April 29, 2015

We've been walking most every evening for a while now.  I wish I could say it's made me svelte; it hasn't.  It has, however, been a nice way to talk about our day, see our neighbors and watch spring erupt.

Our house is on stilts because of the marsh, and there is a wood lattice in the front of the house that climbing roses adhere to.  Jed rides his bike while we walk, and he parks it right behind the lattice on one end.  You can see through the lattice to the front yard, and last night while he was putting his bike away, Jed saw a cardinal fly away from the climbing roses to a nearby tree.  Thinking that was strange, he came upstairs onto the front porch and looked around the area at the end of the house where he saw the bird, and discovered a nest in the climbing roses.  There were 4 perfect little eggs nestled in there. We were so excited!

This morning he and I went back to get a picture of the nest and in the process disturbed both the mother and father.  The mother fluttered around so that I couldn't get a picture of her, but I did get a picture of the father settled on a branch in the same tree he was in last night.  Interestingly, we couldn't get a clear view of the nest this morning...it was as if the parents had fluffed up the leaves to hide it from view.  But what we did see amazed us...we could only see one egg clearly, but the one to the left of it in this picture looks like it is broken in half, and Jed thinks he saw a baby. 

The last time we had a nest we could watch, a squirrel or some other critter got into it and we only found little bits of the babies left behind.  We were heartbroken.  This time, we're thinking the nest might be safe from intruders because the climbing roses wouldn't be sturdy enough to support the weight of a squirrel if it tried to get into the nest.  We're hoping to watch these eggs hatch and see the babies grow into fledglings that eventually leave the nest to make their own homes.

April 25, 2015

Brad brought Dyce and Decker for a visit this weekend.
It was overcast and chilly, so of course we headed for the beach.  :)

April 7, 2015

Jed got his first job today!

The pine trees in our area, the ones that are giving him such a fit with their pollen, are long leaf pines.  They make huge pine cones, which people actually sell on etsy.

We were walking this evening and happened to come upon a neighbor mowing his grass.  There were a ton of these large pine cones on the other side of his yard, where he hadn't mowed yet.  Jed offered to pick them up for him, and somehow or other, he struck a bargain with the man that he would pick them up for the rest of the summer for $10.  He brought home two large trash bags full of pine cones, and this crisp $10 bill (which I actually had to iron to make it crisp :).

This might be the start of a nice little business for him.  Tracy's been wanting to retire and now maybe he can.  :)

April 5, 2015

 Happy Easter!

 I'm so glad Jed still gets excited about Easter baskets!  :)

 The best surprise was tucked in the back.  :)

We still put Jesus in the tomb even though it's not as much of a surprise to find the tomb empty on Easter morning as it used to be.  :)

This was a fun surprise too...I haven't made these in a few years...resurrection rolls.  

They look normal when you bite into them...

...but it's a huge surprise to find the inside hollow, just like the tomb on Easter morning.  

To make them, you dip a large marshmallow in melted butter and roll it in cinnamon sugar,

 then wrap it up in a crescent roll and bake.  

The marshmallow melts, leaving behind a hollow roll with an inside layer of cinnamon sugar.  

Yum.

 The inside of the roll...isn't that the neatest thing?

 Our Easter eggs, in all their glory.

April 4, 2015

I know this looks suspiciously like a spa treatment, but Jed was actually suffering - the pollen here is really kicking his behind.  After playing soccer out in the yard, his eyes were not only bloodshot but swollen underneath to painful-looking proportions.  I wish I had gotten a picture of that, but it didn't seem appropriate at the time.  :)  BTW, the cucumbers didn't work.  Neither did milk-soaked cotton balls or the expensive anti-itch eye drops I got for him that night.  They say time heals all wounds, and in this case, it was the only thing that did.

I have a new Secret Pal at church...this year it's a retired couple.  I don't know if the husband will care much about these beautiful hydrangeas, but I think the wife will enjoy them as much as I have.  It was kind of hard to let them go.  :)

April 2, 2015

We've been having a Passover meal for several years now on the Thursday before Easter.  It's a simple dinner of lamb, bitter herbs (aka Brussels sprouts), roasted potatoes, and other roasted veggies since Tracy hates Brussels sprouts.  I haven't yet tackled unleavened bread but I do have desserts made with dates.  This year we shared our Passover meal with friends from church and had a lovely evening.

April 1, 2015

April Fool's Day!
We started off the morning with a healthy breakfast of eggs, sunny side up...

...only Jed didn't think they looked quite right.
haha
He was right...they were peach halves on top of yogurt.
I think if the peaches had been smaller he might have been fooled.  :)

He was excited to learn that I had made Kool-Aid and even more excited to see that I offered it to him for breakfast.
I wish you could have seen his face when he brought the glass to his mouth and nothing came out!
Unfortunately, I didn't get a picture of it before he stuck his fork in this glass of Jello.  :)

I laughed all the way to the refrigerator to get him a glass of milk.  

Only it had gelatin in it too - and he fell for it again!!!!  

He was such a good sport -
he laughed as much as I did.  :)

I made brownies in the morning while he was doing some independent schoolwork,
and he asked for one after lunch.
Being a health-conscious mom, I offered him only one brown E.  :)
I know that prank is kind of lame
but I still think it's kind of funny.  :) 

This was probably my favorite prank, and Dad, I know it will be yours as well...
they didn't look like much by the time I took this picture,
but these caramel apples were beautiful when I offered one to Jed.
Imagine his surprise when he bit into it to discover it was a caramel onion!
Yum.

This one was pretty funny too...
we read a few poems each day out of this book so it was sitting on our school table
and Jed jumped on that dollar bill sticking out like a tick jumping on a dog.
Only when he pulled it out he saw that it was just the corner,
attached to a note warning him not to chase easy riches. :)