Digging

 We've been doing some digging here lately....looking for an obscure waterline....

 Boys + dirt = fun

 Unfortunately, we never found the waterline.  But it's about the journey not the destination, right?

I leave this afternoon for a 9 day trip for work to Jordan and Palestine.  Peace out!

No more tomatoes

We had an eventful evening...or rather, we NEARLY had a VERY eventful evening.  

The weather folks have been building up the potential for severe weather for a couple of days.  Therefore, I've felt stressed by the thick humid air outside for days.  And, as it turns out, the weather people were actually right.  A tornado went about a mile east of the farm and we're so thankful that we're OK.
The boys and I were quite scared and Levi consistently talked about "tomatoes" instead of "tornados".
We drove around a bit, in the dark, after the storm passed to see if any of our neighbors needed help but as far as we could see everything was OK.  We'll see what new information daylight brings tomorrow.  Thank you Lord for keeping us safe tonight!

Laundry detergent

 It looks like shredded cheddar, doesn't it?  It doesn't smell like it and it certainly doesn't taste like it.  Although that could be a fun prank....

 I whipped up my first batch of homemade laundry detergent.  I posted about my mother in-law's soap mix way back in November.  But, since we had a huge jug of liquid detergent on hand it took us until now to need more soap! It's very simple and cheap - grate 1 bar Fels -Naptha and mix it with 1 c. Borax and 1 c. Washing Soda (all found in the laundry detergent aisle).  I've used 1 Tbsp. of the mix per load in my HE washer and the results have been great!

It feels good to have a better understanding of what's in our detergent, to pay so little for the ingredients and to use to little for each load.  So far, so good!

An evening of planting

 The season of corn planting has come and gone for us this year.  My dad did the majority of the planting with Ben helping out when he could.  The last field though, was pretty much on Ben's shoulders (since my dad and uncle were both away from the farm that evening).  So, the boys and I packed Ben a simple supper and went out to get in on the action.

 It was a cloudy, cool evening and with a forecast for rain overnight we knew this field had to get finished.  After some discussion about who was going to ride and where they'd sit or stand we finally agreed that all four of us would climb in.  Noah would sit on Ben's lap and I would hold Levi on mine.

 Ben was over halfway done planting this field by the time we got out there and while I thought we'd ride for a round or two, we ended up lasting quite a bit longer than that!

 At one point during our ride, a new noise started coming from the cab of the tractor.  Ben and I looked at each other alarmed by the strange new sound.  Noah piped up, "That's just the seat, someone must have hit that button."  Ben and I were immediately relieved that the sound was only something to do with air going in or out of the tractor seat, but we started laughing right away because once again our 6 year old knew something we didn't.  It's happening more and more these days.

 We rode along in the tractor for so long that Ben had to fill the seed boxes up one more time.

 The boys helped...and I snapped pictures - that counts as being helpful too, right?

 What a great way to spend an evening - you can't get much closer then all four of us together in a tractor cab!

Crop Duster

 Have you ever been really close to a crop duster?  You can't not watch them.  The potential for disaster seems so high that you just HAVE to keep watching.  This plane was "dusting" the wheat fields around the farm with fungicide earlier this week.  Check out how low the pilot has that plane!

 From our perspective it seemed like he barely made it up over the trees

 and then back down again to finish off the field.

 All evening the plane was somewhere near the farm, dusting one field after another.

 It's  not every day that an airplane is zooming around so close to us.  The boys were so excited they insisted on eating supper outside so they could keep tabs on the plane.

Easter Weekend

Easter weekend was full of family, church and egg hunts.  It was busy, but what would a holiday weekend be if it wasn't busy? :-)

 Saturday evening my extended Schmidt family gathered at Bethesda Home for dinner.  We ate a wonderful meal and then the older cousins went outside to hide eggs for the great-grandchildren to find.  The boys were so excited they ran from one spot to the next searching for eggs.

 Here are all the great grandchildren (except Rylee) with my grandma

 The boys think it's great fun to have a family gathering at Bethesda and that's only because there's a closet they put my cousins Austin and Braden in.  They call it a jail and it keeps them busy for as long as the older guys can stay with it.

 Easter morning we went to church and afterwards enjoyed an Easter egg hunt.  The kids were bonkers with excitement about the Easter egg hunt and had a good time finding candy filled eggs in the church yard.

 We ate lunch at my parents, a delicious brunch, followed by a relaxing afternoon hanging out with my family. That evening we went to my cousins house for our Epp gathering.  Check out the lemon cake Vanessa made!  It was amazing.

 Again, I have pictures of hunting for eggs, but we did enjoy a wonderful Easter meal together before the hunting began.

 The football field saw some action and the kids had a great time playing with all of Caiden and Cambry's toys.  My mom, Erica, Miki and I walked out into the pasture to find the Duerksen's fishing pond.  It was actually a beautiful walk over a couple hills to a nice little pond.

Needless to say, by the end of Easter our boys were tired and had collected plenty of candy.  But, besides all the eggs, candy and fun - it was amazing to have Noah tell me why we recognize Maundy Thursday and what happened to Jesus on Good Friday.  He got those two correct.  When we talked about this on Friday, he wasn't sure what would happen on Sunday but once we went over the Easter story he remembered and was excited about what Jesus did for us.

Morning drums

 Friday morning was gorgeous. The view out our bedroom window was serene, still and beautiful.

 And Levi's drumming was LOUD!

 He had me turn the TV on to a country music station and it had to be turned up loud!

 I love hanging out with Levi on Friday mornings.  We spend a chunk of time at home and then we go visit Ben at work, go to story hour, get groceries and then head back home.  It's good to have such great company every Friday morning.