Valentine's

Valentine's Day isn't a big deal in our house. But the boys had a wonderful time exchanging Valentine's with their classmates and at their parties at school. Ben and I took heart shaped brownies to Noah's classroom in the morning for his birthday treats. Note to self: never try cutting brownies into heart shapes again. 

 Ben and I did get a little time together on Valentine's morning. A trip to Kropf Lumber in Hesston to work out some window details for the house and then coffee at Lincoln Perk - pretty romantic, right?
Speaking of the house - it was a snowy mess on Friday afternoon.

 Friday was a warm day with a cold wind. Levi and I went along to chore the steer over at my uncle's place. I'm in love with their red barn. It's not perfect, but it's held onto so much of it's original beauty and detail over all these years.

 Lamar the steer, was living in the red barn. He had a bum leg and the other steers were picking on him so he got some privacy to get his strength back. Unfortunately, just when he seemed to be on the mend his leg suddenly got worse and he was taken away today to get more TLC. Hopefully, our friend Lamar will make a full recovery.

 Levi was drawn down to the creek, as usual. He had ice fishing in mind, but the melty ice was making me much too nervous.

 Meanwhile, Ben was busy pushing up feed for the steers.

 Levi is very brave with animals when there's a metal fence in separating them from him. He worked hard to get them to eat some snow (which they didn't), but he was successful with some hay.

 Hello Mr. Steer.

 Our poor chickens...because of the coyotes and Harold they've been kept inside the barn nearly all winter long.

 It's amazing how dusty their little world is.

Regardless of their indoor life this winter, they've continued to produce eggs even through the coldest weather. We have 18 chickens left and we usually gather at least twelve eggs a day. Go ladies, go!
Oh, and then on Valentine's night Ben worked a couple basketball games and I took the boys to the Goessel game. A great day with a little bit of a lot of good things.

Random

It's Valentine's week and the week of Noah's birthday and I found random photos on my camera! 

It snowed over a week ago and we've barely been outside to play in it. It was too cold and nasty outside for so many days, and now suddenly the weather is warm and the snow is disappearing! Maybe we'll get some good mud play in over the weekend.

 I found these photos on my camera. Levi created all the artwork above. The one on the left is a sunrise, then our new house, then one that's a painting of rain and finally a rainbow. He loves to have his artwork up in the kitchen where we all see it all the time.

 Last Friday afternoon I brought a huge icicle into the house for Levi to snack on.

If Goessel plays basketball at home on Friday, we go to the games. But on the Friday nights that Ben is away and Goessel's teams are away - we have movie night. The boys love to eat a snacky supper on the picnic blanket in front of the TV. Our picnic blanket of choice is the amazing baby blanket Grandma Schrag made for the boys. It's the perfect size and, colorful and washes easily.  

A sunny weekend lies ahead of us, hopefully we'll get to spend a bunch of time outside. Plus, we've got a birthday to celebrate!

Basketball Nights

February evenings can get pretty long, they're dark and cold and everyone is a bit stir crazy. Thankfully, four of them are being filled by basketball for our boys. The Goessel Rec Commission organized four evenings of basketball clinics for kids in 1st-5th grades. Levi's too young, but he comes along and has a good time anyway.

The Jr. High and High School basketball coaches and the varsity HS basketball players lead the clinics.  The boys are in one gym and the girls in another. 

First things first, they get in a big circle and stretch. 

 Noah with his buddies, Eli, Jake and Javin.

 Coach Guhr has taught them quite a few basics already - defensive stance, triple threat, chest and bounce passes, proper shooting form and dribbling.

 Noah's chest pass form leaves a little to be desired, but his effort and careful listening are outstanding.

 The kids were encouraged to keep their eyes up while dribbling,

 I love how hard he's concentrating!

 Levi gets in on as much action as possible. As long as he's got a basketball in his hands he's pretty happy, plus he can run around and shoot and nobody seems to mind.

 He watches everything the big kids do and joins in with most of it. When Coach Guhr whistles two times, all the boys drop into a defensive stance and yell, "Defense!" Levi does it, too.

 He wanted to run through the middle of the court last night and I told him he could (all the big kids were busy doing shooting drills at the baskets). He thought about it for a while....

 then went for it!

 Noah really likes being with his friends, but seems to soak up everything he sees the high school boys do.

Two nights down and two more to go. It's a blessing to let the boys run off energy at the gym in the middle of a cold and snowy February.

Covered in Snow

Boots, boots, snowy, wet and messy boots cover our mudroom floor. 

 It snowed all day on Tuesday, something like 9 inches or so, and then the temperatures dropped and Wednesday was a COLD day.

 I went out in the morning to snap some photos because I always think the farm is magical when it's covered in snow.

 And then I spotted this Sun Dog! I didn't know it was called that, until I came inside and saw other people posting photos of it on Facebook. There was one on each side of the sun and it was beautiful! Such a welcome sight after Tuesday's cloudy/snowy weather.

 The icicles hanging down in front of my kitchen window are quite something!

 Harold loves to eat snow and icicles, and run around in the snow.

 Feeding cattle in the snow has its challenges - one tractor to move snow, one tractor feed cattle.

 And one happy dog bounding through the snow.

 It was about 2 degrees outside when Noah and I first tried to do some sledding.

 He made it down a couple of times, but then we decided to head inside to warm up. Later in the afternoon we all went out and did some sledding down some bigger piles of snow. By then it was a whopping 7 degrees outside, so we lasted a little while before needing to go back inside. Hopefully, we'll get some warmer weather so we can enjoy the snow even more!

Making Friends

Hi! No, this isn't a post about me making new friends. But since I took a photo of myself, I thought for once in a blue moon I'd actually include myself on this blog. :-) 

 For a little while on Sunday afternoon Levi, Ben and I spent some time outside. The little bit of icy-snow we got earlier in the weekend was melting in the sunshine, and it felt so good to soak it up for a little while.
Gutters are a good thing and I'm looking forward to our new house having them.

 Then we won't have puddles outside our doors anymore!

 We decided it was time to visit the cattle. Ben had just finished pushing up feed so we went out to say hello to the steers.

 They were busy eating until we got close and Harold ran past them,

 then they all ran away.  Levi decided to push the feed up again with his feet. He'd been working for a while when he stopped to say he was gonna take a break and then finish up....then he looked behind him and decided to just give up.

 Hmmmm....yummy feed!

 We walked around to the other side of the cattle pen and Ben lured a few steers in with some alfalfa.

 It worked! Levi even got to pet this courageous steer. He was pretty excited to have gotten so close to one finally.

 Their winter coats look so thick and shaggy! No wonder they just stand out in the open while it snows on them!

 It was fun to make friends with at least one steer!