal after 2 innings. Cody is loving being catcher, he is even dabbling in pitching...he has a great team this year, the kids are all friendly and love to scream for each other (which is a bit deafing at times) Emily is just amazing...i'll get some pictures up soon, she is harder to capture on film. She is the ONLY girl in her age division, you can tell who she is by her ponytail on the field. The boys all have seem to accepted her as "just Em" and there has only been a few girly comments made (mostly by the younger newer kids) She hears them, and smiles her winning smile....then strikes them out one by one...."how ya like me now" she asks them. Ok so her chances of dating anytime soon is a bit strained...nobody wants to ask the girl out who just pummeled their ego....but I am soooo ok with that!

Me and My Favorite Mommies

This Mother's Day I will be spending my day with 2 of my favorite Mommies, my beloved Grandmother (pictured in the middle) and my beloved cousin (really more like sister) Dawn..she is to the left with the bunny!

I hope all my Mommy Friends have a fabulous diva like day...this is early I know, but there is much to do this week with cleaning, shopping, cleaning, getting the chickens outside and oh yeah I do have to work somewhere in there too!

I cannot party like a rock star at night and then be a baseball parent in the morning...

Shocker....I had to much fun last night and paid dearly for it the next morning! Yuppers, I had to drag my very tired and hung over behind out of the sanctuary of my comfy bed, throw on some clothing and sunglasses and head out into the BRIGHT sunlight, coffee in hand, to play baseball with my son...ha ha ha..i had gone out the night before with other baseball parents so we kind of looked like some of the creatures from the Michael Jackson "Thriller" video stumbling and walking in a jerky manner around the field this morning. But we would smile and kind of sigh at each other every now and again...we made it, and it was an awesome game!

Then onto game 2...where i had the luxury of sitting in a nice seat with other nice mommies sipping our slushies (mine was lemon) and I did some knitting while once in a while looking up and screaming "GO CODY!!!" a most enjoyable afternoon..while I was gone the beloved scrubbed our back deck...we have company coming next weekend and for some odd reason, even though I have a list a mile long of things that MUST be done before they arrive (and let me tell you, the deck was not listed on there at all) he felt that it would be some kind of personal insult to them to have to sit on a dirty deck (which heeeelllo they are outside, hence why they are dirty) and enjoy the woods/fire/large bucket of wine...ooops that's for me and Dawn....bbq/luncheon whatever! GRRRRRRRRRRR! Men!!! if he wanted to scrub something I would have pointed him in the direction of the toliets that he and the other boys cannot seem to directly hit when using them and let him at the pee stains (ewwwwwwwwwie) instead of me having to do it. Buuuuuuttttttttt Noooooooooooooo i'm just a silly pracitcal woman! Tomorrow he is going to cut something down with a chainsaw..just because it's pointless and unnecessary.
I should have become a nun like my grandmother told me to :)