Deanna Rose Farmstead Day

We got to the Deanna Rose Farmstead a few minutes early so we played on the playground outside the gate until they opened. What better way to start the day?



Here is me, demonstrating to Noah my professional cow milking ability. Yes, to clarify, it is a fake cow. And yes, water comes out of the utters, but only when you do it correctly.


Checking out the goats. They have TONS of goats.



We fed the little bitty goats bottles of milk. Levi was brave about it until they started jumping on him and fighting with each other over the bottle. So I had to hold him sideways. Oh yeah, and he only put the bottle in his own mouth 2 or 3 times (NASTY).




Levi says,"Where's my gun? Its TURKEY SEASON!!"

Going for a Ride

The Independence Mall has a mini train you can ride around the lower level, so Aunt Tinney took both the boys on a fun ride. We would've been broke if they had these kind of attractions when I was a kid. The only mall "attractions" we had to look forward to were Santa and the Christmas train (that went in a small oval) and the Easter Bunny.



Noah was one lucky little boy and got to ride a horse at the Deanna Rose Farmstead for the second time. Later the same day he went on his first official motorcycle ride with Papa K. He held on super tight and had his own size helmet and sunglasses on too.

Easter 2011

Now that the Easter celebration is over, I hae to post all the pics from the boys dressed up and looking for eggs and such. Its not complete till I do I guess.
The boys were all spiffied up for church. Of course, we couldn't get pictures taken until we got home from church. The mistake here is that Levi messed through his dress pants, then messed through his spare sweatpants while at church. He came home bare legged, but we threw on his dress pant long enough to snap a few quick pictures.




Here is the egg hunt. Really EGGciting, I know! Noah was a great big brother and let Levi find quite a few with the help of daddy. Levi could care less about the candy inside, he thought they were shakers to make noise with. I still found 1 or 2 a day later that they never found.

Family Fun Day

So over the past year or so Jefferson City has been working on building a pedestrian/bike bridge adjoining the vehichle bridge that crosses of the Missouri River. Noah has been anticipating this forever it seems. IT finally opened recently so we threw the family in the Swaggerwagon and headed down to walk across The Bridge. We watched tree stumps float under us and watched a train ride through and under. The train was just about the best part for both the boys. The boys now have the nicknames Chug Chug (Levi) and Choo Choo (Noah), because they both refer to trains differently (the names corresponding with their sound).






After we hopped back in the van, we drove over to show Noah where the original Missouri River Bridge use to be. We had a train pass right in front of us. It was great!

New Season, New Blooms

Today we were able to get all our plants, bushes, and other landscaping/gardening essentials. Sutherlands has GREAT springtime sales each year so I always anticipate going. However, in years past the sale is usually 2-3 weeks too early for planting so my plants have to go in and outside everyday until its time to plant. This year the timing was perfect! We were able to buy and plant the very same day (and actually had the weekend free to do it too!). Two summers ago Preston built the flower beds along the front of the house, last year we filled them with dirt, this year we filled them with flowers. I was very excited! We also bought our first bushes and shrubs too.
Here is the progression of planting for those of you that might be interested (a limited audience I'm sure).




Here are the boys "helping" us. Clean up was extensive when we finished.




The planting continues...


The finished product, of course the pictures don't do it justice.





Thats 91 impatience, 45 alyssums, 8 dusty millers, 8 petunias, 6 elephant ear bulbs/stalks, 6 hostas, 4 burning bushes, 3 azalias, 2 red dragons (thats what I call them), 2 lilacs, 2 spikes, 2 hanging baskets (impatience),and a couple others of which names escape me. Not to mention we planted 3 tomato plants today and the seeds for lettuce, carrots, green beans, zucchini, spinach, cilantro, and pumpkins (as an experiment) last weekend. Between the the two of us we made 3 trips to Sutherlands and three trips to Westlakes today. Its a good thing we live close and get reward points from both places!!!

