New Fun for Spring!

Spring is settling in, and with the goodbye to the puppies comes a hello to new chicks!  ZB was too excited!  She picked them out herself this year from the garden store.  She thinks they are regular play toys, and this is what happened as I was setting up their brooder box!

 We also got a fun new addition to the yard.  I had no idea these climbing domes were made for home use until a friend of mine bought a smaller one.  Bobby and Clay had it assembled in just a few hours, and the kids LOVE it!  Looking forward to many years of use out of this fun climber.

5 Year Old ZB!

Zion Blossom turned 5 years old this week!  She's only been looking forward to it and planning the party for 11 months now.  She started the morning with birthday breakfast (requested waffles and bananas this year) and present opening!

Even a new bike arrived from Grandma, which was immediately adorned with the new basket and bell from Sissa and taken for a ride!

Cake was homemade ice cream cake from vanilla and mint chocolate chip with whipped cream topping.  She wanted to decorate with strawberries, fresh mint leaves and rainbow sprinkles...

Blossom had a few friends over to help celebrate and had a most lovely day!

When uploaded these photos on my computer, I found that the teenagers had gotten hold of my camera after the birthday party!!  Some of the photos were obnoxious (okay, most), but this sweet one was on there of Clay and his girlfriend Bella. So cute that I had to share!

Puppy Party

We've had two of the cutest weeks here!  We fostered 2 brother puppies from the local shelter.  They were 6 weeks old when abandoned, and can't be adopted until 8 weeks old.  The kids named them Mikey & Curry. 

They were absolute snuggle bundles and occupied much of our time (how can you get work done when a puppy needs to play?!?)

 Bath day!

 We were sad to return them to the shelter.  However, knowing how quickly puppies are adopted there, I doubt they even spent the night at the shelter before finding their forever homes!

Mighty Wind

We had a terrific wind storm here in WNC!  I was honestly a bit afraid to bring ZB to her preschool, as it's held in cloth yurt in the forest!  She fared fine, of course.  The real issue was our own property.

As we were getting ready to head out in the morning, this cedar split off one of it's trunks.  We're so thankful that the worst it did was crush a fence!  And this makes excellent firewood, so that's always good.
About an hour later, one of our hemlocks came down.

This one went right into the neighbor's yard, taking down a few lines on it's way.  The fire department came out and cut it out of the neighbor's driveway and the power company repaired the line quickly.  Bobby and that neighbor spent the next couple hours sawing and clearing the rest of it.

The rest of the day was spent hauling that wood to the back yard, and sawing up the cedar that was down in the back.  Another neighbor came over and helped out with that job, which was so sweet!  We are blessed to have such great neighbors!

Even with 2 chainsaws working, ZB was quite content to gather cedar berries in her basket, and climb the piles of brush!

Today, the wind settled down.  We had a fantastic bonfire with a lot of the hemlock.  I cooked dinner on the fire, and we even got to stay out for hours and enjoy the night as a fresh coat of snow came down around us!

Snowpocalypse

So, when NC gets any amount of snow, people are terrified of it.  Schools shut down for flurries.  This 7-1/2" of snow was called Snowpocalypse! hahaha!  We all had a great time in it!

ZB named big chunks of snow "snow rocks" and delighted in collecting them.

We walked down the street to a church that has a pretty good hill and took our sled for some rides.

Even Bobby got in on the snowy action!

After a couple days of falling powdery snow, we had a sunny day with nice packable snow.  Yep, this is a SnowLady.  ZB insisted on making the boobs herself!

I know other states were hit harder than we were, but I hope everyone enjoyed these snowy days!

Christmas Presents (still)

In case you didn't know, my kids are awesome!  For Christmas, Reed asked for money from relatives so he could get his computer repaired and buy a couple other smaller things.  He checked everything off his list and then made a deposit in his bank account with the remainder.  From Bobby and I, he asked for a trip to Wilderness at the Smokies hotel water park.  Yay!

He got to invite two of his great friends and we went earlier this week.

The boys went on every slide so many times, enjoyed the hot tub, and of course just getting to hang out together in the nice hotel room!

Reed even wanted ZB to come along.  She only enjoyed the smaller slides, and loved the little kids' area and the shallow end of the wave pool.

She even wanted to make a music video of her singing in the waves!


What a great way to start off the week!

Pretend Trees and Real Cake!

If I had it my way, we'd totally ignore the Christmas holiday season.  My kids are mostly fine with that, but do like to have *something* to decorate the house and of course like receiving a few thoughtful gifts!  Each year, the tree is a creative problem-solving task.
This year, I found a bunch of felt at the thrift store and the kids got to work!

I cut out a large tree shape and taped it to the wall.  The kids worked probably a solid hour on making ornaments.

Reed made a sweet Pokemon ball:

ZB cut a few large shapes and then cut up little scraps.  Now, these ornaments can be mixed & matched on different days, since nothing is fastened together, besides the magic of felt stickiness.

And in the last couple days since we've made this - ZB has woken up first thing in the morning to re-arrange ornaments or make new ones (or change old ones).

Earlier this week, Reed found a Southern Living 1986 Cookbook at the Goodwill.  He LOVES it! He's been busy making shopping lists, and cooking up a storm.  Today, he made mini pound cakes.  Fortunately, ZB informed us that it's Dolly's birthday today, so the cake would be in honor of her :)  It was delicious!