My daughter is two and apparently that means she has to do EVERYTHING herself.  I just went through and put her winter clothes away and hung all her summer dresses in her closet.  Now that she can see all her dresses it took a good 5 minutes before she picked one to wear (I was in a patient mood so I let her) She finally decided on her "poka dot dwess"  It's an adorable little dress my dad got her for her birthday.  So she all dressed up with no where to go today.  She's a doll.

I also put my four year olds winter clothes away and got out his summer clothes. Stubborn independence must run in the family since he tried on EVERY shirt and shorts combo before deciding on his monster truck shirt with his denim shorts.  Oh well, he can dress himself and he did even put everything back into his drawer- not neatly folded of course, but it's a start!

Now to do the older two boys clothes today (or over the weekend!)

No, we're not expecting twins, but my cousin's wife just had twin boys late Friday night.  They are the cutest little things.  My cousin is a  John Deere fan (well he used to be anyway, I hope he still is!) so I stayed up late and knit two little hats and one bigger hat for big brother.  They turned out SO cute!  Here's a picture of them

This must be the year of new buildings around here.  My dad bought me a greenhouse for my last birthday and we set it up over the weekend.  I LOVE it!!!  It's just what I wanted and although we have to rig up a more secure way to hold the panels in, it will be so much fun!  I've already set my seeds I had started in it and they are sprouting and pointing straight up and not leaning towards the light from the window (grow lights were never for me)  Here's a picture (of course, a picture is worth 1,000 words!)

Matt was working hard tightening the final screws (what a guy!) and *N* was looking at me but turned last second (don't you love her boots with her sundress? )

The chicks have hatched!  Well 13 of them- and two are not going to make it.  So we'll have 11 new baby chicks.  We'll probably get another dozen next month and try again.  We'd ideally like 18 chickens.  They are so cute and fluffy.  And LOUD-my goodness can they ever peep!  And we're having a tough time coming up with a baby-sitter while we go away to a wedding in less than two weeks!  Let me get a picture up and I'm off to enjoy this beautiful weather!

Today is supposed to be in the 50's and SUNNY!!  It's amazing how much better a day can go when the sun is out.  Everything seems happier.  The children can play outside for hours on end with each other and friends, and I can poke in my garden while enjoying the sunshine.  We planted our seeds Sunday (inside) so we should be having sprouts any day.  And it should only be 2-3 more weeks until we can plant some of the hardier seeds like peas and lettuce, swiss chard and a few other I'm forgetting.  I can't wait until the flowers and roses start blooming- my crocuses are doing ok despite getting frozen once they had almost opened!  Next week some daffodils should start blooming.  And then the primrose, hellebores, creeping phlox, poppies and lupines and then my garden's explode into jungles!  I love it!  And  then the roses.  They would do so much better in a warmer climate, but they are so gorgeous that I baby them anyway.  Who wouldn't smile at a beauty like this:

Chicago Peace rose after the rain

Or this:

About face rose- one of my favorites

And this Colleen Mary smells AMAZING- and it a muc h nicer red in person

I love this combo!

Enjoy!

to get gum out of hair!  My children were chewing gum earlier in the day and were wrestling around on the bed which they enjoy doing all together. And then my youngest son's gum fell out of his mouth and into his only sister's hair!  Now this is our only girl and at two her hair is SO very fine and wispy and short.  When I got into the bedroom *N* was laying on her back with *J* furiously trying to pick the gum out of her hair (and only mashing it in further!)  Poor guy thought he was big trouble.  I picked up *N* (to stop any further mashing) and told *J* it was ok and it was just an accident.  We all went out into the kitchen and I remembered hearing peanut butter worked to get gun out of hair so I figured we had nothing to lose.  The gum was right up next to *N* scalp and cutting it out would've been so extremely noticable and have taken forever to grow out.  So I set *N* on the table got out the tub of peanut butter and went to work.  At first it didn't appear t be working but then I noticed the hair was moving on the gum, so I was able to pick the glob out!  Yippee!  After a quick bath she was as good as new, and my baby has all of her fine thing hair and hopefully it'll thicken up soon. =)

Amongst the rain/snow/sleet last night our "barn" arrived!  Of course we realize it's really just a large shed, but since we'll be having a few animals in it- it will be known as our barn!  Little did I know when I married my city boy almost 11 years ago- he'd adapt so well to country life. =)  So here it is- I LOVE the two doors on it!

I'm so proud of this I have to post it on here too (I have a seperate knitting blog just for my boring knitting, but this is too cute!! )

For a few years my mom has taken the children to her house every Good Friday to dye Easter eggs.  This is the first year that they have ALL been able to go for the whole time- since I normally have a nursing baby who needs to be pretty close.  I don't remember the last time I've had hours in my home alone!  Not that I've done much- Matt told me not to spend it cleaning, so other than throwing laundry in I've just been enjoying.  And I figured I'd post a bit and add some pictures.  I was just telling someone how easy making little girls nightgowns were- so I figured I better get to work!  I bought this Easter material last year for $.50/yard so for less than $1 *N* and her baby have matching nightgowns.  It's not the best picture since she's making a face, but it'll do for now.

