March Madness

- March 31, 2014

Brynne celebrated her 14th Birthday last week! Per her request, Josh and I shared the cost of an iPod touch with her. She was T.H.R.I.L.L.E.D. to say the least. Otherwise, it was a quiet birthday for her. We made lemon cupcakes and took them to school to share. It was a new recipe but turned out pretty tasty, if I do say so myself (see all my lemon-y pins on pinterest for the recipes!)

Strawberry Shortcake for her birthday dessert.

Love note from Mom and Dad and bouquet of flowers - she loves to have fresh flowers in her room.

The GIFT!!

On Brynne's birthday, Faith turned 4 months old. She hasn't grown any longer ( I seriously think she did her first six months of growing in two months) and still fits size 3-6 months. She hasn't been my easiest baby, but life is slowly getting more manageable with her. Good thing she's so cute!

Growing 4 month old playing with her sisters!

Hannah leaves for Nicaragua in ONE WEEK. I can hardly believe we are already here. They have a flurry of last minute fundraisers going on this week, so she is pretty busy.

I'm really looking forward to my Oregon trip. So tempting to go to Corvallis (my kids need dental check ups) but I'm not sure how Faith is going to handle all that driving, so I don't know. I haven't even brought the idea up with Josh because it just seems a little too overwhelming. The furthest we've taken her without stopping was Cloverdale, so this will be our first big road trip.

Okay. I'm just going to dump a bunch of photos here. I've been working on compiling a blogbook comprised of pertinent posts from our last blog. It's turned into two massive books so far. ;-) Someday I'll do the same with this one. I noticed I used to write MUCH more interesting posts. Now I barely have time to record all the information that I want written down. I'll have to try to do better.

We bought an automatic chicken door. Katie mentioned the idea to me on the phone and since it had never occurred to me that we could do something like that, I had to look into it. It wasn't cheap, but once I calculated how much I will pay this year alone for someone to come watch our chickens - it seemed foolish not to do it! Now I'll only need someone to come every other day to collect eggs and won't need to ask someone to come twice a day. I can pay less that way. ;-)

I'm still dairy free and getting used to it. It doesn't seem like such a big deal anymore. I had the best dairy-free pizza at Megan's house. Megan - don't forget I need that crust recipe. It was seriously so good I didn't even miss the cheese, and I think the tasty crust was the secret. I also got to watch Megan's master pizza making skillz and learned that I really should stick with using my stone. I had stopped because my pizzas weren't turning out on it. Now I know some secrets to properly using it and I am excited to try again. Secret #1 - hot, hot oven (and don't forget to preheat with the stone in it).

At the Botanical Gardens with our picnic lunch enjoying some sun and letting the girls do some nature drawing with their new clipboards.