Happy 1st Birthday Zander

A year has gone by too fast, and this little guy has grown like crazy! We don't get to see him as much as we would like but we had fun helping him celebrate his birthday. 

I think he decided he did like the cake.

 

Close Call

This Spring has been really dry, and our Winter was really dry. The wind has also been terrible. We have had a burn ban in our area for months now. We usually burn our prairie grasses that are by the house at the beginning of Spring, so they can start over in growth. Robb was planning to do that this year, even after I told him my concerns. It was windy and I guess I assumed that since we were in a burn ban, that meant everything, including burning your grasses. I wasn't in the mood to argue and after saying my piece and Robb assuring me that he had the hose right there and it was fine, I left him alone. He burned the grasses and went about cleaning up the yard. The next day I went in the basement, and it smelled like something was burning but I just assumed that Caleb had left his window open when Robb was burning the grasses and the smell was lingering. It wasn't until about 48 hours later that Robb was walking around the house and discovered that sparks had reignited, starting our layers upon layers of mulch on fire and it had been smoldering for a couple days. Scary! It had burned along the cement of the house and burned through the wooden window box area around Caleb's room. I'm sure Robb was not excited to tell me this because I had been opposed to it from the beginning. He dug out all the mulch and saturated it with the hose and later that night I made him go recheck it again before we went to bed. We are super lucky! The smell that I had smelled that day in the basement was mulch and wood burning right outside Caleb's window. Hopefully Lesson Learned! The lesson being listen to your wife. HaHa.

 

Happy Easter

We celebrated Easter with the Lutz's and extended family on Easter Sunday. We got to see a lot of Robb's aunts and uncles and cousins. Emmy had fun playing with the little kids. It was fairly nice out so we were able to do the Easter egg hunt and the kids could play outside.

Emmy helped make the jello cups. She was pretty proud of them.

It looks like Bryce has stolen the entire bowl of strawberries for himself.

The fish in the pond make it through the winter. The kids were having fun watching them.

The tractor is the perfect play prop, although I did take the keys out because Lindsey's kids are little farmers enough that I had no doubt they could probably turn this tractor on.

 

Easter with Mom

We had Easter with mom in Norfolk. The weather wasn't ideal, so we had to forego the egg hunt, but we had delicious food and snacks. The boys went through the baseball cards in Mitch's old room and the girls had fun messing around in the newly remodeled spare room/ playroom. 

 

Happy Easter

The Easter bunny came to our house a day early since we were going to Norfolk for the holiday. 

Easter was early this year which means that the weather did not feel at all like Spring, and everyone had to wear winter gear to do the egg hunt.

Everyone is looking at their loot. We always hide a golden "yellow" egg for each person and that has $5 in it. It is always a big deal that everyone finds a golden egg.

 

Game Night at Andy's

We had game night at Andy's the Friday before Easter. He bought a house in Norfolk and has been working with Bob to fix it up how he wants. The boys all played poker at his cool new poker table and Susie made drinks for everyone. We had brought the dogs along and Hank, Scout and Lucy were obnoxious as could be. Hank has a dog door to go in and out by himself. I would consider our dogs fairly smart, but they couldn't figure out the dog door to save their life. At one point Brook decided to make brownies and we found out that while Andy might have a lot of grilling tools etc, he has no baking utensils. The girls were giving him a hard time for his lack of cooking spray and a spatula.

 

Golf team

 

Caleb tried out for the golf team at Norris this year. This was pretty stressful for him because he wanted it so bad. He ended up making the team which he was really excited about. They play golf almost every day after school in all kinds of weather. He has loved being able to golf every day and when Caleb is into something, he is all in. He is looking at new irons and spends a lot of time researching what he wants to buy next. Not sure which parent that comes from, Robb! 

Redoing the Bedroom

Every year around this time, I get restless. I need nice weather but that isn't a guarantee for a while yet. Instead, I start finding house projects that I want to do. By saying things, I want to do, I mean things I want to plan and Robb to do. This time it was making an accent wall. Robb is typically a good sport and he made it happen. It turned out really cool and I painted it green. We also got new curtains, an off-white bed set and nightstands. 

It is always fun to redo a space and have it feel fresh and new again.

 

Pond Dog

Pond Dog is not only an entire season at our house, but also its own scent. As soon as there isn't ice on the pond the dogs start swimming and as soon as they start swimming, they start stinking. "It smells like pond dog in here", is a common phase said at our house. We love these dogs, and we love nice weather, but I really could do without the aroma of wet dog that comes with it!

We often refer to Scout as our pond otter. She likes to get in and swim around. Lucy sticks to where she can stand and barks incessantly at the fish.

 

Jumanji

I never used to get much joy out of plants. This may have been because when the kids were little it was enough of a challenge keeping 4 humans happy, healthy, safe, fed and watered that I had no desire to add anything to my list that couldn't be self-sufficient. Now that the kids are slightly less work, I have found some joy in keeping plants alive. It started slowly with an aloe plant and some random little sprout that was living in the aloe plant. My interest grew from there. I found that if I watered them and gave them a sunny place to live that they thrived, and it was fun to watch them grow. I slowly added plants that I bought at the store or got for my birthday. There was even a plant lady on the local buy/sell site that Steph and I got some starter plants from. I now have 25+ plants spread out throughout the house and to some it is starting to look like I am losing at the game of Jumanji and the plants are taking over the house. I figure there could be worse things. My interest has even expanded into propagating plants, and I regularly take cuttings into work to share with co-workers. The key to having people leave you alone at work is to just make them think you are borderline crazy and then no one bothers you. This plant lady gig has done that for me.