Hay Fever!

What happens when two guys get together...

...with two red tractors....

And lotsa tall grass? 

They get lotsa dirty kids!  That's what happens!!

Blaine - you are just the cutest thing!!

The Attorney actually looks like he's working!!

They might also get a few bales of hay, too...

Ahhhh-chooooooo!

Well, maybe more than a few bales.

Probably more like lotsa, lotsa bales!

The End! 

At least for yesterday...

...'cause there's lotsa, lotsa, lotsa more stuff to bale out in the orchard!

If You Say the Word "Sweat" One More Time You Will be in Big Bad Trouble!

That's right!  And don't you forget it! 

And, next thing you know someone pipes up and whines, "My face is covered with facial fluids." 

And of course there has to be a smarty pants in the group who has to throw in the literary element of alliteration.  "Facial fluids feel foul." 

There were some other comments about condensating, which is just more of the same garbage I have to deal with when it comes to things like picking strawberries when its a little warm outside!

However, all of the whining certainly didn't stop the exclamations when especially large or perfect berries were picked!

And deciding whether we should dip the big strawberries in chocolate definitely didn't slow anyone down from completing the task.

So after all was whined and done, here is what we got in our first picking.  Not much compared to years past, but plenty for me to work with for this afternoon!

Robin's Egg

Pretty little egg!

Dramatic little egg!

Its still  pretty though!

Her 6 + My 4 = Picnic

What a fun crew!

Even though it was slightly on the very warm side of the thermometer, the afternoon was

pretty for a picnic.

What a fun visit!!

We enjoyed sub sandwiches, chips and juice!

And what's a picnic without some chocolate chip cookies?

Lunch was yummy!!

And Debbie and I were lucky to get a chocolate chip cookie after all the kids got their fix!

Isn't Jesse about the sweetest little thing you've ever seen?  She reminds me so much of her Royal Highness when she was this age!

Micah had fun too!

Primary Talent Show and Chili Cookoff

Arent they adorable?  The one in the middle is mine... The President!  To the left is his friend Jakob and to the right is his friend Zackry.  They are three very talented little guys.  Zackry read Patrick Henry's "Give me Liberty or Give me Death" speech.  The gun wasn't actually apart of Jakob's talent, but The President, his cheesy smile and his talent were.  Guns always make great accesories though - so do cheesy smiles!

Here they are, playing Bile Them Cabbage Down.

Wish you could have been there!  They were fabulous!!!

My Ba-nat-sticks Class

"Banatsticks" Class is likely more familiarly known to you as Gymnastics Class. This has been a great opportunity for her Royal Busy-ness to burn some of her wild energy!  So, theoretically speaking, instead of doing things like this...

She can be doing things like this...

A year ago, she got to watch her cousin Noelle in one of her classes, and she was intrigued.  So for her, this is pure bliss!  Not only is she doing what her 'big girl' cousin gets to do, and she is allowed to climb and bounce and jump off of things that were meant to be climbed, bounced and jumped off of, but she gets to dress up! 

Blissfully dressed to for Banatsticks Class!

Giant Thing of Green and Slime!

Big, huh?  Thats what we all thought!  So out came the camera, and eventually, the garden gloves... since no one wanted to touch it.  Green things of these proportions can do mighty things like attack you... and swallow you in one gulp!

So, while we were trying to bribe the President to touch it...

It attacked!

And landed smack-dab right on his hand!  You might notice the tension in his hand, the extreme extension of his fingers...  but you will never hear the blood curdling screams that were coming from his mouth, or see his eyeballs popping out of their sockets in terror of the cold, slimey beast that just landed in his hand! 

You also will never see how close to death I came as I tried and failed to control my laughter!

Sweet Little blessings!

The very first strawberry of the year!  Usually they ripen the first week of June... while I've been away as adult leadership at our church's Girls Camp!  A blessing, indeed, to get to enjoy them before Camp this year!!

Really Big Salad!

My pretty lettuces and onions growing in my 'kitchen garden' right outside the front door!

Little House in Minnesota - The Final Chapter

Yes!  The final chapter of our Little House.  This chapter begins on April 29th and ends on May 5th, at 12:07 AM when we pulled into the orchard and drug our tired bodies into bed. 

It is time to finish all of our projects and sell.

This home improvement story starts off with pruned fingers... Don't all home improvement adventures start off with pruned fingers?!?

One of the great benefits of a traveling job, is that the Apple Farmer earns points for free nights at hotels.  This just happens to be our first night up in Minnesota.  Which means a big day, and next day... and next day... and next day... and next day... will follow!

Little crazy fish!!

Big crazy fish!!

Grumpy fish... Daddy took him down the waterslide... 

Can we go down the slide one more time before we go back to our room?

No words needed here...

Arriving at the quiet little town where our little house resides!  We call it Little House, funny thing is, its actually bigger than the one we are living in on the farm!

Main street consists of a grocery, feed store, theatre ($2.00 tickets - playing Clash of the Titans and Ironman II), Pizza place and laundry mat (I now want my own laundry mat - maybe the Apple Farmer can build on a laundry mat off the back of the house... Three washers and three dryers... Laundry done in no time!!), and a fun little park!

The street that our Little House is on.  Isn't it sweet?

When it comes to home improvement, sometimes I can get a little grumpy and not really feel like taking photographs...  which explains why you won't see the holes in the wall when we were rewiring the bathroom and putting in a REAL light fixture in the bathroom, or the mudding and taping of the new wall that went up after the electrical stuff was done.  You also won't see pictures of the plumbing job that we actually finished this time.  You will just see the lovely new fixture attached to the plumbing.  You also won't see the wallpaper nightmare.....  All I can say is 8 layers over a span of 100 years....

The Apple Farmer teaches the little princes a new trick...

We are so proud...

Floor replacement surgery...

Don't you need some sort of a license to perform surgery?

Found this in the bathroom wall when we pulled out the medicine cabinet.  Found several others with 'brand new' blades.

Oooooh.  Ahhhhh.

The Apple Farmer is playing in the gutter....  Ha ha!

Cleaning up the air mattresses and packing up the blankets and pillows.  I got to scrub every last nook and cranny from upstairs to downstairs and handmopped us all right out the backdoor. 

Sigh!

Gonna miss our little house in Minnesota!