Here's one of the four children on St. Patty's Day- the day we celebrated *N* birthday

And here's one from *N* actual birthday

Wow- it's been a while since I've posted.  It's been a sick winter and now spring around here.  The stomach bug has made it's way around TWICE to certain members of the family- the youngest two of course!  If I was the complaining sort I'd even mention that it's SNOWING up here!!  Thankfully I'm not the complaing type.    The biggest news is we are hatching chickens- or attempting too anyway!  We borrowed an incubator from 4H and bought some eggs from friends that have a rooster (and hens of course!)  It's day 4 and so far I can't tell if any of them are fertile!  Maybe we need new batteries for the maglite.  I'm sure it must be strong enough to candle the eggs.  But then again I realy have NO clue what I'm looking for, but it's fun anyhow.  We are hatching rhode island reds, which is cool since I like brown eggs- seems more organic to me.  So hopefully in 3 weeks we'll have some cute little chick pictures- I'd take a picture now, but I'm pretty sure you've all seen eggs before.  =)

That's all for now let me see what new pictures I've uploaded to photobucket to thrill you all with

Oh here's one of a blanket and hat I'm working on for a baby boy due in August.  Cute isn't it?

And one of *N* new doll modeling the hat

*N* turned two on Monday!  What a big girl she is.  I've never had a child turn two before without me being within weeks of delivering the next baby.  It's an odd feeling, and I'm not sure I like it!  =)

The weather is finally warming up around here!  The huge piles of snow are slowly receding, but not quick enough for me.  Although any quicker and we'd have flooding so I guess slow and steady is the way to go.  It was in the 60's yesterday and yet we managed to go snow sliding with a friend.  It was fun- there was one mud spot that off course all theboys gravitated to.  They were covered head to toe with mud- but they had fun. 

My dad's coming up from NJ today and Matt's parents are coming up Friday for the big St Patty's day/ *N* birthday party, so it will be a BUSY week again!

I'll add pictures os *N* birthday when I gett hem off the camera- we made her a sweet little dollhouse.  It's too cute!

We heat our house with an outdoor wood furnace- which I absolutely LOVE (plus Matt does the fire all the time so I never have to deal with it) and we have radient heat in the house- basically the furnace heats the water and the hot water runs through tubes in the floor.  So our floors are always toasty and the house is always nice and warm-since my logic is if we have to have a fire going anyway, it doesn't cost any more to keep the house at 70 than it does at 60 so I'm warm.  We have no large backup heat source so we don't go away in the winter since we need to keep the fire burning.  Thankfully we have two heating zones- upstairs and the finished basement.  Today we wake up to a bit chilly temperature in the house and the upstairs pump isn't working so we are getting no heat upstairs!  It's not freezing yet, but we'll definately be camping out downstairs tonight.  Our guest room is downstairs so Matt and I will have a bed, but the boys will be sleeping baggin' it- which couldn't thrill them more. They are SO excited they are down there already setting up camp.  Not sure what we'll do with *N* yet- she's pretty set in her big girl bed and only likes her big girl bed, but she'll manage for one night.  Other than the lack of bedrooms it's just as comfy as upstairs we have a "living room" and lots of toys down there so we won't exactly be roughing it.  Tomorrow Matt will run over to the plumbers supply store to pick up a filter to fix the pump.  How nice to have a husband who can fix many things =)

Here's some pictures from *J*'s Superman birthday.  It's so funny the kids really have no idea who Superman is, but *J* picked out a Superman T-shirt for Matt for his birthday so we took and ran with it.  It's cute.

We've got dumped on with snow and the piles of snow are perfect for forts and tunnels and slides.  Here's a few pictures of *K* and *A* enjoying the outdoors. *J* and *N* were out for a bit, but then came in to drink hot chocolate =)

I love this picture of *A*- I bought those goggles fro $1 at the thrift store and they've been used constantly!  Best dollar I've spent in a long time!!

*K* and *A* in the fort (the tunnel goes off to the right you can't see it in the picture but it's at least 30 feet long!!)

And one of *A* sticking the flag into the snow.  The flag was a good beach towel that Matt thought would be perfect for the fort (which it was but still!)

I dyed yarn for the first time this weekend.  It was SO much fun!  I only dyed one hank of the worsted weight bare from knitpicks and it seems like the WW is a bit on the thin side, but it turned out pretty.  I used koolaid and just kind of mixed until I liked the colors.  I LOVE the orange, but I wished I would've used yellow instead of pink since they look pretty close to the same color.  I'm making a ribbed spiral hat and it's turning out so nice.  Here's a few pictures- I have two more skeins to dye, plus I found a ton of light slate blue superwash I bought off of ebay that I'm not thrilled with so I'll overdye that with blues, greens and purples.

here's a picture of the hat over the ball of yarn- the orange isn't showing up too well, but it's a gorgeous orange:

And here's a close up of the stitches- again the orange isn't photographing well

It's a long weekend- YIPPEE!!  I am so tired of winter, some weeks I'm exhausted by Wednesday and the rest of the week just drags so very slowly.  Now that we have so much snow I dread having to go anywhere since our driveway is so very long and the wind blows it over so completely I get stuck.  And having to half carry half drag 4 children through the snow isn't as fun as it sounds!   Here's a picture of Matt's truck buried in the snow

One good thing about all this cold and snow is I've gotten lots of knitting time.  I'm working on the Anouk from knitty anouk and I LOVE the colors I'm using- it reminds me of a sunflower.  Here's a picture from yesterday I was on row 50.