An amazing spring day in NW Washington

We spent today enjoying the sunshine to the fullest! We found a new place to explore and went on a 3 mile hike. It was fabulous, and I've got the pictures to prove it. ;)

There aren't words to express how much I adore this group. :)

Girls! :)

The pictures just don't do justice to how peaceful and pleasant this walk was. The birds were sings, the frogs were croaking, and the spring smells, oh so wonderful! Plus I had the people I love the most in the whole world with me. :)

This picture is a bit blurry, but I love it. My camera has broken, sadness, so I was using  Ryder's phone for pictures.

Shaking their bushy tails. ;)

Ryder took this picture, and I thought it was kinda awesome.

My free spirited funny little girl. :)

Squeezing in for a family picture after our hike. 

Love this guy.

Radar had the best day of his whole life so far. :) He got to be off lease for a while and he did so well.  The Lab part of him was shining though every time he jumped into the creek, ha ha!

Love this family of mine, feeling really, really thankful today. :)

And the projects start!

Spring is in the air, and the projects are in full swing. :)

First one up was to get rid of the ugly broken hot tub that has been sitting in our deck for years now. It only worked for a few months after we bought this house. Then we found out that it wasn't even installed right. We also found out that replacing it with a new one installed the right way was WAY above our budget, and way more then we wanted to spend. Sooooooo....

While I was gone on a girls night sleep over with Lala the boys decided to jump right in and start chopping away!

They ripped that sucker out! Piece by piece!!! 

What a mess!

My honey worked hard to clean it all up and we decided we just wanted to fill in the hole and have more space on the deck.

Only problem, our type of trex deck is apparently no longer made and the hubby had a hard time finding anything to match. Gerrrrr! 

We gave up and decided to go with a cool design instead. If it wasn't going to match, then we wanted it to look like it was done on purpose. 

Apparently this job took three supervisors. ;)

And done! It's so nice not having to look at the eye sore of an old torn up hot tub! 

There's so much more room on the deck now! I have plans for an out door seating area in the new corner, fireplace included, but that will have to come later. :)

The hubby also put up a new section of fence on the other side of the house. Now the dog can go over there to do his business. We have a new system in place to block his access to the play yard, so I don't have to worry about piles of poo where the kids play any more. Thank goodness! Might be my favorite project of all!

It's getting pretty silly how sectioned off our outdoor areas are, but when you want a mini farm on a little piece of land, it just sort of happens. ;)

And here is the path we were working on this last weekend. This is were the pond use to be. It's far from how I want it to look, but it's headed in a good direction. I also changed the paths up front a bit, but that will be in a different garden post. :)

Busy, busy, busy!

March happenings...

Well March is passing in a blur. And although I had good intentions of blogging about all the fun that March has brought, it just hasn't happened.  SO... I'm just going to squish it all into one post. :)

 Last weekend we went on a walk for water. It was a two mile walk by the bay, and it ended up being a  beautiful, although cold, day. We met family there, and had a picnic after, and the best part... we all got free stainless steel water bottles! ;)

Just in time for hiking and exploring season.

 I think I already mentioned the new chicks, but this just had to be shared. :) All eight fluffy little chicks perched on my arms.

 This boy got his first {very own} mitt, and he's starting T-ball this week! All his idea. He's really good too, but of course I might be a little bias. ;)

 This just had to be shared, look at all those blue eyes! I love how Bubu is trying really hard to keep his eyes opened, just like I asked, ha ha!

 I finally talked Atty into snuggling up for a photo, he was much more interested in visiting with the chicks in the laundry room. He loves to sit in there and watch those silly chicks. :) 

 Of course Patty's day was this month, so we just had to make a Leprechaun box! Our yearly tradition, try to catch a Leprechaun. :) The kids did it mostly on their own this year, and it was pretty cute!

I love how they decorated the inside.  We used little m&m like candies {a much healthier version with out food coloring} that were sort of rainbow colored. We use to use skittles {taste the rainbow} to lure the Leprechaun's, but I'm trying to get away from all the food coloring. It was hard for Lala to understand that we were leaving those candies to try and trick a Leprechaun {and in hopes that they would leave some gold coins}. There were some tears...

