Kardinalkaze

 

It's endlessly raining and dreary, and that, above, is what my windows look like.  But I just had to take pictures anyway...  It was irresistible.

 We have this nutcase male cardinal hanging around our house these days.

Why does he behave this way?

Is he on drugs?

Drunk?

Suicidal?

Did his mate lock him out of the nest and throw all this things out on the branch?

(I think she should really consider a restraining order.)

 He's relentless, whatever is wrong with him.

For two solid days, he's been dive-bombing all the windows of our kitchen and living room.

 

 It's rainy and cloudy, so I don't think he's going after his reflection.

 He has a mate around, I saw them together last night, when he took a brief break from repeatedly accosting my kitchen.

 Between attacks, he sits on a branch or post near the house and sings a fierce-sounding song.

Then he does it again.

 

 And again, and again, and again.

He and his mate have been hanging around the yard for months now.  They're never brave enough to come near the house to the feeder, so this is indeed strange.  When we had the chickens fenced into the garden for a month or so, they regularly raided the chicken feeder.  I've watched them from the windows quite often.

Now that I think of it, there is no longer chicken feed out there since the chickens are loose in the yard.  

Perhaps he's trying to get a message across to me...

"More corn, or else!"

 

He Turned 6!

We're currently away, having a lovely visit with Nathan's parents, sister-in-law and and handfull of nieces and nephews.  And its warm and lovely here and we're more than enjoying it!

I have a bit of downtime right now as Evan naps and Jonah is off at the part with cousins (yay!) so I thought I should maybe show a bit of Jonah's very fun 6th birthday last week!  I already showed you the cake (which was so fun!), so here's the rest.

How many kids can you get on the roof of one little playhouse?

A lot!

I was a little concerned about the number of children who were coming (I had been thining we'd have a small, quiet birthday party this year, but it didn't really happen that way), but it was totally fine and lots of fun!  The weather was decent and they mostly played outside.  They had a great time!

Evan just loved being handed from one person to another all day.  No need to crawl when you can be carried, you know.

 

 I was glad we could feed kids outside, too!

My idea of games for a kids birthday party is "Go outside and play!"  I'm not a great planning hostess, but they had fun anyway.

 

 We attempted to do cake on the porch...

 

 ...but it was way too windy.  So took it back in.

He blew out his candles, and my baby turned 6!

Birthday Sneak Peak

Photos only for now! Just thought I'd share a little peak at our celebration today!

Preparations, etc.

Okay, I guess I can sit down, now.  Write a blog post, etc.

So, um... Hi!

Yes, my boys are in bed, my dishes are mostly washed, goats milked and fed, bathroom clean, various and sundry other chores done or partly so, laundry unfolded but oh, well, AND I baked birthday cake (and 20 cupcakes).  So glad my Mom talked me into baking cake tonight.  I always think that whipping up a little cake batter and baking it is no big deal, but it is. It is!  I would so regret doing that tomorrow and then waiting for it to cool so that I could frost and decorate it and then people arriving and babies crying and stress levels ramping...

We are preparing for a birthday.  How did my first, sweet, little baby get to be six?  I dunno.  It's a mystery to me.

I am also preparing for a hugeamongous number of people to be here.  How did that happen?  I meant for a small, shortish birthday party consisting of cake, presents, playtime, badabing, badaboom, (almost) everyone out in two hours.  But it morphed into 17 (!) children and all their parental people (it's really only three families, but they're big ones) and hot dogs at the firepit, and it looks like it's going to rain.

We're gonna have a blast!

So I baked cake ahead of time. Phwhew.

And most of the time I was baking, cleaning, etc., I had a small bucket of tears following me around.

He doesn't look so teary there, does he?  He's trying to fool you, see.  Actually, he's mostly naked, and that makes him very happy.  Tonight, after a solid hour of crying (following supper, which was preceded by eons of crying), I finally undressed him to get him ready for bed, and then he happily crawled off to play, naked.  Why didn't I take off his clothes long before?  Sometimes it helps just to pull off his socks.  It doesn't matter how cold he gets, he'd rather do without clothes.

My poor little guy is kinda miserable these days.  'Member what I said about him being able to eat without any trouble and my thankfulness for it?  Yeah, about that.  I was fooling myself.  It became harder and harder to ignore, and now the fussing, night waking, bowel troubles, and horrible rash made me face the facts:  this baby needs some digestive assistance, stat.  So we're working with a wonderful naturopath who has a good plan and we're praying hard for some positive results and relief for our poor, rashy, little crabby-pants.

