Rabbits!

Thanksgiving Point Farm Country we got to make ourselves all bunnies. Ya, Gary's awesome he's the only dad who joined in the fun. Don't you love Zurich's ears? It cracks me up!

Zurich and Olea on their pony ride.
















The wagon ride

Gary and I with our bunny disguises

Neva peeks at the ducks

The way I like them
















Hope you had a Fabulous Monday night!

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What a hair cut can do

This is Zurich

This is Zurich after a haircut.
















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Animae and love

I have to share here, because I'm all excited about it and can't share it with Gary, yet.
(And he doesn't read the blog due to sheer disinterest in the computer after work is over, and he has a job where he doesn't have time to blog surf... I think most people have jobs like this, they probably just don't respect it.)

Every year I make a book for our anniversary about the past year. This year we are number 7. One of my favorite sections in the book is "stupid things we say" appropriatly titled with one of the year's best quotes. Every year as things we say make us giggle I run for my palm to jot it down and then as April comes I start typing all those notes up. There are so many priceless, disgusting, hilarious things in this complilation.

Gary has a lot of nicknames, because I have maintained the idea that "Gary" is an old man's name, and he is not yet an old man. However, most of his nicknames, are not particularly masculine... but he loves me because he responds to them and appreciates them. While getting ready for bed one night I called him by one such nickname, "Gershie" to which he said, "That's cute, is that my Animae name?" So of course I start thinking that his own animae character would be a funny thing. Like Homestar Runner and Strong Bad and Japaneese cartoons.
Watch it.
So I looked around for Character creators online. But most of them weren't the style I was looking for, or were just simple dress up, or female. So then I found this little tutorial and tried my hand at drawing my own. I had fun, and even for animae their eyes are probably too far apart or something, but for a quick sketch it suits my purpose and was fun. If I have time (which I probably won't) an action pose would be awesome, but I doubt I will get to anything extra on this year's book. Time is winding down fast and I have more children to care for this time around.
So here's my first go around on Gershie and Deeds, Animae characters.

And ya, I used some copy and paste on photoshop to save time, I drew all the components and pieced them together. I'm sure they suck compared to real animae artists, but hey, it was fun.

Today as Gary emptied out his lunch pail and found a note I had put in late last night that he had missed during the day he pointed to it and said, "That's how I know we'll always be together, becuase you never forget." Not to put notes in his lunch, but that we are in love.
Decide everyday to be in love.

Finally Did it

So my palm battery has been dying. I looked into having someone put a new one in for me... about $50... no thanks. It's supposed to be a non serviceable unit, but I am out of my warranty range by years and palm doesn't support this unit anymore. At this point it's dead to me unless I can fix it. So thanks to a you-tuber who showed me how to get it open, and had a battery to spare I got out my soldering iron and put the new one in. It's a week in there now and so far so good! I haven't charged it again yet and it is used A LOT. Here's how I did it.

Hat cords

So at the end of this post I said I was trying to figure out using the cord on the hats and making it all flow. I did it. A while ago actually, just got around to posting the video.
Here's how:

I never wanted a pony

It's true. I never did. I am also allergic to horses. That's true too.

But Gary wanted us all to ride his Dad's horses while we were at their place. Everyone did, except Nev. Well everyone in our immediate family. Gary's mom is like me on the whole not loving horses thing, she was taking care of the kids as they came in and out of the cold while the guys figured out which horses were really ride-able. I never got a picture of Olea on the horse, she rode twice, but by the time everything was all sorted out and ready to ride the camera battery had run out ( it was low already). It was a very cold and windy day and the kids could only last so long... as well as the camera battery. But here's proof. This is the second time in my life I have been on a horse. yay.

Of course Gary and I had to get all outfitted first. I didn't bring any clothes that I could get horse on (being allergic and such) without having to do laundry so we borrowed some of Gary's Dad's clothes and had a good time joking around and making fools of ourselves.

Ya, we're dorks like that.

HAppy DAy NEvy DeaR!

Oh she's a year old now. What a doll we have. We had a combo party at Grandparent's house.

Party games

Presents

Look at the cute paper decor Grandma made for the cake that Gary constructed out of a sheet cake.

By the time we got around to party, she was very tired and mostly undressed. So we let her take a siesta before cake and ice cream.

This little girl is proof that God loves me.

For the record:

She has cut one tooth.

Can crawl up the stairs and does not walk, but likes to stand.

I do plan on taking her to the doc at some point for a 1 year check so I'll put stats in her journal then.

Standing up

Nev has been practicing standing lately. She has just a few more days before she turns one. We are enjoying her pace of life. She also can successfully go up the stairs. She likes to crawl up on things, but hasn't figured out getting down. That's why she's upset in the picture where she is sitting on file boxes. She got up, it was fun, but then realized she couldn't get down. She also likes to play at the gate. Cute.... but it makes me nervous.

Easter at Grandma's... and Pappa's too

Each child calls the grandparents home by the grandparent they adhere to best. Zurich, we learn was thrilled to go to Pappa's and Olea wrote a book about going to Grandma's. Which she gave to Grandma, but being the mother I am I took pictures of the pages first. She worked really hard on it.


We spent Easter there this year and driving in we were greeted on the last mile with slushy snow drifting across the road and loosing traction a little. We spent the time listening and watching to confrence while also trying to keep the kids entertained. In between sessions we filled the time well with egg dying and I got to play on a new Cricut machine. :) Thank you, Mom.



Gary and his dad reloaded bullets and we also got to go shoot guns. Sunday afternoon it dried up enough to go out and have an egg hunt though it wasn't particularly warm. My three ended up being the only kids... and there we a lot of eggs.



We also got to make shirts for the girls and then Heidi and I decided we like them and made some for ourselves too. We never got a pic of the two of us.... but here's the big shirt on Olea

Thanks for an awesome weekend. Can't wait to do it again! ;)

Plans, processes and right now

Kids have such a hard time understanding time. Yesterday, tomorrow, now, a minute, 4 hours, 6 days.
So when we say we are going to Grandma's house and we stop to eat at a restaurant because Grandma lives hours away and Olea throws a fit because we have already stopped twice on our "way to Grandma's house" it's really understandable. However, that doesn't negate the fact that she was freaking out so hugely and saying things that if you could understand her, you would think we were kidnapping her.... Thankfully we were saved the embarrassment of explaining that to the cops. But we sure got a lot of suspicious looks.
And thankfully Olea is at least old enough to understand now that there are things that need to be done "on the way" to Grandma's house.

Now, Zurich is at the age where he is learning. He knows we are going to Pappa's house. Sometime. So when it was time to get out of the van this morning to go back in the house... he wasn't having it. "Go to Pappa's house! Ride TRAIN!" I promise son we will go to Pappa's house, but there are things that need doing first. Thankfully this fit happened in our garage and I vacuumed out the van while he decided to come in. Which he didn't until the lights started shutting off on us.

I just hope when we do go to Pappa's and we stop to eat that we don't have another breakdown... but lets face it. We probably will.

Easter Chicks

I found a pattern a few years back and knitted a few Easter Egg chicks. I had one when I was growing up that was "mine" that I got to find during the family hunt. If you found someone else's, you just left it there for them to find. It usually held a Big egg. And we all know bigger eggs mean more treats. So I wanted my kids to have one too. Here is the collection so far. I decided to knit more for giving and the like. I'm kind attached to them all at the moment. The kids really like playing with them too.