It's a Bird! It's a Plane! No...it's Super...wait, a Kite.

The girls have been flying kites on every windy day possible for the last couple of weeks. As usual, one of the kite's landed in the neighbor's tree - Kimberly's kite. The kite has been up in the tree for 4 days. Kimberly's plan of attack:

Day One: Attempted to retrieve the kite with a small step ladder. No such luck.

I felt bad for her, so while at the store buying Natalie's birthday present (yes, the night before her birthday - this is what my life is like these days), I bought 3 new kites for a buck a piece.

Day Two: A windy day. Reminded me three times before she left for school if I could keep checking on the kite to see if the wind had knocked it down. I reminded her of the new kite I bought her. She said thank you, but was still determined to get her kite down.

Day Three: Taped two rather longish sticks together to try and reach the kite. I think a bunch of string was involved too. Still couldn't reach kite.

Day Four: Took a chair and stool outside to use with the long sticks to try and reach the kite. Almost got the kite down. Came inside and drew up some plans for Day Five.


I think we have an engineer in the making.

Birthday Wishes

Natalie is now three. Time to get back on the bandwagon and start re-potty training her. That is, after John and I can kick these nasty colds we inherited a few days ago.

Spring Break - The Good, The Bad and the Yummy.

The Good: I survived. Actually better than I thought I would. I think I may be getting the hang of four kids.

The Bad: I'm starting to run out of milk and Megan won't take a bottle. Not so good. Enter power pumping, some herbs to help increase my milk supply, and more table foods to help Megan get enough to eat. She now eats applesauce AND sweet potatoes. We're on a roll! (still no rice cereal, but who can blame her?)

The Yummy: One of the things we did to keep busy last week was visit the chocolate factory. Yummmm....

Spring Break?

Seriously. I mean, really?? Six inches of snow during SPRING break?

I had all of the girls winter clothes packed away in the basement, snow gear buried in a back corner downstairs, and the sleds tucked nicely into a crevice never to be seen or heard from again until after the leaves fall off of the trees (leaves of which have yet to appear on said trees as they have just started budding - that is until they got covered with snow today).

Other than the nasty white stuff that appeared, spring break seems to be going smoothly so far.

On another note, much rejoicing occurred at our house two days ago when after 6 weeks of fruitless attempts at feeding Megan rice cereal, I fed her applesauce, and WA-LA!! Since she is only one week shy of 6 months old, we tried a different approach, and apparently rice cereal isn't her thing, but applesauce sure is. Now if we could just get her to drink out of a bottle. That ever-present battle is sure to be around for awhile longer if she follows her sisters' footsteps.

Say Hello to John's New Bird

Meet Reia (pronounced Raya),
John's 14-year-old Peregrine Falcon.

Yes, she is a female.
John just can't escape the x chromosomes.

Reia is the Greek Mother of the Gods, and Goddess of fertility and motherhood. Since Reia was originally part of a breeding education program up near Seattle, we thought the name was very fitting.

The poor gal had to be shipped via airplane, so she was a little ruffled up when she arrived.

John was like a little boy impatient for Christmas to arrive while waiting for his bird. He has wanted to do falconry and own specifically a peregrine falcon since he was a young boy. The falconry association recently changed the rules allowing him to have one, so of course the instant the rule changes were in place, he was on the internet making arrangements for this gal to join us.


The bird will be a little different from John's other birds. Since she has spent most of her life in captivity doing her breeding thing, she cannot be released into the wild, so she will be with us for awhile (that is if we can keep her from flying off - hehe). Peregrines live for about 20 to 30 years, so she could be around for some time.

She even has that glare we women are so good at.

Another Girl?

Tomorrow evening a new member of our family will be arriving via airplane. Check back on Thursday to see pictures. Can't Wait!!

More Geo Caching

Note: If you haven't read the post below this one, do so now...




It was a beautiful day today and perfect for hiking around discovering some new places we've never been before. Today we found more caches in the Kaysville pond area. We had to do some true hiking, which meant changing the gps into pedestrian mode so we could wander the trails in search of the treasure boxes.

There were some very cleverly hidden ones. We had to climb a tree or two, scour through some bushes, and trudge through the gazillion bugs next to the water. It was totally worth it with some great finds. The kids have practically emptied our cheap giveaway items throughout the house to exchange though. We need to make a trip to the dollar store.

My handsome hunk at it again showing off his muscles