Humming Birds

We have several types of hummingbirds visiting our feeder. The first is a picture I took of the hummingbird peeking out from behind the feeder. The rest are what my 11 year old daughter took. I'm no slouch when it comes to photography....

(But Dang! She is GOOD!)

Most of our hummingbirds are the Rufous species.

I love the brillant metallic rust color of the males.

This guy is soo cool! I haven't looked up exactly which kind so I've nicknamed it the Irish Tiger Hummingbird. (Due to the green back and stripes on the cheek and throat.)

Caught in mid flap.

This has got to me my favorite.

Though she took some more tonight that are just as good as these if not better.

Easter Dining and Other Results

I can't find where my pictures of Easter Brunch went to....but when I find them I'll post them on here. It was simple but very yummy! Scrambled Pesto Eggs, Bacon, Coconut Bread, and Strawberries.

Close up of dinner plate. Aon was the master chef of this fabulous dinner. (B and I helped.) We had lemony garlic green beans, her delisiciouso corn dish, potato au'gratin and crab cakes on top of a lemon vinegrette salad. As the carnivorous sous chef, I was put in charge of the Ham.

I must say it is a very pretty ham and it tasted awesome. It was the best ham I've had in a very long time. I made a huckleberry chipolte glaze which was a perfect compliment to the smoky salty meat. Yum!

Easter Dinner table. (The kids used the colored eggs as a centerpiece.)

It was very pretty especially with the candles.

M working off some of that yummy food and big Easter basket.

She even went for a jog in the pouring down rain. Crazy Gilrl!!!

This is "beginning" of what became known as the "Peeps incident" at our house Easter morning.

(Aon couldn't control her peeps and below is the resulting tumult that ensued.)

There was a peeps orgy and this is the resulting chaos.

Spring Sports & Other Saturday Fun

Spring is starting to slowly arrive in the Pacific Northwest. Which means the beginning of Spring Soccer, Track and Baseball seasons.

(M is on the middle school track team and is loving it. She is super fast and has had the opportunity to try a lot of different track and field events. Out of 40 girls trying out for the 100m relay team, she just found out that she will be running the 1st leg because she was the second fastest girl. She is also doing the 100m, probably 200m, 100 hurdles, and then they can't decide whether she should do javelin, long or high jump and/or one of the other running events. She's loving all the practice and is jogging on her own on weekends and Spring Break. I'm planning attending at least one of her meets and hopefully will get some pictures. If not I'm sure I'll have a basic proud momma brag alert in a couple weeks.)

Here's a photo montage of C and B's sports activities.

C primarily plays shortstop on his "minors" team the River Dogs. (This is the first year kids are pitching. They also asked him if he wanted to pitch after they realized that only having 2 pitchers for the team wasn't realistic for a bunch of 9 and 10 year olds.)


Not really a sport, but B's best friend who moved away to Forks (of Twilight fame) came in for a surprise visit on Saturday. They were so excited and had fun playing at Chucky Cheeses' for a couple hours.

The Pink Panthers Unite!!

A bunch of the girls are anti-pink so there was some consternation about being the Pink Pansies until they realized that.... the coolest thief in the world is the same color.

(A couple of the anti-pink crowd were mollified then because they love the Pink Panther and love to "steal" the ball.)

C up to bat in one of his first games. He hit a single and came around to score.

Happy Easter!!

We had a lovely Easter with my sisterAon. The weather didn't ever clear up enough for our traditional BB gun shooting contest - just pouring buckets most of the day. Other than that we had a fabulous food, fun and lots of laughter. I'll add more to this post in bit. I need to add some of the pictures. So tune in later.

Spring is Coming

Today was the first nice day we've had in a VERY long time. And I noticed a few good signs that is Spring is truly just around the corner and not just wishful thinking on my part.

The state said I had to take the snow tires off my car this week - even though we did have a light dusting of the white stuff for a couple days. It's getting lighter longer each day (and not just because of the early day light savings). Our chickens are starting to lay more eggs and the animals are getting frisky.

I've been seeing more and more "visitors" to our yard... Both male and female robins are now here. I had a little hummingbird come to my empty feeder twice today. (I filled it up but didn't see him again. Hope he comes back. There's not much nectar out there since it's been a late cold Spring.) I also saw some honey bees buzzing around in the warm afternoon sun. The plum tree in my yard is starting to bud out and may be flowering by Easter if the weather warms up. We've had to mow the lawn again this week since it was 6 inches high. And finally the daffodils are starting to bloom.

One of the best things I love about this house in Spring is that the previous owners planted random patches of daffodils at the edge of the woods. It is so pretty and makes me smile everytime I look out my back door. The daffodils in the picture are from my driveway. It's one of the first yard projects I started when we moved in - was to start planting bulbs to complete my vision of a drive lined with daffodils. (I'd love to do tulips but the deer and elk like to eat those, so I stick with my little yellow flowers of happiness.)

So if you're still stuck in the throes of "Old Man Winter" - take heart. Spring is coming. Spring is Coming!!!!

April Fools

I usually "celebrate" April Fools for the kids and send funny crazy stuff in their lunches and plan meals etc. But it snuck up on me....all the stuff at work and the kids being on Spring Break contributing to my malaise.

Well, never fear.....This year B was especially inspired to play pranks on anyone in sight. (She and C had a lot of fun planning and executing these elaborate almost Rube Goldberg schemes.) I'll only describe a couple here....believe me the merriment went on all day.

B has this old fashioned, really funny, loud and somewhat annoying monkey alarm clock. It makes loud monkey shrieks in addition to the clanging bells continually until you wake up and turn the darn thing off. (Did I say it was loud and makes monkey noises?)

Well, she set it for Oh-dark-30 and hid it in her sisters bedroom. hee hee. Well M turned it off and went back to bed, so B snuck down into M's room retrieved the clock and did the same thing to her brother who is a very sound sleeper. Did I mention it is VERY loud and makes monkey noises? Well, the thing went off for over 12minutes before he woke up and found it hidden under his bed. (I was on the verge of waking him up myself because it was so loud and obnoxious. - His story was that he knew it was going for that long but he decided to wear out the batteries...nice try bub! No one believes him - especially since I looked in on him noisly several times hoping to "accidentally" stir him and to see if he was dead because I couldn't see how anyone could sleep through it.)

I knew I should have been worried about B volunteering to make me lunch... but she had mentioned the night before that she would save her extra taco for my lunch so I thought I was safe and that she was being the nice, kind, thoughtful daughter that she is. (I should have known better!!!) After eating my entire lunch, I noticed that there was a little note in the bottom of my bag which read.... "Mom I licked everything first." and then in very tiny almost so you couldn't see it she wrote "April Fools" The rat!!!

I think I'm going to celebrate "Boomerang Day" It's where April Fool's comes back and gets them when they're least expecting it. hee hee