Birthday Party

Noah and Rylee have birthdays within a week of each other, so last Sunday we got together to celebrate!

We ate an Epp-family tradition for lunch - fondue.  Not a traditional cheese fondue, but more like a hamburger cheese dip kind of fondue.  It's really unhealthy and really delicious.

The birthday kids enjoyed opening gifts.

Isn't she gorgeous?

Several times during the day, I spotted Rylee doing this:

My boys don't do this and never have really done this, so I found it amazing to watch.

We spent a little bit of time outside visiting the cows, but the chilly wind pushed us back inside after not too long.  Don't let Noah's shorts fool you...

Happy 3rd birthday Rylee and happy 6th birthday Noah!

Bowling

The photo above is blurry, but still cute enough for it to make the blog.  We promised Noah that we'd go out for dinner and go bowling as part of celebrating his 6th birthday.  He made sure we remembered. So, the four us and my parents went to McPherson for a night out on the town.

The boys had a great time even though we couldn't get a lane with bumpers.  Noah wanted to bowl all by himself and even though at least half of the time his ball went in the gutter he never got frustrated.

Levi usually required some help and thankfully Ben took on that challenge.

This photo is dark....the lighting wasn't good - but hopefully you can still see the smile on Noah's face.

We managed to bowl one game before Levi lost interest.  I managed to get a higher score then the boys but lost in the adult competition (clearly, my bowling skills are rusty).

The Trees

Can you find Ben in this photo?

Yep, he's the guy in brown with a chain saw up in the air on the skid steer bucket.  Nice.  Makes me terribly nervous, but it certainly helps get big tree limbs down. We're working on a long row of trees that hasn't been cleaned up for many, many years.  Some trees are dead, some have huge parts of them that are dead and have flopped down over other trees.  The trees are a real mess, but we certainly enjoy working our way through them.

There's instant gratification from taking a row of trees from being a mangled mess and cutting away the bad limbs until a healthy row of trees remains.

The skid steer is helpful in pushing piles of limbs to a place to burn them and as a play space for the boys.

Plus, my dad purchased this fancy contraption for the skid steer.

And he put it to the test to help take down a tree.

It's not really meant to take down entire trees - more for trimming limbs, but it managed to cut the tree down.

It made for an exciting 2 minutes as we watched the new saw make the tree fall.
The good news about the row of trees Ben and I are working on is that we've made good progress so far in our 3 weeks of working on it.  The bad news, is that we have a LONG way to go.

Spring program

 Noah's school gave their spring program last week.  Seems a bit early for a "spring" program, doesn't it?

 Noah was excited about the program and is still singing the songs around the house.

 It was so cute, and all about friendship, showing respect and being kind to others - look at all those expressions!

Six!

Wednesday was Noah's 6th birthday.  We celebrated it first thing in the morning, since we were busy in the evening at church.  He asked for Rice Krispy Treats for his school birthday treats, so we jazzed it up by doing Cake Batter Rice Krispy Treats. 

Check out the load of Valentine's that landed at our house on Tuesday!

This is how Noah said someone should be photographed on their birthday.

At breakfast Noah opened the cards he got in the mail and his presents from us.  He got an awesome card from Grandma and Grandpa Schrag that plays a fun song and was full of cash.  Noah had a great time counting the twenty $1 bills that came in the card.

He's already scheming what he'll buy at the John Deere store with his money.

We gave him a John Deere sweatshirt, fences and

a Big Wooden Lean To.

At church, in an attempt to make it feel more like his birthday, I stuck a candle in Noah's piece of cake.  Ben lit the candle and we sang to him.  We actually had to light it twice so Levi could get a turn to blow out the candle.

When we got home from church, we could barely pull him away from his new lean to, fence, animals and tractors in order to put him to bed.  He laid down complaining that his head hurt, but eventually fell asleep.

It didn't last though.  He spent the last hours of his birthday with an earache.  He woke up at 10:30 crying and moaning (loudly) about his ear hurting.  It went on and on until 1am when the medicine finally kicked in enough for him to sleep.  Thankfully, he woke up today happy and ready to go to school.

Valentines

The boys and I created Valentines last week.  It just so happens that I really enjoy working on Valentines and could spend an enormous amount of time picking out designs, paper, candy, cutting, pasting, etc.  However, when you add a 4 and 5 year old to the mix my patience with the project quickly dwindles. 

 I realize that working on writing their own names and the names of their classmates is an excellent opportunity for them to work on their writing skills.  They were excited when we started and I could hardly keep up with them.  But quickly their interest waned and all three of us simply wanted to get the project done so we could move on to playing with tractors and cows again.  In the end, the Valentines do represent what the boys asked for.  They wanted to use Smarties candy and Noah asked that I get all different colors of paper.

 And then, at Story Hour on Friday morning Levi made Super-Hero Valentines.

 Pretty awesome, right?  Happy Valentine's Day!

Outside Today

I'm all for a mild winter with no snow (so far), but it was getting boring...and weird.  So, the rain we got today was a very welcome change of pace.  

 Randomly, the boys decided it would be fun to put the tools we gave them for Christmas to use.  They found out that it's harder to drive a nail through wood with a hammer then they thought.

 In fact, Levi jumped at the first distraction he could find.

 These ladies watched all the action - they're a captive audience for just about all the goings-on outside our house.

 Our stinking dog (literally today, since rain + dog = stink), still has a plastic cone on his head.  Hopefully, for just a few more days.

 The boys had a great time playing and running all around the yard this afternoon.  I'n not sure, but I think they were transporting water from one area of the yard to another.

 Lucky for us, it rained this morning and started up again this evening but the afternoon was dry

 Thankfully, neither one of them ever slipped in the mud and their trusty boots kept the mud off their clothes.  It was a great way to spend a February afternoon.