Life with Chicks...

I am not what you'd call an animal person.  At all.  So when we decided to keep 2 baby chicks, I was really worried about how we'd like them.  It's been 2 weeks now, and I must say, they are SO FUN!  They are growing fast and will need to go to a farm at some point, but they sure are fun to have as little chicks.    

During the daytime I put them outside in the backyard in the flowerbed and they stay there all day.  I'm shocked.  I thought for sure they'd wonder off, but so far they haven't left that spot.  Easy Peasy!   They also don't run from us when we try to catch them now.  The first few days they'd try to escape, but now they are used to us and don't mind.  They seem to like being held.  They are really low maintenance and don't need much from us at all. That's my kind of pet. I'm sure that will change as they get bigger, but for now, they are easy and so, so fun!  

The kids love playing with them - and so do all the neighbor kids.  We have visitors stop by almost daily to see them…  Here's some of my favorite pictures over the last week…  

Even though we'll have to say good-bye sooner than later, they've been so fun and I can honestly say I'm glad we got them…  

Easter 2014

Easter is always a fun time for our family.  Like most holidays it seems to drag out over a few days instead of the celebration just being on the actual holiday day, but that's part of the fun.  

Saturday was the big egg hunt with the cousins.  

Cousin Jake's back from his mission…  We love Jake!  I feel so old to have nieces and nephews that are getting married, having kids, and going on missions…   

Each kid could find 48 eggs…  So much candy!  

The kids woke up to what the Easter bunny brought…  New rolling duffel bags for their beach trip this summer.  SO EXCITING!  We can't wait.  It will be so cute watching each of them wheel their little bag through the airport.  The Easter bunny was brilliant and bought them bags that were within the carry-on size limit.  What a smart bunny.  

They got some more candy… Geesh.  

Then we had to hurry and get ready for 9 am church.   I like having early church, but it's hard on Easter when you just want to play and eat candy.  

One quick picture before church…  Not enough time to get a good picture, but it's good enough :)  

All Morgan wants is matching outfits with Meg, but I can never find any that carry over into Morgan's size…  I did find these and noticed the size 7 looked huge, so I bought it hoping that Morgan could squeeze into it… It ended up working perfectly.  Morgan was ecstatic when she saw them.  They look adorable in their matching Easter outfits!!  

Big hugs.  

On a side note (because an Easter peep is involved so it fits with our Easter theme here…)

We got a message from Mike's sister Kate that she and Chad, "took a peep and IT'S A BOY!".  

We are so excited to have another nephew.  He'll be the cutest little guy around.  Can't wait to meet him.

Our family just keeps growing….

No, I'm not pregnant!!

We have a couple new family members though…  

Introducing 3 week old chicks, Yoko (white chick on the left) and Bob (brown chick on the right).  

Morgan's school class hatched some baby chicks and offered them to anyone that wanted them…  We are not pet people, so of course I told her a big fat NO!  Then Grandpa Beckstead heard that Morgan wanted a chick so he talked me into letting her get a couple.  He convinced me that we'd love it…  And so far, we have!!  (Besides, I need to remember that it's my job to make their growing up years fun and memorable, even if it creates more work for me.)  

Bringing them home for the first time…  

The kids love to play with them in the backyard.  We just put them on the grass and they walk around a bit and peck at the ground. They seem like they'll be easy pets, but we'll see.  (Luckily if we change our minds, it will be easy to drop them off at a nearby farm.)  Both chicks were runts when they were born which I think has helped make them so docile and tame.   They sure love to be cuddled.  

Since they are still so young, we need to keep them inside where it's warm.  They love their little house and the kids love peeking in at them.  Soon they'll be in a little coop outside, which I think will be so fun!   

Mike thought it would be funny to take the chicks while the kids weren't looking and hide them in his sweatshirt pocket…  The kids were running around the house in a panic looking for the lost chicks.  Once they settled down and listened, they could follow the little chirping noises right to them.  Mike's already a sucker for the little guys. 

It's nice while they are little that they don't jump and fly around much yet.  I can put them on a towel on our ottoman and they walk around and won't jump off.  The little kids love this because they can walk around and look at them without having to hold them.  

About the chicks:

We don't know if they are boys or girls yet.  Hopefully they are girls because we will have to give them away if they are roosters since city code forbids us from having roosters. (Or maybe we're secretly hoping for roosters :). Eggs would be fun though, so I hope they are girls.  

