Chickie Funeral

I awoke to a crash, but didn’t think much of it.  The winds were blowing, which is a normal occurrence around here.  I got up to go to the bathroom and looked out the window only to learn the “bang” was our chickie coop knocked over.  We (pretty much my husband) stayed up to get the chickies a new home in the garage as well as to get things cleaned up.  We also looked and looked and looked for a missing chick, but without success.

Fast forward to the next morning, and our sweet Natalie was devastated.  After all, it was her little “Blackwing” that was missing.  She searched herself, but still couldn’t find her. 

Later that morning, Malachi discovered her in the front yard under a bush.  Poor little baby was gone.

When I told Natalie she could get another one and that we would have a little funeral, she was quite excited.  Apparently, she had always waned to have a little funeral for a pet.  (Sounds super morbid, but I get where she was coming from!)  Kids are so resilient.  So, we holed our little backyard hill, had a little funeral, said our goodbyes, and welcomed “Goldilocks” to our home.  We also fixed the chickie coop so no more wind gusts will affect our little ones!

Easter 2016

Happy Easter!  We enjoyed a quiet, family Easter mostly at home.  (If you can call our 4 kiddos quiet!)  We began with the Easter story and “Easter baskets,” (mini German pancakes) for breakfast.

After breakfast we had a mad dash to get showered and get to church.  The kids came with us into service, which I always enjoy during Holidays.  I love for them to see how we worship and “do church.”  Afterwards, we stayed for the next service to serve while the kids went to Sunday school.  We came home tired and hungry, but were soon re-energized for our Easter egg hunt!

I love how the Easter bunny actually hid all the eggs really well this year — in bushes and trees and not just scattered on the grass.  Aw, the joys of “older” kids!

We couldn’t finish our celebration without making some butter mint play dough.  That is one tradition the kids just love; it is tasty, super fun, and easy to make!

 The afternoon proved to be tiring.  To combat our fatigue, we walked to the horse stables, then the park.  Our intention was to go out to Chinese for dinner afterward.  We had had friends over the night before and were looking for simple.  We were so tired, we took simple to the next level — we made frozen potstickers for dinner.  I had to laugh.  While others were probably feasting on ham with company, we were perfectly content to eat our frozen potstickers, let the kids play a little Wii, then call it a night.

I hope you had a blessed Easter!

Spring Break 2016!

Spring break is finally upon us… hooray!!!  And, my husband is home the first four days… HOORAY!  He came home yesterday completely exhausted and went to take a nap, when this happened…

Yes, buried in every pillow, blanket, or sleeping bag around.  Sweet littles get so excited when daddy gets home!  Believe it or not, he was so tired he slept right through this for another couple hours.  He woke up just in time for Friday night pizza, then Good Friday service at church.

After church, we surprised the kids by going out to froyo.  (It was essentially bedtime).  That was a huge hit, but then we made it even more special; we stopped by a new park we had discovered just the day before.  The kids fell in love with it because it has a zipline.  The park was dark, of course, and empty… For the next hour we zipped and swung and slid and tackled and had the best time.  I am certain it will go down as a historic night for the Yeh family!

Lots more stuff on my spring break to-do list, (including catch-up on blogging!)  My, how wonderful breaks are indeed!

Tomorrow is Easter.  I am  so glad it is so much more than chicks and bunnies and candy!  The Son of God came down to earth and took my sin (and your sin) upon his shoulders.  He died, yes.  But, he rose again and is alive!  Hallelujah!

Happy Easter!

St. Paddy’s Day 2016 (Minus Shamrock Shakes!)

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!  Though we are not Irish, the green milk and Lucky Charms breakfast is a favorite tradition around here.  

Traditions really are special.  Though I know my kids won’t eat them, I had to make my Irish Soda Bread muffins with green sugar on top.  (At least I enjoyed them with my coffee!)

And, another tradition of ours… getting Shamrock Shakes with friends.  Well, guess what?  There were no Shamrock Shakes this year!  I have yet to figure out what Mc Donald’s was thinking!  We still enjoyed an incredible day with friends, decorating cupcakes and playing in their awesome yard.

I guess from now on we will just have to make our own Shamrock Shakes!

Garden Journals, pt. 4

For our fourth garden journal entry, we took the Sunset planting zones for California and painted them onto our journals.  Basically, they learned different areas have different recommendations for planting.  The fun part was mixing the colors.

I’m hoping today will be a hands-on, in the garden planting day!

Pi Day

Seriously, I thought this was the cutest.  After a day spent at our homeschool co-op, I walked in the door to the most delicious smell.  My husband had made us a chicken pot pie for dinner in honor of “Pi Day.”  Being the former math teacher, my whole geeky self found this a most thoughtful and awesome thing.  The kids loved the dinner, but weren’t as fond of all the circle talk.  Maybe some day.  🙂

On Pruning

I woke up and just knew it was going to be a beautiful day.  After all, it was a free Saturday with absolutely nothing on the calendar.  The weather was great.  No school to be done.  So… after we had breakfast and I had my morning coffee and Jesus time, I decided I would spend the entire day in our backyard… And I did.  The kids joined me off and on, and it was lovely!

The first place I started was with our peach tree.  I knew it needed to be thinned out, but didn’t know where to start.  I looked up a few articles, and everything I read said there needed to be just one peach for every 4 inches.  Ok, I thought… I can do that!  Turns out, it was harder than I thought; mostly because my brain kept thinking, “I can’t possibly pull off this many peaches.  My poor tree!  What if I’m pulling off all the good ones, and leaving the bad ones?”  Sounds dramatic as I type it, but truly it was a real struggle in my mind!

I continued to thin as much as I could, despite my anxiety.  The entire time I couldn’t help but thinking about God, the Master Gardener.  Is it hard for him to prune?  He knows what’s best, and does it for our own good — even if it seems bad.  As a parent, do I have what it takes to prune my kids?  By pruning, I am showing God that I trust Him — that although I am throwing away a lot of fruit, I am trusting He will ultimately still provide much fruit and it will be bigger and sweeter than a tree left unpruned.

And so a lesson was learned in the garden.  Just one of many to come this season, I am sure.  God is so good.

Garden Journals, pt. 3

Our third day of garden journaling, we drew pictures of beneficial bugs: predators, pollinators, and plants that attract them.  Can I just say I LOVE Sharpies?

I also love seeing the drawing of a 6 year old next to the drawing of a 9 year old — a good reminder of how fast time simply flies!  (Today I also paid them a nickel for every weed they pulled of our lawn by the root.  Worth every penny!  And, the chickens loved eating the weeds.)

Seriously.

He’s the best.  We never thought we’d have girls.  But, God knew better.

Garden Journals, pt. 2

My last post was about our chicks.  The one before that was about our garden journals.  How about a post on our chicks and our garden journals?

We brainstormed al the ways chickens are beneficial for gardens… then we used colored pencils to draw our sweet chickies!