Spring Sprang

It happens every year.  Spring suddenly sprang and here we are trying to play catch up.  I thought the toughest years were those with little babies and endless diapers, but I think perhaps I was wrong.  At least during that time I had control of the narrative.  I could control most of our schedule, doctor's appointments, play time and the like.  The only wild card I had was chasing around my husband, which admittedly is more than enough.  

These days we have school, field trips, three baseball teams with three different schedules, being a hired man for my husband, piss poor secretary and trying (failing) to keep house.  

The diaper days were 'easier'.  Or at least more focused.

Lunches with Grandpa are priceless.

One of our many 'homeschool' days. 

Cousin love.  These two are 20 days apart and thick as thieves.

Lunch on the go.

First spring show of the year. 
6:20am and everyone is loving life!

I love when someone else is kind enough to till my garden. 
He's not quite big enough to do it by himself but this was a nice learning experience.

Who knew tomato cages could be so much fun?!

These are a Few of My Favorite Things (Summer Edition)

Now that we all have an image of Julie Andrews prancing around in a field stuck in our heads, let's proceed, shall we? 

I enjoy my morning run by the corn field.  It has finally grown tall enough that the blazing sun doesn't scorch me until it has risen fairly high in the sky, by which time I am certainly done running. 

This is quite possibly one of my favorite pictures ever.  We went as a family one evening to move hay bales off the field.  I let the kids out during one load to 'blow some stink off' and they played tag and ran to their hearts' content. 

Question: What is better than an impromptu party with your cousins?

Answer: Not a dang thing.

Also quickly becoming another favorite of mine: the dreaded cousin hangover.  When you play so long and so hard that your earthy existence hangs in the balance for the following 24 hours at a minimum.  Symptoms include: falling asleep at the supper table, crying for no apparent reason, scowling at the general public, and drifting off into daydreams of the fun times had while clutching your princess heart shaped mirror. 

Fishing as a family with our dogs.  They are so awesome.  

Does he have a future as a racecar driver?  His mother says NO. 

I love that child #2 has taught child #3 to slant at an unnatural angle and ruin any attempt to take a decent picture of them while clean and dressed in church clothes. 

She enjoys 'writing' letters to people and reads the letters aloud to me as she scribbles away. 

MOST of the time, he's the world's most helpful big brother.  He doesn't take that responsibility lightly. 

These kids have been feather-finding, egg-finding, nature-finding fools that summer.  It seems like I constantly have an egg, lizard, feather, toad or bug shoved in my face to admire. 

If I take a morning run in one direction, I see nothing but corn.  If I run the other direction, this is my view.  On mornings when I know it will be a magnificent sunrise I usually opt to run this direction.  I've yet to be disappointed. 

Her little smirk makes it difficult to parent in a stern manner sometimes.  

Our kids fell in love with snapping beans with their grandad.  Kenyon snapped for two hours solid and never wanted to leave and play with his siblings. 

The world's very best goodnight hug. 

Very similar to a cousin hangover, a grandparent hangover can also be quite lethal.  Beware. 

These are a few of my favorite things.  (Sorry, I couldn't leave you without that little earworm.  I hope it gets stuck in your head the rest of the day.) 

Content

I attended a media training several weeks ago and during this training we were asked to set goals.  One of my goals (which I obviously did NOT follow through with) was to create at least one blog post per week.

"Is that possible? Do you have enough content for something like that?" the session leader asked.

"Buddy, we have content.  It's the time I don't have." I replied.

So, without further ado, here's a bit of the content that I should have been posting weekly for, ahem, sevvvvveral weeks now.

We've been checking baby calves in the evenings.

Delivering eggs to great grandma.

Pulling over while driving to snap a few pics here and there.

We've been building workbenches. 

Stealing sweet feed from our horse.

Acting so dejected when I wouldn't let her up on the swingset to help me screw in boards. 

We've been having our annual heart checkups (still all good!). 

Riding roping dummies at night.

Burning, burning, burning. 

On the rare evening when it was too windy to burn, we skipped rocks.

We've been miserable with allergies.

As I stained boards on the swingset, the kids wrestled.

We've had shop picnics, car picnics, pasture picnics... you name it and we've eaten there.

We've been cloud watching, bird watching, who-was-in-that-pickup-driving-by watching. The upper deck of the swingset is great for observing life. 

We've been to the zoo...

I nearly died laughing.  She kept telling the tiger "Hiiiiiiii kitty". 

Picnic time with girlfriends.

Going to grass with cattle.

Being insanely cute.  Wispy hair is cute when you're nearly 2.  When you're 32 it's not nearly as endearing.  Same with freckles.  I've given my kids so many 'cute on kids, not on adults' type traits.  

I've been forgetting to utilize the 'action' setting on my camera, clearly. 

And I've been bathing kids.  Quite often, actually. 

It's an exhausting little life, believe me. 

Like I said.  We are most certainly not lacking in content, just time.