Animal updates...

For those of you wondering the kitties are alive and well. They have been growing a lot and a couple days ago finally opened their eyes. Yesterday the mother moved them out of the laundry area (I think because I was doing laundry), but this morning she moved them back again. It has been very exciting.
The chickens are now staying in their coup at night. They are getting bigger and faster and um, they are chickens, so they don't really do anything exciting yet. I am sure I will let you know if we get eggs, but I don't think that will be for another couple months yet. Seeing as the coup is at the far end of the yard, I don't visit them too often, but Grace and Gunnar still enjoy making the daily hike down there and back.

Happy Face

Recently we have been working on Grace having a "happy face". She finally seems to have figured out that with her happy face she gets more of what she wants. Really now, how can you deny a face like that?

Bathing beauty

Check that one off the list....

I don't know if most people have a list of things they would like to accomplish in their lives or not, but I do. Today was quite an eventful day in that I was able to cross one of these goals from my list. Yes, it is true. I was able to use a nail gun today.

Now I don't know if that sounds exciting to you or not, but I have always really wanted to try to use one. A couple months ago I was around some nail guns, but there were a ton of guys from our old church there and frankly, I was way too embarrassed to ask them if I could try. Afterwards I was kicking myself as I didn't know when I would have another opportunity like that.

Today, opportunity came knocking on my door. Well, actually it was Mr. Anderson, a friend from my parents church. He came up to install our air conditioner, but there was some issue with that, so instead he is building us a little porch off the back door. I used to call that spot the "death trap" so I am very glad to have it fixed. He had is tools (and nail gun) with him, so I was very excited to be able to try it. It is actually a lot harder than it looks, and surprisingly even more fun than I expected (and let me tell you, my expectations were high).

I know my dad would not approve of my working footwear, but thankfully, I managed to escape without loosing a toe. :)

Happy Birthday Grandpa!

Friday was my dad's 53rd Birthday! My whole family came up to celebrate at our house! I love being with them all, so birthdays are always a treat. :)

My mom always likes to think of creative ways to make birthdays and parties special. For my dad's birthday we drew names, courses and colors from a hat in order to decided what the menu would be. For example, Gunnar and I got dessert and yellow and white. Maria up-ed us all by dressing in the colors of her food, so in order to keep up, we all ended up dressing with our dishes as well.

Michael and Ann got Appetizer in Red and Green. They brought Gazpacho, a Spanish cold tomato soup, Green Olives stuffed with Red pimientos, and asparagus wrapped in ham and broiled (it was REALLY good).
My mom and dad got side dish, brown and black. In an attempt to steal everyones vote, they brought java chip Starbucks ice cream. I wouldn't normally consider this a side dish, but who doesn't wish it was? They toped off the ice cream with those round straw like cookies (i forget the name, but they were brown and black).

Technically, the main dish fell to Maria and Daniel but that really means that Maria made the food. :) Her colors were by far the hardest, purple and orange. Nevertheless, she made a really tasty stew with purple potatoes, red (purple) onion, carrots, orange bell peper, and purple cabbage. It was colorful and really tasty! She also made some home made crescent rolls that were to die for. That Maria really is wonderful!!
Lastly, Gunnar and I had dessert and Yellow and White. Seeing as I don't own any yellow clothes, Grace had to help me out by wearing a yellow dress. Gunnar's Hawaiian shirt has yellow outlining the white flowers, so he thought it would be appropriate for the occasion.

Our dish was a peach cobbler with vanilla ice cream.
Other than the food, we enjoyed sitting around watching Grace, who was beside herself with excitement to have so many people she loves at her house.

We had lots of good hang out timeGrace and I got Grandpa a melon for his birthday.

I am so thankful for my dad and the wonderful influence he has been on my life. He has been such a good example to all of us kids for what a godly dad and husband look like. I love seeing him and Grace interact. I feel so thankful and blessed to have him in my life. I love you dad! :)


Lastly, a little off topic, but for those of you who know my brother and his wife, she is looking quite pregnant these days. Their baby girl is due in July. I think she said she is 28 weeks. They take super cute belly pictures which you can check out on their blog. Grace is really excited to meet her new cousin and enjoys patting her belly and kissing "baby cousin".

See, I told you she was looking cute!

I think it is love....

We had troubles with our wood stove last winter, resulting in some very cold days at our house. So getting that fixed before next winter was a priority.

Gunnar decided to go ahead and get a new stove while we were at it, since we knew that was something we eventually wanted to do anyways, and it is cheaper to get that kind of stuff done in the off season anyways.

Never did I dream that so much love could flow between a man and his stove.

I was actually gone for the installations process (Grace and I went to the Wild Animal park with some friends and then grocery shopping), so when I got home a fire was burning nicely.

Did I mention a fire was burning? Apparently they lit it to make sure the smoke would flow freely, and then we had to keep it burning for a while so the new paint on the pipes would solidify or something.

Did I mention he is in love?

He loves that you can see the fire through the glass door and since it is air tight it burns hotter and longer. Plus, the door isn't broken (like the old stove) so that every time you open it you are not afraid of loosing a layer of skin. The air flows more freely because of the new pipe and so hopefully we will not constantly have the smoke detector going off.

Anyways....Here's the little beauty:

More aditions.....