 But she was very excited to find the gold coins the next morning. Bubu and the boys on the other hand were very disappointed that the tricky little Leprechaun got away again! ;) Not before Teepeeing their bunk beds though. That stinkin' Leprechaun! 

 And in keeping with my divorce from food coloring I figured out a way to make most everything green at breakfast with out breaking out the green food coloring. When I was little my mom would coloring just about everything we ate green with food coloring on Patty's day. We always thought it was awesome, so when I had kids I continued the holiday tradition. But I was determined not to go that route this year, while still making it fun. I used creamed avocado on  the toast, and kiwi for the fruit {which is a special treat anyways} some cilantro on top of the eggs, and I juiced some fresh juice with spinach {as well as other veggies/fruit} in it. Yum, yum! It took a bit more work and forethought, but well worth it and kind of exciting, trying to get creative. :) The kids gobbled it up, it was fun, and I felt much better about it.

 This happens a lot at our house. Apparently the cat needs a pillow and blanket when sleeping. Spoiled much?

 The kids went bowling for the first time. We all had a lot of fun.

At one point we did have to call someone over to get Lala's ball that stopped rolling half way down. She really did try so hard though. :)

 Bubu liked to stand there and watch each and every ball until the end. :)

 Spiked picked it up quickly, of course. By the end of the night he was looking like a pro. :)

Atty's ball would roll slowly down the lane, taking in the sights, just like him. ;)

So there you have it, the random happenings in March. Can't wait to see what April brings!

All my kids, even the four legged drooly one.

So the other day I tried to snap a cute picture of my kiddos with their not-so-little puppy. Radar is now about 8 months old, and HUGE! 

 The only problem is that some one is always doing something they shouldn't in each and every photo. There is no such thing as the "perfect group shot" any more. :)

 And I couldn't get Radar to look at me with out wanting to come to me. He was so confused. :)

 So he just flopped down on the table in protest...

 And when I scolded him and told him to sit up... well he might have accidentally bumped Lala of the bench... {But hey, he's looking at me!}

And she was NOT very happy about that. {She wasn't hurt, just mad.} Even though she's crying in this one, I have to admit it's my favorite. What does that say about me? ;) 

And yes she's wearing only tights with boots outside. That's what happens when I let her dress herself. :)

...you just might find, you get what you need!

If you had been a fly on the wall last night you would have seen Ryder and I dancing with wild abandonment around the kitchen table. Singing "you can't always get what you want, you can't always get what you want, but it you try sometimes, you just might find, you get what you need!" While the children giggled and ate their dinner. :) We are silly like that. It all started because my daughter wanted to throw a fit about getting a green bowl instead of a blue bowl. And it ended with laughter. So win/win. Often {too often} it ends with me yelling {especially at the end of the day when I'm tired and feel oh so done},  impulsively choosing to burst into song is not the norm, it was so refreshing and it made everyone feel silly and happy.


In other news, we got some more chicks!

I found homes for my Ameraucana chickens, they weren't heavy enough layers for this little backyard farm, and they were NOISY!  Honestly they went to better homes then they had here, out on farms with two different really sweet ladies, so they lucked out. :) So now we have 4 Buff Orpingtons, and 4 Golden Stars. When they are big enough we will add them in with our four Black Stars. And hopefully all will go well and they will get along. I think since my existing flock is smaller then the one I'm adding it should work out well. Hopefully with 12 chickens I'll end up with around 10 eggs a day for a while, and then I can keep up with my kids. It is insane how many eggs we go through around here!  Since Atty is coming up on three years on his magic diet {Three Years!} we got the chicks as a special surprise. Every year since he's been on the diet we have celebrated as a family all the hard work it takes to do this diet. This year instead of adding yet another pet we decided to get cute fuzzy chicks, which my kids get just as excited about. They love their chickens. Especially Atty.

Now for their names; Rose Blossom, Buzzella, Rose, Sunshine, Twetter, Love, Princess, and Strawberry Shortcake. Each kid named two. :) Now we are adding them in with Eeny, Meeny, Miny, and Moe. What a flock!

And on that note, this random blog post ends. :)