Saturday, March 30, 2013

Easter Week - Part 3

With Easter, comes fun decorations. Mostly for the boys. 

These flowers came from our property where Kevin and Karson were walking and found them. Everytime Karson brings me flowers he adds in "Will you marry me?" :)


I found these little bunnies at Hobby Lobby a few years ago. The boys call them Peter Rabbit. We are enjoying that new show on Nick.

Karson helped me make this little banner one day when we were cooped up in the house with snow.


Last month we Kevin painted the entire kitchen and living room. This was A LOT of painting. Of course I was getting ready to have people over for a party and so that was great motivation to finish it in only 2 days. I can honestly get so much more done when parties are coming up. We painted it a light tan and he finished up all of the trim work himself too.

I bought a new rug to go under my kitchen table at Garden Ridge. A store near Cincinnati  OH and it is amazing. We are planning to go back this Spring for outdoors items. 


The boys have kept plastic eggs in this basket on my table and we've hid eggs throughout the house for the past month. They love for me to hide coins in them and see who can find the most money and count it up. A great math game :)




My front porch looks pretty sad. It's too cold to get out and even plant pansies  I have had this big Easter rabbit for over 4 years that my mom made. I love it as well as an egg wreath she made a few years ago too. Hopefully we can get our porch looking better with ferns, flowers, and new furniture here in the next month. I am so ready for this to be my favorite spot again!


Hope your ready for Easter. Like always, I am behind on the boys baskets. I have 2 little things each for them so I am headed out this evening once Kevin is home for the rest. I am cutting it a little close this year. 

Happy Easter!

Wednesday, March 27, 2013

Easter Week - Part 2

Today I'm going to talk about Easter Parties. We had our Easter party this week with our
Mother's Club and it was so much fun! One of our friends hosted at her house, and decorated awesome for the kids, and had yummy food, crafts, and we did our egg hunt indoors because it was snowing and cold. Karson and another little boy were the only 4 year olds (and the oldest at the party) so they did the egg hiding. The moms didn't mind this :) He looked SO big! I can't believe it's my boy that is the oldest and can do the "big boy" things for our group. He had the best time with his friends.


Jessica had crafts for the kids and they all really enjoyed it! They were big Easter eggs and then pretty Easter stickers and Spring stickers that were easy for the kids to peel the backs off. They could ALL do this craft on their own while the moms watched. It was wonderful!


Since Jessica has a little boy, my boys were in heaven as well as most of the boys that came. He had lots of fun boy stuff, but the girls also played so well too. I think it's harder for boys to go to girls houses, rather than girls coming to boys houses. The girls will really play with anything, but normally boys don't want to play with babies or dress up in princess.


Jessica even gave out these adorable little baskets for the kids to put their eggs in. Kipton was so excited that there was actually candy in the eggs. We have been hiding and finding eggs in our house for the past month, but this was a real treat that there was actually something in them!


The boys checking out their loot of candy, stickers, and coins.


We tried for a group picture, but some of the babies weren't in the picture. 


I urge you as a mom to find a Mother's group near your area. If your kids are under 5 and not in school, it really is the best thing you could do for yourself, and for your kids. We have had so much fun meeting new people and learning to work together. 

Monday, March 25, 2013

Easter Week - Part 1

This week leading up to Easter, I'm going to post some Easter ideas for kids. 

Today's post is DIY Easter Pictures

I don't know about you, but the thought of going to a studio for pictures makes me not so excited.
The backdrop is not so fun, it's hard to get your kids to listen to this strange person, and it always seems about 100 degrees in there. 

I love outdoors pictures, but since it's snowing here we moved things into our living room.


All you need is a sheet as your backdrop, and a good camera. I put mine over our front door and used clothespins to hold it up. I looked around our house to see what I could find for a prop for them to sit on. 
I brought some of our baby ducks and chicks in from our garage (which I know not everyone has) and we got on our Easter shirts and pants and away we went.

Poor Karson has a big red mark on his forehead from running into a door! :)


For my first time taking pictures indoors things went great! I needed to add another sheet because I can see our hardwood floors in some of the pictures and can't crop it out. I always edit the pictures on my computer using a program we have that came with our Canon camera.







Here are some out takes of the boys trying to feed the ducks.

First it was carrots???

This was Karson's idea, so he ran to the fridge for some carrots.


Then it was some of the Easter lilies we used. 
They actually liked the flowers and were nibbling them. The boys were DYING laughing! 


So, if your looking to do pictures of your kids for cheap and without the studio, try them at home!

They will probably turn out just as good!


Sunday, March 24, 2013

Random March Pictures

I have a bunch of random pictures from this month that I wanted to add to remember how life was in 2013.

We have been catch MANY raccoon and possums in our cage because they LOVE my back porch. Kevin said this one in particular was so MEAN and was biting, hissing, and clawing at him through the cage :) 

Kevin takes the animals far away and lets them loose which probably defeats the purpose but, it is a good lesson for our boys to see. They know these animals will hurt our chickens. 


 Nana & Papaw Brad offered to buy Kipton a new big boy bed. We had no issues, and he went to bed immediately  It has been a easy transition. Thanking God for that!


We have had a few days this month with 60 degree weather, and then it starts snowing the next day. On one of the days, we planted more grass. I think the worst part of building a new house is getting grass to grow. Especially here in West Virginia. Everything is ROCK! Kevin tilled up the entire front and side yard and we raked, shoveled out the rocks, planted grass seed, fertilizer, and then spread out the hay. We also did this last spring and lost it all with a very HOT summer.