This morning when I woke up I thought "too bad my weekend was so boring I have nothing to blog about." Thankfully, this afternoon as I was doing laundry, my day really picked up.

This morning when I did the first load, a cat ran out from behind the dryer. This has happened multiple times before as the washer and dryer our outside and there are many wild cats that live in our back yard.

When I went out to do the next load, I looked behind the washer so the cat wouldn't catch me off guard again. Lo and behold, the cat was back there with 6 baby kittens. This same cat was there Saturday when I was doing laundry, so they may be a few days old, but they weren't there on Thursday, so I am thinking at most they are three days old.

When I turned on the dryer the mother ran off and I was able to take pictures of the babies.

Friends.....

We have been blessed to be able to spend time with some of our friends and family over the last week. Grace and I are both very social, we love busy weeks full of people!

Saturday we hung out with Ezequiel and his family. He and Grace are 6 weeks apart. They both wanted to ride on the little scooter toy, so they tried sharing it. Too cute! :)
Sunday morning at church I was going to take a picture of Grace she was wearing a new dress (thanks Grandma). As soon as I took out the camera she ran over and stood next to our friend David. :) He is the one trying to teach her to jump, and she loves hanging out with him.
Then of course there is her best friend Daddy. Her very favorite person to hang out with!
Sunday night we go to a Bible study at the senior community. Grace usually hangs out with her friend Justine. Justine is 4 and is really nice to Grace. Sunday night it was really hot in the house, so I took them for a walk during Bible study down to the lake by George and Evie's to see the ducks.
Monday was a treat as we hung out with my parents and my sister at IKEA. I didn't bring my camera, but my dad took some pictures on his phone. Grace was soooo excited to see Grandma, Grandpa and Tia that she was super hyper running around and sitting on the furniture at IKEA. Tuesday we got to hang out with Lilah and her sister Isabel (and their mom, Kacey). Lilah and Grace happen to both have blue skirts with flamingos on them. Who knew that was a popular design?
Today we went to Warner Springs Ranch with Gunnar's dad, but unfortunately I didn't bring my camera. We got to see some horses and had lunch and drove home.

It is always a good week when we are surrounded by people we love. :)

Highlights

Life seems to have settled into a nice pace after Easter. Grace keeps me smiling, she always seems to have something funny to say. I read online yesterday that for her age she should be speaking in 2 word sentences (like "more food" ect.) I was very excited because she speaks in like 10 word sentences (like yesterday she said "I want my friend Grandma to give me more water" or "I want to go walk around block with Grandpa. He hold Guapo. I hold Dulce."), thus making her very advanced. She also can tell stories about things that happened in the past (Guapo pooped on grass. Grandpa pick it up and throw it in garrrr-bage") and can use adjectives (like "my red shirt dirty" or "mommy get my comfy panties from the drier"). But in keeping me humble, she STILL can't jump AND she has been getting jumping lessons/practice for quite some time from a friend at church. Oh well, I guess she can't have it all. :)

I mentioned taking the dogs for a walk with Grandpa. She did this a couple weeks ago when we spent the morning there. She LOVED it and has been talking about it constantly since. She was so excited to head down on Wednesday and take them for a walk around the block (a very small block) by my parents house. Thankfully, my parents dog Dulce is as mellow as can be, so she is really easy for Grace to walk. It was the highlight of her day (possibly her week). They looked super cute together!

Sunday she got to wear one of the new dresses she got for her birthday. She looked like she belonged on the Alps churning butter, but very cute nonetheless.
Monday we went to the zoo with some of our dear friends. We didn't see anything too spectacular and after walking for a couple hours decided to go get lunch somewhere. That was actually a major ordeal, seeing as our friends aren't very opinionated, and Gunnar has a hard time figuring things like that out when he is hungry.

Trying to figure out lunch plans
Gunnar looking cute, Grace binging on craisinsIsabel and a wort hog

Anyways, other than that, the week has been rather slow. I finished a new quilt for Grace's crib and Grace hung out in her pajamas. We hang out with the chickens in the "party room"(aka the garage).

God is so good! It is exciting to watch him work. I am so thankful that I am able to be home with Grace and that I get to watching her change and grow. Gunnar is loving country living (See previous post about our 12 chickens). For as much as I dreaded moving here, it is really turning into a healthy season for our family.

Such a little ham!

She has such good English muffin eating form

Grace's new quilt

Chick update

The chicks have been getting more visitors and more attention these days than anything else around here so I thought I would give you an update. A week after the first batch came in, Gunnar got 6 more chicks. The new ones are layers and so we should have more eggs than we know what to do with. They are all growing quickly. The chickens in the first batch are starting to get their adult feathers, so they are in a rather awkward in between feather stage.

We have not named them, but my favorite one is a blond and black one. I end up holding him/her (we won't know until later) the most, and consequently it is the friendliest.

Best Bunnies

My friend Kacey and I had been eyeballing some cute shirts for our girls so when they finally went on sale after Easter we were so excited to put the girls in them. Now I know that I am more than biased, but I think that Grace and Lilah are two of the cutest girls I know. You would think with such cute subjects, getting cute pictures would be a breeze. Seeing as they are both active toddlers, getting them to both be cute is quite a challenge. Lila's big sister Isabel is in some of the pictures too.