easter baskets

Thought I'd share what the boys got in their Easter baskets. I try to avoid filling their baskets with junk food or little "junky" type toys that will just get thrown away. I am happy with how their baskets turned out and they liked them so it was a success. I knew they would get enough Easter candy other places so they wouldn't miss out on it in their baskets.


Bathrobe, apple juice, squeezable fruit packet (they love these!), knit bunny, bubble bath, and gummy candy from Trader Joe's. And they also each got a shovel, like a real shovel just kid sized. Justin bought them for the boys, I'm wondering if we should take bets on who gets hit with a shovel first? :)

boys weekend

A few weekends ago I spent the night in Seattle with Judah and my sister. We went to Ikea, ate out, rode the light rail into downtown, and stayed in a hotel (the highlight of the trip for Judah!)
This left Justin at home with Cohen and Jax. They had a great time with dad! He took them on 2 hikes over the weekend and was sure to take lots of pictures to show me. There's lots of great one so I had a hard time choosing which ones to share so you're going to get picture overloaded!

egg hunts

Here's a few egg hunting pictures!

"eggings" and "toppings"

Last weekend we "egged" some of our friends. I can't take credit for the idea, I found it here. Judah had so much fun! We filled the eggs together and then he got to stay up really late to put them in peoples yards so they'd find them in the morning.
This is the only picture we have from the "egging".


When we came back from school on Thursday Judah came running to tell me that someone left carrots on our back porch. It was such a strange thing to say and I just kind of brushed him off. We had been getting our garden beds ready to plant and had found a few carrots from last year so I thought he must have been seeing those. But I was wrong! We were "topped". So fun! The boys loved it!

henrietta

Don't have much to say today but thought I'd share this picture. It makes me smile. :) This is where Henrietta prefers to lay her eggs lately, in a planter on our front porch. It cracks me up to listen to her scratch the planter and get all comfy and then after she lays her egg she stands there and does her egg yell (that's what I call it, I'm sure there's a technical term for it!)

baby chicks

I've been annoyed with our chickens lately. We have to keep the old ones separate from the new ones and it's a pain to deal with. But the other day Judah asked us why we had chickens instead of just buying our eggs at the store. And I was reminded of why we do it and what it means to our family, it's more than just the eggs.
Yesterday the baby chicks squeezed out of a corner of the pen and had some time wandering around the yard. The boys had a lot of fun with them. Judah kept putting them up high and then watched them flap back down to the ground and rush over to join the other chicks.
So after the good conversation with Judah and watching the boys play with the chicks I'm back to loving our chickens. :)

April Experiment: update #3

Well. I am throwing in the vegan towel. Call me a failure, a quitter, whatever you want, I'm done. I'm pretty sure the final straw was knowing I had to cook brussel sprouts for dinner last night. I think if I had a real reason for eating vegan then maybe I would have better success at it. But to try it just to try it...well that has lost it's appeal. I don't think we eat bad and I don't think we eat a lot of meat, so I'm not going to feel bad about quitting. Vegan isn't for me. I will probably continue eating less meat and less dairy and try to incorporate more beans and veggies and grains into our meals.

Final thoughts.
~It's not cheaper. At least not for me. I was so new at it that I used recipes out of cookbooks and they used a lot of vegetables, most were not in season. Also we buy our meat 3-4 times a year from Stewarts in Yelm so I don't normally buy meat at the grocery store so I didn't notice a difference in cost for that either. Also the cost that went into buying the few staple type items that I needed (like vegan butter) to try to be successful were kinda pricey.
~I didn't lose any weight. And that wasn't my goal, but I thought that eating vegan would drop some weight. But my 3/4 (I started several days before the first of the month!) of a month probably wasn't enough to test that theory anyway.
~How do I feel? Who knows. Maybe better. I ate a meatball sandwich from Subway the other day and felt icky afterward. Is that from the meat? Or because it was Subway? Or is it from my lack of gallbladder that I'm still working the kinks out of life without it? I'll be interested to see how I feel after adding meat regularly back into my diet.
~Honestly I think I would feel better if I cut sugar out of my diet. I am so addicted. Like really really badly addicted. But I'm not ready to conquer that one yet.
~Protein is hard. I know that is one of the things that I would have gotten better at incorporating over time, but I know I haven't been getting enough. I think I struggle with getting enough protein in my regular diet, so it was super difficult with the vegan diet.
~The boys: Not sure they even noticed. Jax loves the almond milk. Cohen loves the coconut milk.
~Justin: I'm pretty sure he missed meat. I'm pretty sure he finished some meals still hungry. Poor guy. Maybe I'll make steak soon to make up for it!

Trying to figure out my experiment for May. I have some ideas. Justin had a good one but it's another food experiment and I'm not sure I'm ready for another food experiment yet!

a walk to the lake

We took our first walk to the boat launch of the season! It was kinda chilly, I was cold, but the boys didn't mind. They are so funny, they won't pose for me when I want to take their picture but if it's their idea then they are full of poses! And they love to find a spot and yell, "mom, take my picture". Such fun times with them!

potty time

Now that he's 2 we're starting the (probably long) process of potty training!



He was so excited to wear elmo underwear! He was quite the poser for me!

Gotta love him! :)

farewell to larry

Goodbye Larry. We appreciate all the years you've been with our family but we're ready for you to leave now.

















We're looking forward to being a larry free family! Hoping the transition goes as easy with Jax as it did with the other boys. So far so good!