Happy Birthday Nate and Springtime!

Here's what's been keeping us busy lately...

Happy Birthday Nate!!!

After an evening of soccer games we celebrated Nate's 37th birthday!! He requested a cheese cake and we also had root beer floats since he's not a big cake fan. He got some fun gift cards, snacks, and I got him the sleeping pad he's been wanting. Happy Birthday to my wonderful handsome husband!

The Farm: Our neighbor's cow who has been staying at our house this winter decided to calve about 3 weeks early. It was a tough delivery that only had a positive outcome because our other neighbors happened to notice her having trouble calving. They called Nate and brought over their chains and calf puller and were able to save the Baby. He is doing fine now but still a little bit odd.

Zeyta with Baby Mac as we are calling him

 

Satin has been bloating each time we put her out on pasture. We have had to give her bloat medicine 2 times already and be very careful about how long we put her on grass. She does ok if we only put her on for a couple hours but she has started refusing the hay and only wants grass. Well Satin, I would gladly let you eat the grass if you didn't almost die everytime you ate it... We will just have to see how it goes until we figure out how to get her on pasture without problems. 

 

My cute little milk maid doing an awesome job milking Satin. She gets a good squirt and can go for a while! I love having her come out with me on Mondays.

Satin is giving us between 1/12 and 2 gallons per milking. I milk almost everyday - except after the nights I work

Working on the chores

Getting ready mulch the garden - I planted out my broccoli and planted my peas about a week ago

Blossoms on all the fruit trees! We had a lot of casualties this year - both of the sweet cherry trees, a peach tree, and an apple tree all died. But the big apple trees have tons of blossoms and one of the pear trees blossomed this year too! Hope we get lots of good fruit this year!

Zeyta helping me water the tomatoes, peppers and tomatillos

My cute babies: Just some random cuteness...

 Zeyta at the library - we go every wednesday and she has so much fun singing and dancing and listening to stories. Chloe has been reading Heidi Hecklebeck and Diary of a whimpy kid. Blain also like the whimpy kid books. I am reading a new series called Gone which has been pretty entertaining so far.

 I took Avenlea to get registered for Kindergarten (aaahhhhh) and she had to get her shots too. She was really sad but did pretty good so we went out for a special treat just she and I afterwards

I love volunteering in Avenlea's preschool class on Thursdays. Zeyta comes with me and gets to participate with all the big kids. Zeyta is going to love preschool next year thanks to Avenlea showing her the ropes!

 Blain is so good about reminding me about going out for good report cards! We went to Chicks Cafe here in town for some treats. We split 2 giant sundae's and 2 giant cinnamon rolls. I can't believe how fast those kids devoured those desserts. I was literally shocked.

Avenlea going strong in her letter game! She can sound out so many CVC words and is recognizing all her "power words" as well. She gets a treat (mini marshmallow, gummy bear...) every day and she usually gets on willingly without any whining. What a step up from those mid early days!!

 Avenlea is so cute calling Zeyta over when certain songs or games come on. I hope Zeyta is learning some from Upstart too!

Chloe has made it all the way through her first lesson book! We will be saving it for Blain for next year ;) Chloe is so diligent in her practicing and the songs sound beautiful by about the 3rd time she plays them - which always impresses me. Last Sunday she played through her entire book which about brought me to tears watching how grown up she looked and how well she is playing.

Chloe showing Grandpa Tony her rock collection and Blain showing him the multi-tool he found while geocaching with me and his little mini binoculars

Silly Blainito

Mother's Day Tea with the Mitchells. Yuko put on a beautiful and delicious tea for all us mothers (and husbands and children). It was so nice to see her beautiful tea cups and taste the delicious tea!

Soccer: Our Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Saturdays are soccer days. Blain and Avenlea did rec this year with games twice a week. Chloe had practice MW and games on Saturday. It was a blast cheering on those kiddos!!

Blain

 Blain did so awesome learning to kick the ball hard, be aggressive, hustle back on defense, and run onto the ball on offense. He did great throw ins and never backed down on a 50/50 ball. He scored almost every game and was usually the fastest one out there on the field. He stayed true to form racing to be the one to get the ball each time it went out of bounds. 

Blain is so funny the way he gets nervous before trying new things. He was a little worried that he wouldn't do very well or that he wouldn't kick the ball as hard as the other kids or run as fast as them. He had nothing to worry about, Blain did awesome and picked up the basics really quickly

Cheering with his team

Blain's favorite part of the game might have been the treats afterwards. For a couple games parents brought treats (us included of course) for the players which made it that much more fun

I think he learned Soccer is a lot more running than wrestling and gymnastics! I could see him tiring out after lots of quick sprints - but he would hustle hard until it was his turn to take a rest, get some water and drink his Gatorade.

 Goal Kick

 Blain with his team on their last game

 My cute soccer stud

 Look at him race for that ball on defense!!

Avenlea

 Avenlea at her "breakout" game as we call it because she had a huge 180 in her playing style, ability and aggressiveness. She went from touching the ball maybe 2 or 3 times per game to scoring 5 goals in one game and never looked back!

 Grandpa came to watch each of them play their games on Saturday. They loved having Grandpa there to cheer them on!!

 All 4 players on Avenlea's team. She did 3 v 3 on a tiny little field with those tiny little goals

Avenlea was so nervous and shy her first couple games. She did not want to go out there and play fearing her coach would forget her name or she wouldn't get passed the ball etc. I was so happy when she started anticipating her games and racing to get ready in her uniform. Melissa found her those tiny cleats and shin guards which are really hard to find used!

Avenlea impressed her coach with her big kick and far throws. She almost got a goal off of one of her throws and on her turn to do free kicks she did awesome 

Avenlea wasn't afraid to go after that ball! She was so cute fighting for the ball and getting right back up everytime she got knocked over.

 

Only girl on a team of 3 little studs

Chloe

This season something really clicked for Chloe and she has become her team's "allstar defender" as one of the other parents put it. She learned when to run up and boot the ball and when to delay. Her positioning on the field was amazing and she tries really hard to get the ball from the offense where in past games she would be a little timid. Amazing season Chloe!!

Going in hard for the 50/50 ball

 

"I'm practicing my power kick" - Chloe had some amazing balls that were way up in the air setting up the offense perfectly! They have her do most of the free kicks and corner kicks

The goalie rolls the ball to her so she can boot it up the field

 She has become so much more aggressive and really fights for the ball! She is learning not to stop after a failed kick or if her kick gets blocked. She has saved so many goals with her 2nd and 3rd efforts to clear the ball!

I love this picture of her face even though the ball is long gone. She puts so much power behind her kicks no wonder that forward looks scared!

receiving the ball from the goalie ready to send it up the field

 Go Storm!!

 Gymnastics: I have been working almost every Thursday which means I miss Avenlea's gymnastics practices, but I had 2 off in a row and I couldn't believe how much she has improved! I see her doing straight cartwheels all over the place but watching her confidence on beam and bars is so fun! She has also recently learned her backwards roll with no help and no wedge mat!

 High knees on the beam

 love those pointy toes and straight legs!

 Nice tuck jump Avenlea!

 Blain has one month until his first gymnastics competition!! He just did his first front handspring landing on his feet! He has been working on his ring routine and vault almost every practice with the other events mixed in as well. He practices his mushroom at home as well as floor and bars. I hope he has fun and works hard to do well and maybe even get a medal ;)