Homemade Ice Cream

I told Johnathan and Anneke I needed some new blog subjects, and had just the perfect story to tell. Anneke has been craving some homemade strawberry ice cream. She had a great Rachel Ray recipe that sounded pretty complicated....point being she spent a lot of time working on it. Well, they got all ready to freeze it and the ice cream motor stoped working. Well, we couldn't just throw away good ice cream mix away right? They decided to hand crank the machine but after 10 min, new ideas had to come up to play. Johnathan happened to think of a drill and so they rigged it up and what do you know! 30 minutes later we had homemade strawberry ice cream!

Mother's Day

I got the one of the coolest mother's day gifts ever! I new riding *yes riding* lawnmower. I was super excited, especially because my project this year is to "clean up" our landscape. It took us 2 days to pick it out but I couldn't have asked for anything more! Nathan mowed our front lawn in 40 minutes, a project that last year took me 4-5 hours. And it goes so fast! I just wanted to ride it for awhile, I didn't even care about the grass cuting. =) So hopefully this year we will be able to keep up with all the weeds. I also enjoyed a breakfast in bed, after sleeping in!!! with apple cinnamin waffles and hash browns. My husband and children are the greatest hands down. I can't believe how lucky I am. And I am super lucky to have such a wonderful mother myself. She has dedicated her life to her children and I admire her in so many ways. It's great that she is so close to visit and the children and Zeke love to go over!!

For the rest of the day we headed to Wyoming for a nice dinner with Granny and Pappy. It was fun! Overall, I had a great day and wish everyone else a Happy Mother's Day!

You can see what fun this would be with a push mower! Nathan is off in the distance!

There it is folks!

Nothing like living in the country

I grew up in a town with city blocks, close neighbors, and a public sewer system. I can never remember an instance were we had to "conserve" water or couldn't use the sewer system. Well, our septic system went out last week and so this household is having to learn those ways. (I am, Nathan has many years of experience at this sort of thing I guess....at least I don't have to deal with the troubles of frogs in my well system). Johnathan has been trying to fix it now when he has spare time, and it sounds like it is really complicated. I'm hoping one of these days it all works out and everything goes back to "normal".

Heather enjoying some bath time in the sink.

Carnival!

The carnival came to town so we had some fun last week. Aden did the kiddy rides but got bored quickly, so we tortured him and took him on some bigger rides. I was more scared on the ferris wheel than he was, especially when it stopped at the top and Aden was rocking and wouldn't hold still, I was convinced he was going to fall. His favorite ride ended up being the Tilt-A-Whirl and both Nathan and I were also able to experience that one. Heather really enjoyed the carosel but that was about the extinct of her carnival fun =)

Picture Post

Yay! I finally got a computer! Granny was nice enough to loan us her old machine so now I'm back in business! Since my last post was picture free, this post will be full of random pics, just to keep you updated on the small happenings =)

Arts and Crafts....Aden is making a colored pasta necklace

Fun for the whole family


Mornings are not always bright and cheery around here =)


Heather has learned how to climb..oh no!

Looking innocent as always

Pushing the popper car

Daddy is doing the pushing now

The tractor looks much more fun

The men doing what they do best...j/k =)

Grandma and Aden are planting flowers

Yummy...snack time!

Daddy and Uncle Eric fixed the motorcycle...don't worry, I wouldn't let him take her on a ride! She wasn't too thrilled even sitting on it....she has her mother's instinct =)

It's almost a full moon

Yesturday morning was a morning it will take a long time to forget about. About 8:00 in the morning Aden and I decided to go on a bikeride and take Seth and Ashlyn with us. We loaded all the bikes up and the kids and headed for "fun". My bike had a flat tire so we were going to have to have it fixed.I went to one bike shop and they weren't able to repair it, so we drove clear across town to another store. Managing four kids in a bike shop is somewhat of a challenge, I kept imaging dominos and bikes =). Anyway, they fixed my bike and we loaded back up again for the third time now. I stopped to get some drinks for us and the kids ended up spilling sticky juice all over the car and then one of the kids accidentally kicked open the console in the middle (pushed up to make room for Aden up front). All the contents fell out onto the floor. Eventually..it's 9:45 now...we made it to the park. While unloading the bikes from the back of the truck, Seth had a coughing fit until he gagged himself and threw up. He said he felt okay and it was just because he coughed so hard so we continued on. About 1/4 mile away from the truck, Seth's bike chain fell off. I had to straddle my bike (I couldn't leave it on the kickstand becuase Heather was in the baby seat on the back) and attempt to put the chain on myself upside down. 20 minutes later...as Aden and Ashlyn have vanished off into the distance by now...a nice man stops to help me put the chain on. We get it fixed and caught up to Aden and Ashlyn now, but another 1/4 mile and it falls off again. By this time, I've had it. The 5 of us pull off onto the side of the road and luckily the man who helped us the first time stopped again. As I was helping him put on the chain, I accidentally pinched his fingers. Oops. About 15 minutes later, the chain is back on the bike. Well, during the fixing, Ashlyn had parked her bike in front of the man's truck...and when he left he ran over it! AAHHH!! So, I had Ashlyn run back towards the truck and of course half way back Seth's bike chain fell off so he ran back to the truck too. Finally, I get the two remaining bikes loaded into the truck and all four kids, and Zeke the dog. Zeke had been swimming after the ducks in the pond and was wet when he went into the car. Being a dog, he shoke and got muddy duck water all over us. When we got to Aprils to drop off the kids, I dropped Seth's bike and broke a traing wheel off. It was definitely a very trying day for us but in the end I was able to laugh at it. I took the rest of the day off and avoided any activity other than playing video games. =)