Karson was taking pictures and snapped this one. It has been a job that is back breaking, but hopefully it will be worth it. 


I can't believe Karson is 4. He is so funny, and loves to wear pajamas. 
On this day, the boys took all of the books that we own and threw them behind this chair and said they were building a campfire! Then, guess who had to pick up the campfire?


Kipton on the other hand, wants jeans on as soon as he wakes up!
He loves to put things in his pockets, especially coins so he wants his jeans on. 
He must get it from Kevin, because I'm not a jeans girl.

Poor Kevin not only works 12 hour shifts, but normally has something to catch up on here.
Building chicken cages, fixing a busted water pipe, cleaning up the mess from the water leak under the house,  it's always something. Thankful for a husband who is not afraid of work.

Friday, March 22, 2013

Favorite Pinterest Ideas

I am linking up with Kelly's Korner on Show us your Life: Favorite Pinterest Ideas.

I LOVE Pinterest! It is my "night time" go to after the boys are in bed.

You can find me HERE:
http://pinterest.com/stacydick

Some of my favorite things right now to look up are Spring/Outdoor Ideas. 
We have been stuck in this house all winter, and I am ready for flowers, grass, leaves, and fun in the sun!


I love these pansies in this old time garden tub. I need to find me one!


I have so many Mason Jars stored up. I need to spray paint them like these.
The boys are always finding me flowers, or Kevin is bringing them in and this would be super cute!

I have had my eyes on ways to build bookshelves. We will eventually build them in our living room and have a fireplace with mantle in the middle of the bookshelves. I dream at these pictures!



I love this look! I love french country.


I need help with drapes. I am not a curtain person. 

I would love to use this idea in the boys bathroom with a fun printed curtain. 


Mostly, I look for things for the boys. 

School ideas, play ideas, entertainment ideas, all of the above.


This idea is at the TOP of my list!

I want to create these gutter bookshelves in Kipton's room and in our Playroom.
I would also love to create a reading nook in the Playroom.

Hope your enjoying Pinterest like I am!

Wednesday, March 20, 2013

What I'm loving Wednesday!

It has been a long time since I participated in the
 "What I"m Loving Wednesday" posts, but I thought it might be fun. Here goes!


We are a little behind times, and just discovered Netflix. 

We are trying it out FREE for a month to see if it's something we'd like. I'm not sure about it yet. I think if I were to drop our cable and just have Netflix like many people are doing, I would miss my shows like The Bachelor, Dancing with the Starts, and Army Wives. But as of now, we love it!


We have been watching movies after the boys go to bed.
We watched "The Rebound" and it was really good. 



Of course, we are LOVING Duck Dynasty. I can't wait for tonight!

Wednesday is now the best night of the week :)


After Pinteresting, I discovered I should be using a Primer before putting on my foundation. 
I bought this one at Target today. I am LOVING it so far, but we will see if it actually controls the shine.


And of course, I am loving our 23 sweet baby chicks, and 4 sweet ducks. 

O and the best thing of all, My boys! :)



HAPPY 1st day of SPRING :)





Monday, March 18, 2013

Raising Baby Chicks

Each year after Karson's birthday (March 10th) we go and buy baby chicks. We have for the past 3 years. It is honestly the most fun we have with these baby chicks. We love to teach the boys about them and snuggle and love on them. They learn to love us too and end up following us around when they are bigger because they have grown up around the boys. 

We have our big chickens and rooster in our outdoor cage that is away from our house. It is where we will eventually build a barn, but for now we just raise chickens. 

So after Kevin finished up his pallet built cage for the baby chicks we were off to Tractor Supply.


We couldn't even make it home before this boy was BUSTING to hold one of these precious chicks. 
We ended up getting 15 baby chicks. We got our usual Rhode Island Reds. These chickens are great layers and will lay eggs without a rooster. We have had great luck with them so we are kinda prone to keep getting them. Plus they are so good with the kids and have never pecked or flogged anyone :)


To stay on our budget, Kevin built our new cage to keep our baby chicks in bigger than we had last year. He used pallets that his work was going to throw away. He put two of them on the bottom and reused wood and even reused the nails from the old pallets to build this cage. We had chicken wire left from our big chicken cage so this new (bigger) chick cage was completely FREE!


Karson couldn't contain his excitement and before Kevin even finished up with the chicken wire he was loading his chicks in. 


We have had a lot of fun building this cage. The boys have put their new tools from Christmas to good use the past few weeks. This is such a good lesson for boys. 

Learning to use tools the correct way.
Working together.
Working with their daddy.
Planning out the way the cage will keep the chicks safe and a sturdy cage as well. 
Science, Social Studies, Math all in one project :) 



You have to be super careful with the chicks. They will just slip right out of your hands. It always looks like I am strangling them, but They actually love to be held and get so warm by your human body temperature.


So after much begging to daddy, we came home with 2 Mallard ducks as well :) After researching about ducks and chicks being together, it is very much advised to raise them together. 

They were out of the white ducks when we went, but today Nana & Papaw Brad went back and bought 2 more white ducks and 4 more baby chicks. 

That totals us with 19 baby chicks and 4 baby ducks. 
I am so excited to get them raised up and see them off to join their friends down the hill in the big chicken cage. I will be so excited to see my ducks swim in the little baby pool.


I would advise anyone looking to "begin" a farm to start with chickens. It is such a good learning experience for young kids and it's something you can learn as you go.