Hanging with the Chickens

Yesterday it got a little too quiet in the house and any mom will say, "when it is quiet...the kids are probably getting into something". :) So I went outside to investigate and came out to find two of them in the chicken coop just hanging out.

Dylan found a nice comfy seat inside the bin where we keep the chicken food, just hanging out playing the "chop chop ninja" game on my phone. Isabelle was just hanging out putting food in the red cup and spreading it out for the chickens to eat. Dylan just loves being around the chickens he said he wanted to just hang out with them for awhile. :)

Soon the chickens wanted to check out what he was up to,

so one decided to jump up and take a look.

So of course he had to take a break from his game and give her a nice little pet on her back. :)

We are usually getting 5 eggs a day now. They are so much fun!

Here is a current picture of my garden. Things are sprouting up all over and growing great. I had to do some soil modification...because all my first sprouts were dying off. My soil had too much nitrate in it...hopefully now it will do better and we'll get lots of great stuff!

Train Park

Yesterday for Grandma day we went to the train park in Scottsdale.

It was Isabelle's first time to ride on the carousel without freaking out. She wasn't so sure at first if she liked it but a few times around and she started waving to me as she went by. :)

All the girls, including my niece Janae had a great time on the playground.

It was great to enjoy the outdoors before it gets too hot.

Love

Mark captured these series of photo's on our trip to Durango.

They were taken outside the train museum.

I love, love, love them!

Who's ready for a treat?

Looks like spaghetti & meatballs, right? Nope, it is a amazing cake! My client made me this cake to enjoy with the kids. She is so talented and it tasted so good!!

I wanted to surprise the kids with the cake and capture what they thought about it. We just got done with dinner and I told them they could have a treat and I pulled the tray out. They thought I was a bit crazy giving them more dinner food! The neighbor kids were also over to enjoy the fun. :)

Spring Break Fun

Before we left town to Durango over spring break the kids and I had a few days filled with fun. On Monday we met some friends at the zoo (which was super busy!). The picture below is them all sitting in the fake huge clam shell. And the boys were busy building a dam in the play area that has a stream running through it. It was fun to see them hunting for rocks and building it up...they would have done it for hours if we didn't stop them.

On Wednesday we met up with my mom & sister (and kids) at Encanto's Enchanted Island. We hadn't been there in quite awhile, last time most of the kids were still a little too afraid to try any of the rides but this time around they all were excited about the rides and wanted to try everything out. We took the train around, rode the Carousel, rode the roller coaster & other rides. We also had a picnic lunch and for dessert my mom bought them a ice cream treat. The picture below is of them waiting for it to arrive in a somewhat shady spot. This is how the afternoon ended up with Isabelle exhausted. She wouldn't let my mom snuggle up with her because she was trying to fight the sleep...but she ended up falling asleep with my mom holding her head up (sorry mom for the inappropriate hand!). :) How funny.

Trip to Durango

This last week was spring break for Dylan and we planned a trip to Durango CO with Israel & Kati. We found a 2 bedroom townhouse to rent that was close to downtown and had a park close by that we could walk to. Durango is beautiful, I can't wait to go back again sometime during the spring time when I'm sure it would be even more amazing!

Mark, Israel and Dylan went snowboarding/skiing one day so Kati and I took the girls to the childrens museum. They had a bunch of fun playing with all the activity centers.

Mark and Dylan on the ski lift at Purgatory. They had such a great day together! Dylan was amazing on the ski's...Mark said they went up the big lift after doing the bunny hill for a couple times and it got boring. I'm really proud of how quickly Dylan has picked up skiing!

Israel got a video of them coming down the hill...

We also got a afternoon of tubing in at Purgatory. :)

Hanging out in downtown, checking out the trains & shops

On our drive home the weather was a bit crazy. Leaving Colorado the wind was really strong and the tumbleweeds were flying across the highway by the dozens and then in spots there was dirt that was so thick it was hard to see very far in and then we got to Flagstaff and there was a lot of snow coming down (when we drove to CO the ground had no snow). So we stopped and played for a little while.

The trip was really great overall. It is so much easier traveling now that the kids are getting older and of course we always have a great time with the Whittemore's! The bummer of the trip was that Isabelle was not feeling well for most of the time, then I ended up getting strep throat and Israel & Kati had to leave early due to some family stuff (but it was probably good they left our germs).

Goodbye Durango, until next time!!

Safe Walls

We had a new backyard neighbor move in a few weeks ago and last week she mentioned to me that she wanted to put a block wall up and wanted to talk to my landlord about him helping with the costs of the wall. Of course I was thrilled with this news because all we have had was this little chain link fence...not secure at all. Here are the before and after pictures.

Also we had 4 big olive trees that were removed this week...also so thankful for this because they dropped tons of olives and were a huge mess.

The trees were cut down but the stumps were not grinded...so it's a little funky but way better than it was. Now it's ready for some grass and it will be perfect!

Our landlord had decided not only to do the shared wall but decided to do the entire fenceline. The backyard feels new and big. More than anything I love that it feels safe and I know the kids can't be seen from everyone passing by on the street.