To top it all off, we're ALSO preparing for a road-trip next week for a visit that I'm sure will be fun and wonderful, even if the actual road-trip is not.  I have some anxiety, I will admit.  Okay, a lot of anxiety.  And I don't have very much time to get ready, and I'm not even close, and I'm sleep-deprived, and I have a very crabby baby to deal with... Breath in, breath out.  It'll be okay, right?

 But I'm not going to think about that!  I'm going to think about partying with my delightful six-year-old!  Focus on the fun stuff!  (Birthday pictures to follow soon, I hope!)

Two Birds, One Stone

This was a great math lesson, AND we got a much-needed task done.

We learned about quarts and pints, counting out a dozen, and the addition/multiplication of dozens.

Fun AND productive.  That's my kinda school.

Grandpa!

Grandpa's here!

 The boys are having so much fun!

...with wrestling...

...and tickling...

...books!...

...and bike riding lessons!

We are enjoying a very rare treat of a visit from my Dad.  It's not often we get to have family around here, so we're soaking it up! 

Easter Preparation

Sometimes I think I enjoy the preparation for a holiday almost as much as the holiday itself.  It's fun to get ready for something fun!  And I really enjoy, in the case of a church holiday, thinking of the symbolism and teachings about the day as I get ready.

We have an Easter breakfast at church, and I was asked to bring some sort of sweet bread.  Cinnamon rolls was suggested, and that would be fine, but it just didn't seem special enough.  Mom reminded me of the fancy Easter breads that my Grandma used to make (based on Ukrainian "Paska").   I got really excited to have a fancy and traditional thing to make for the breakfast.

I used my usual sourdough recipe, but I added lots of soft butter, some sugar, and eggs to the dough to make it rich and sweet (for the sweet reward that is ours to claim).  Then I kneaded in some chopped cranberries and walnuts (for Christ's blood and bitter sufferings).  Two of the loaves I braided, and two of them I shaped in round pans and decorated with swirly crosses and flowers (for... obvious symbolism).

I let them rise in the fridge overnight and baked them this morning.

They didn't quite turn out like I had envisioned, but I guess I just need to keep practicing.  It is bread, after all. I learned some things, and I think I know what I need to do differently next time to make the decorations turn out better.

 

The little "flowers" look a little less than flowerlike, but this is dough we're talking about here.  It's limiting.

Nathan was slightly appalled at first that I nestled colored eggs (red eggs to symbolize the new life we have through Christ's blood). in the dough before baking.  ( He was also disappointed about the lack of cinnamon rolls.  Guess I'll have to make him some, soon.) Yeah, maybe people will think it's weird, and I even thought it was weird when my Grandma did it all those years ago (she made hers round like a nest, though, a detail I'd forgotten, which makes a little more sense).  There are quite a few things that I've come to understand and embrace about what Grandma did that I used to think were weird (or gross!).  Someday, I'll be an grandma, too, and by then I"ll make beautiful Paska, and my grandchildren will think I'm a weird old lady who puts whole eggs in bread.

I had never made braided loaves before, and I was a little bummed that they lost the braided shape upon rising and baking.  But, like I said, I learned some things, and I bet it'll look better next time.  I was also disappointed that the color from the eggs bled all over the bread.  I kinda thought that might happen, and waited to put the eggs in until right before baking, figuring it would surely bleed if they sat there all night.  But they did anyway.  Oh well.  Not sure how to prevent that.

Jonah was asking all week, then nonstop all day today, when it would be time to color eggs.

Today!  Sometime, today, I promise!

It's really a fun, low-stress project with him now.  It used to be chaos, but now he's old enough to need very little direction.  We really had fun with it.  Next year, it will be chaos again with Evan helping!  Fun, fun!

For our Easter dinner, I get to make the food, but not clean my house for company!  Yay!  Best of both worlds.  I'm making most of the food (minus the meat, but including herb-roasted potatoes, balsamic-maple marinated broccoli salad, asparagus "tart", and cherry cake topped with almond strusel) and taking it to our friends' house in Indiana.  I'm looking forward to a good visit with dear friends, and a brief break from the "same ol', same ol'."  Holiday visits with them are always lots of fun.

But for now, back to the preparation!



A blessed Resurrection day to all my dear blog readers!