We had major weed problems inside the flower beds due to not having anything in them last year (and it was pasture dirt). So I spent last weekend weeding and prepping them so we could lay down the weed blocker fabric, plant, and mulch today. Needless to say, its been a busy and tiring day. With the warm weather I got scorched too. Preston and I are very excited about it all and have had alot of fun doing it all. The great thing is that for the first spring since moving to Fulton, Preston is not coaching baseball so he has actually been home to help get it all done. He's the BEST! Everythings puney right now but give me a couple weeks and she'll be a bloomin' big!

A HUGE THANK YOU goes out to Sue and Short Fletcher for kindly gifting us with the hostas and elephant ear starters! This wonderful couple holds a dear place to our heart and blesses us in so many ways, especially with watching our two onrey boys regularly.

Another Catch Up Post

March is a very busy month for us. Mainly because of all the family birthdays that we have going on (not to mention the friends birthdays too). So here I am, trying to catch up on my lack of blogging yet again.

Earlier in March we had a decievingly warm couple of days. We were able to meet up with one of Noah's older best buddies, Easton, and one of my best buddies Christine (aka, Easton's mom). We took them for a ride on our church's newer "people mover" since they hadn't been on it yet...really exciting I know. I think if you look hard enough, you can see Levi helping Preston drive it in front of our house.

We took our friends on a ride through town and decided to stop at William Woods Univ and see their horses (its an equestrian school).




We also celebrated Noah's 4th birthday on March 13th (5 days after mine). We kept it very low key this year, I figure we will throw a big party next year with all his friends. Honestly, I didn't want to mess with it this year. We spent his birthday at home (it was on a Sunday)and took him to Bonkers (kinda like tunnel town) the next day. Here he is showing off his 2 big gifts from us, a Red Rider BB gun and his first big boy bike (complete with training wheels).




The day we went to Bonkers, March 14th, we got 8 inches of snow in Fulton, CRAZY!!!

On March 16th our new little nephew, Hunter James, was born to Anna (Preston's sister) and Jake. He is adorable! He had lots of cute blonde hair and was a little booger at less than 6 lbs. Here are pics from us visiting him the day after, on St. Patrick's day, hence the reason we're all wearing green. One of these is Preston and Levi chillin together, kinda funny.






The weekend after that Levi, Noah, and I all shared a nasty intestinal bug that of course took me the longest to get over. Levi seemed to have it the worst simply b/c his "toilet" is his diaper so whatever it didn't hold went everywhere else. We had to say "bye bye" to his "bear bear" because of this. Levi has 2 "bear bears" the one pictured is the one my mom gave me when we found out we were expecting Noah. However, Noah has never cared to snuggle with anything so it got zero use until we had Levi. Then Levi always slept with it (or the other one) and carried it around the house. It had a disasterous encounted with Levi's bug, got washed twice, and finally thrown away because there was no getting the smell out. And we all know, where there's still a smell, there's still something there.


Lastly, we have several pictures from us doing fun stuff outside. Levi is at the age where whatever he sees Noah do, he does. Monkey see, monkey do. This is a good teachable time for Noah to learn how to be a good example for his brother. Anyhow, March warmed up a little off and on and we were finally able to go outside to play.




And in April we were finally able to get out the bike and trailer. Yesterday I rode all over the place with it including the school and the park. Of course, it is Fulton, and nothing is really THAT far away. We have some decent hills near our house though and so it still gives a decent workout. Noah was very excited that I picked him up from preschool on the bike. He LOVES being pulled in this thing and I think Levi is really enjoying it too. This bike trailer is definitely one of the best investments we've made for the boys at this age! The sun was in their eyes so these pics are not the best.




Last but not least, I took the boys to Sault's Drugstore (downtown Fulton) where they have an old fashion soda fountain setup, complete with a train that rides around near the ceiling. We haven't been yet this year so we shared some ice cream and the boys loved watching the train. This was the first time Levi was old enough to even care there was a train and he kept pointing and saying "Chug Chug" as he watched it go around and around. As you can see in the ice cream picture, Levi knows that if he stands there with his mouth open long enough someone will put something in it. He's our little birdie.