Twins

Last week Noni let us know that they had some new babies at their house. We were headed over there anyway so we invited some friends to meet us. Noni actually has five new lambs, but these little twins were only a few days old.

Boo wasn't overly interested in them, but K and R thought they were tons of fun!
K was very excited to show off the lamb's pen.

Then they showed R how to feed the big lambs. This is Dodge, the patriarch of the herd. He's been getting ganged up on by the younger males though so he is in a smaller pen for safety.

He seems to be one of the tamer ones, even though he has those big horns on his head.

We tried letting Boo pet one of the twins. She was gently touching him when all of the sudden she grabbed onto his ear with a surprising grip. Poor baby. That was the end of her lamb petting. :)
I love watching kids with animals.

So fun!

Eggs

I figured I'd better put these pictures up before we got too far away from Easter. I didn't want to add them to my already long-Easter post. We dyed eggs at Noni and Papa's house last Thursday while T was having his board meeting.

I loved the bright colors that the eggs turned.
But she was having too much fun dyeing the eggs to leave them just one color. :)

So they all got a second dip. And a third, and a fourth. I lost track of how many times each egg got put in.

The resulting colors weren't quite as pretty.

But she loved them and that's all that mattered. :)

*Last photo by K. :)

That's What It's All About

I was trying to get a video of the girls dancing to the Hokey Pokey dog, but instead I got a video of the way K tortures her sister. :P This is the typical way they play, but as long as they aren't screaming at each other (which happens more than I care to admit) we let them work things out on their own.

Silly girls.

Easter Weekend

Wow, we had a busy Easter weekend! But it was so much fun! On Friday T got off early and we headed down to the farm. Grandma hosted a Easter Party for all the cousins. They hadn't seen each other since Christmas so it was fun to see how much everyone has changed.

There were 10 kids in all. 7 girls and 3 boys. Our girls have only 3 cousins, but the rest are cousins of their cousin Waylon. So I guess they are cousin-in-laws. :)

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Grandma had dozens of eggs hard boiled for the kids to dye. They had a ball dipping and dyeing and making up new colors.

Then she made a kid-favorite lunch: macaroni and cheese with hot dogs. We got them all set up at the table and K said, "Guys. Wait. We forgot to pray." So the oldest, age 9, prayed a very sweet prayer. So cute.
I wish I would have gotten a video of the babies. They were talking to each other.
Boo: "Ah goo, ba, beh, da!"
Waylon: "Go, go, go, da bah!"
They went on and on, jabbering away at each other, but it looked like they were having a conversation. It was so funny.
After lunch the kids played dress up while the guys hid the Easter eggs. We let the babies start the hunt a little early, but Boo was more interested in filling her bucket with rocks. :)

I finally got her over to the grass where there were some eggs, and once she realized they rattled when you shook them she was a little more excited about them.

Waylon figured out there was candy in the eggs and so he was a man on a mission.

I just wanna play with the rocks, Mommy!

As soon as the eggs were sufficiently hidden we called all the older kids out. Their ages go in order: 9, then 8 (almost), 7, 6, 5, 5, 4 (almost), 3, and then the babies at 1.

Ready, set, go!

On the hunt.

I managed to snag a few pics of the five seconds where both my girls were in the same place at the same time. :)

Boo thought she hit the mother lode when she found all the eggs in her sister's basket. Too bad I wouldn't let her keep them. :)

Grandma helped her find a few on her own.

The guys hid them pretty good, but the kids did a great job finding them!

Get back here you little egg thief!

After finding the golden egg (with $5 in it!) the kids all went back inside to sort out their loot. Grandma had some of the eggs as "prize eggs" where there was a piece of paper in them and they got to pick their prize.

The kids spent the rest of the day outside (the nicest day of the year so far!) and painting some flowers and butterflies that Grandma had for them.

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We had to go home that night since we had to be at church early the next morning. I set the girls' Easter "baskets" out for them to find when they woke up.

When we went to buy Easter baskets, I found these tin buckets instead. They were actually cheaper and I thought they were so cute that I bought them in several different colors.

They were pretty happy with them.

After a wonderful church service everyone came back to our house for Easter dinner. The girls got another set of Easter baskets from Noni and Papa.

Sweet little Boo.

Easter girls.

Cousins (minus one).

Us with Mama, Noni, and Papa.

What a wonderful weekend we had, celebrating what Jesus did for us! I am so thankful that God loved us enough to send His Son to die for us. It is a beautiful thing to be a child of God.

We hope you all had a wonderful Easter as well!

Big Girl

Warning to male readers: This post is mostly about breastfeeding. :)

Today our little Boo Bear hit a "Big Girl" milestone. She is officially weaned. I had a goal to make it to 15 months (for no other reason than that's how long I nursed K) but we didn't quite make it (missed it by six days).

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With K I slowly dropped one feeding at a time until we were done, but for S it seemed like it was all or nothing. Once I dropped the noon feeding, she didn't want her 4 o'clock feeding either. She almost dropped her bedtime feeding as well but I managed to hang onto it for another week. Then a few days ago she started refusing to eat at night. She didn't want to stop playing b/c she knew that meant bedtime. :) So for the past few days we have been down to feeding only once in the morning, but then she all of the sudden started biting me so I decided it was time to be done.

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Being done is definitely bittersweet for me. Nursing is such a special thing, and she still seems like such a baby to me. On the other hand, it is so nice to have my body back! I did the math last night and out of the last 57 months (4.75 years!) I have been nursing or pregnant for all but 8 month. But I have enjoyed every minute of it. Okay, maybe not EVERY minute. :) But I am so thankful that I was able to nurse both my babies and have that special bond with them.

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Anyway, I will try to stop being emotional about it and get on with it. So here is what the "big" girl did this morning: woke up to her morning song, "This is the day the Lord has made..."

Got her diaper changed b/c she was STINKY!

Read a book.

Went in to say Good Morning to Daddy, not even noticing that she didn't get to eat even though this is where she nurses every morning. (Yes, our mattresses are STILL on the floor even though we have lived in this house for almost two and half years. Our bed broke while we were moving and we've never got around to fixing it.)
Went to find her sister and say Good Morning.

Then she realized she wanted Mommy to pick her up.

And was a little upset until I gave her a cup of milk. No reason to miss nursing when it is SO much easier and faster to drink from a cup! Although she is in for a rude awakening when our, rapidly dwindling, reserve supply of breast milk runs out.

Whenever she takes a big drink of milk or water she always smacks her lips and says, "Ahhh". I need to get it on video. It's pretty cute.

Then on to her big girl breakfast of yogurt and waffles. Opening wide for that yogurt. :)

Happy Girl.

They really do grow up so fast.

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Thank you, Boo Bear, for sharing in such a great experience with Mommy. I will miss it, but I am so proud of you and the big girl you are becoming. I love you. ~ Mommy