Yoko is a Salmon Faverolle and has 5 toes.  Yoko hatched March 26th and is unique because of the feathers that grow on it's legs and feet.

Bob is an Ameravcana and has 4 toes.  Bob also hatched on March 26th.  So basically they are twins, right :).  

We'll see if it works out.  If not, we'll have a really yummy dinner of chicken noodle soup :)  

No more binks!

Anyone that knows Meg knows that she LOVES her binkies.  She was getting to the point where she wanted them ALL the time and it was becoming a serious addiction problem... She would rather have her bink than food most of the time.  It was time (actually way, way past time) to take them away. 

I told her I would trade her the binks for any sucker she wanted.  She agreed (not really knowing what she was agreeing to) and off we went to find the right sucker.  After two stores and looking at all different kinds of suckers, she finally found "the one".  

mmm.

When we got home I told her she could help me cut the tops with scissors.  She thought that was so exciting!  

She felt so big cutting them up and throwing the tips away.  It wasn't until about an hour later that she realized what she had done...  She was not a happy girl when she learned that the tips couldn't be put back on.  Poor thing. I felt bad for tricking her, but it had to be done.  It's been a few days now and she rarely even asks about them.  It was much easier than I thought it was going to be.  

Good Job Meggie!!   

Meggie's hair is getting long!  Yesterday while she was sitting on my lap before bed I said, "Meggie your hair is getting so long.  I could braid it."  She turned around and put her face right up in my face and started chanting, "yes, yes, yes". I had no idea she knew what a braid was.  Then she turned around and sat perfectly still while I braided her hair.  She LOVED it!  

So, so cute.  

When I was done she couldn't stop smiling and sat and played with her braids for quite awhile. She felt so big. 

While we were saying family prayers I had to sneak a quick picture.  I know, super irreverent.  But come on, aren't they the sweetest girls ever!  

AMEN!  And then good-night hugs. 

The next morning... 

Her braid made it through the night.  I can't get enough of these kids of mine.

Conference Weekend

Conference weekend is the best!  I love it.  It's amazing to hear from a living Prophet of God and from all the members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles… And when we get to stay in our jammies and watch them on TV in our living room, it's even better!  

We watched what we could of Conference on Saturday between the boys' soccer games (I love having TiVo - press pause and come back to where you left off later… How did we survive without this kind of stuff?)  

Did you catch that I said, "the boys' soccer games"?   Yup, Will's playing now too.  He's the cutest.  He's been dying to start and now his time has finally come.  He was adorable running up and down the field, and more than one person commented on how fast he was…  Yup, he's just like his brother.  Speedy pants!!  And he scored 2 goals.  Not bad for his first time at soccer.

His favorite part was getting the snack at the end.  He brought his cookie to me and said, "this snack is for me, can you believe it?"….  He used to being at Miles' games and the snack being for Miles.  It made his day!  

During conference we printed out a bunch of coloring sheets for the kids to keep them busy… I'm not sure what happened, but at some point Mike told me he was a better colorer than I am, and before we knew it, Mike and I had hogged all the crayons for ourselves and we were coloring in our first ever conference coloring contest.  Many of the crayons were broken and there was not a pointy crayon in sight, but at least we both had the same terrible conditions.

I think there is a clear winner, but that's just my unbiased opinion…  One of us was too lazy to even finish… That should be an automatic disqualification if you ask me…  

After conference we went to Grandma and Grandpa's house to see the fam.  I decided to bring sugar cookie bars because they are Mike's favorite….  Occasionally Mike likes to help me bake things, which I love because he's so cute and pretty clueless when it comes to baking…  It's entertaining to watch.  He requested that he be in charge of all mixing.  He loves working the beaters…  By the end of making the frosting, he looked like this…  And no, we didn't put the clumps of frosting on his face to be funny, or put powdered sugar all down his pants and around the floor.  That's just what happens when he's in charge of the beaters.  The frosting turned out super yummy so he may be put in charge of that from now on!  

While Miles was playing with the cousins, he thought it'd be funny to make them all laugh by putting on a duct tape mohawk.  Ya, it was funny alright… Until he couldn't get it off.  When I saw how embarrassed he was and that he was fighting back tears, I just couldn't get mad at him.  

Good thing Grandma had some De-Solv-It…  That stuff was amazing.  We sprayed some under the duct tape and it came right off.  Poor kid was scared to death we'd have to rip it off and all his hair would come out.  Sometimes this boy worries me, but I sure do love him!