Happy 2nd Birthday Sweet Stella May Joyce :)

We're all singing the Happy Birthday song to Stella all morning long. She loves it!
She was getting pretty good at telling us she was One...now she's got her spunky self on to tell us she's Two!!

Snow, then melt, then Snow and Legos

On April 16th it snowed...about 3" total. Kyle is saying "Oh no! Not again!" Stella is stomping out in her sandals...not silly enough to follow Kyle's barefoot lead.

Coming back in to the warm fire.

Thankfully the next day was sunny and the snow all melted.

Look at how tall Reeve is getting!

Papa and Stella. Tom will be so grateful (so he's said many times) when he doesn't have to wear so many layers and layers of clothes.

Later that day you can see the snow was all gone. Stella is playing hide and seek with One (on Saturday!) Year old Ayla.

Stella loves to hide!

So cute!

Then we got about 10" more snow on the 19th...of April!!

Reeve dove into his Lego bin...the only toy left in the house...and built the first floor to a house.

Did you think I was joking when I said 10"...past the middle of April...well I wasn't :)

Note the messy Lego garage...are we setting a poor example for Reeve? I hope he realizes not all garages have to be messy!

I should take a picture of our messy garage, but I'm too chicken. I like the mail on the table in the picture below.

Reading a nice big book...

By a roaring, cozy fire...

Sweet Stella...almost 2 years old...

in fact, she'll be 2 tomorrow! I can't hardly believe it!

Her latest LOVE is our daily mile walk...we're going a little farther down the next road now to look at the cows. It was really blustery cold the other day when we went and the neighbors were burning their trash (pee-ewww!), so we turned around and high tailed it outta there before seeing the cows. Stella was really upset because she had brought her bear (Mr. Maple) to look at the cows...it was all she talked about "Maple See Cow...Maple See Cow!" We had to tell her the cows were taking a nap. Later that evening, right around bedtime, Stella kept saying "Cow! Up! Cow! Up!"...we finally figured out she was trying to tell us the cows were up from their nap. She continued to say this the next day (yesterday), so we braved the windy sleet and rain to walk our mile to see the cows...with Mr. Maple...we did see the cows, and Stella was beside herself with excitement. I don't think I've ever seen anyone so excited to see a cow!

Huge Cloud Front

These are from April 10th...it looked so spectacular in person I was moved to take some pictures.

Our Easter...Big Smiles on the Hunt

This year Reeve was the Easter Bunny and hid 4 eggs for Kyle to find and 8 eggs for Stella to find. We kept it simple this year and just hard boiled the eggs...no colored eggs here.

This was Stella's first "hunt" and she was BEYOND excited about it!! Kyle was pretty stoked too...nothing better than a good treasure hunt.
Reeve's pointing one out to Stella on the Orange Astro bumper

Kyle hasn't spotted the egg in the pipe yet...Can you see it?

Now he's found it!

Stella just found one on the deck...

So excited!!

We're telling her she is very close to finding another egg...

Oh goodie...she thought to look in the bucket!

The smile is starting to grow...

So thrilled to find another egg!

Look there's one hidden on her tractor...remember if you want to see the pictures larger just click on them and then click the back button to get back to this page...

Running to get the next egg...

Hmmm? I wonder where it is?

Oh there it is! Good job Stella :)

Stella spots another one behind the rocks...they are actually concrete piers from when we had the mobile home here...

Peeling a hard boiled egg for the first time in her life...

Kyle's mouth is watering!

Turns out Stella does not like hard boiled eggs, but Kyle LOVES them. We made a yummy egg salad with the remaining 11 eggs. Recipe: Chopped up eggs, some cilantro, a couple of diced apples, Dressing (a 1/4 of an onion chopped with some chopped garlic in a bowl of olive oil, honey, apple cider vinegar, cumin, salt, black pepper), grated carrot, chopped up spinach, some raisins, and walnuts. I thought there was going to be some left overs for supper, but now we ate the whole huge bowl full out on the deck. Simply Perfect.

Sunday with the Verde Family

Around 40 more days here, and I have been a busy girl! I have neglected posting regularly here, but my friend Nikole has been doing an awesome job of capturing our Sunday visits. Here is the link to her latest post (hint: there are great pictures of the Raye kids found in it!) Thanks Nikole!!
I'll try my best, but it's getting harder! Last night we sold another desk, so my office is in complete disarray. I'm also acknowledging that I had a storage bin addiction. Sold over 20 storage totes this week and I still have 30+ more to empty!!
Reeve had a great 11th Birthday. No pictures...just a fun time together at home.
Also...not sure how often I will be posting this summer...we will have no home based internet for awhile!

Spring is Coming?

The first set of pictures were from March 19, 2011. No, sweet Stella, no more sledding...

Kyle getting his energy out...

My first flower...then sadly crushed by sleet and snow...so glad I took this picture before it was demolished.

Glad I took this one too...that is before the bunnies came along and did some pruning of my flower row!

This one is from March 28, 2011...you can see in the background we had some more snow...then it was melting. Stella is sweeping up a whole bottle of salt that she poured all over the floor. After she did it I came by and saw here standing on it with bare feet, and it made me think she was trying to make a beach! Then I asked her nicely to clean it up, and she said "Oh, sweep, sweep"...another new word.

We really thought we were out of the snowy woods on March 31st. It was a beautiful day, and then we woke up April Fool's morning to big beautiful white fluffy flakes coming down!

Stella saying "SNOW!!!"...me in the background saying "No way!" Then I told the kids that every time it snows on April Fools day that means it's a warm snow...so they all went out in their bare feet.

As soon as her cute little feet hit the snow she froze in her place,

and then ran back inside the house!

The next day this snow was all gone. We got about 2 -3 inches! We had a lovely day yesterday with the Verde Family and you can read about that here.