A Happy Swirl of Chaos

I've mentioned here on the blog a few times recently, that life has been in a bit of chaos mode the last few months.   It's not that anything is wrong, it's just that we are long on things to do on our calendar and short on routine and spare time.  As part of that happy swirl of chaos,  in the last month we've had the following houseguests stay with us:  

💗Cami and her family 

💗My cousin, Aaron,  and 2 of his kiddos

💗Cami's sister-in-law, Marissa, and her 2 kiddos

💗My sister-in-law, Mika, and my niece, McKenzie, who was just heading into the Provo MTC

💗Adam, who is in between 2 apartment contracts (#byuhomelessweek)


Honestly, we love hosting people and being able to host is one of my favorite parts about living in Utah.   In addition to the bonus it is to live in a crossroads area, where so many people come and go, we also enjoy having a house with enough beds that we can even host more than one group of people at once, which happened a couple times this summer.  

I didn't take any pics of Aaron or Marissa while they were here, but below you will find pictures galore that show a glimpse of the fun we've had over the last few weeks!  

🐔  One of Lucie's dreams before arriving to Utah was to hold one of our chickens.   We aren't quite sure how that particular activity made it onto her bucket list, but she talked about it incessantly after arriving and we decided that was a dream that was easy to help come true, so we brought her out to the chicken coop bright and early the morning after they arrived.   When it came down to it, she was a little too nervous about actually holding one, but I think sitting close to a chicken and being able to touch it more than satisfied her chicken holding dreams.    Finding the eggs in the nesting box sealed the deal and she was happy as a clam about it all!   

🐴  Lucie's other big Utah dream was to ride a pony.  I had taken her to the farm at Thanksgiving Point a year or two ago, and apparently it was a core memory for her, because she still remembers many of the details of it.   She happily got on the pony and was feeling pretty confident about the whole experience, but about 30 seconds into the ride, we had a little hiccup when one of the ponies got spooked and they all stopped suddenly...  

🐴They took everyone off the ponies and let them chill for a bit without any riders, then allowed them everyone back on again...only this time she was very nervous.   We eventually convinced her to get back on (a different pony) and with her Mom at her side, she was able to overcome her fear and try again.  

🏡We also enjoyed frequent visits from Adam, Emma, Heather, and Rosy-Nanna while Cam was here.   I loved loved loved having the sights and sounds of having a houseful again!   

😣I am so kicking myself that Glen and I didn't hop into these photos my sister, Heather, took while she was visiting one day.   We are still missing Ellie on her mission and Garrett, who hadn't arrived yet, but it was an almost full crew otherwise.  I think it had a good chance of becoming our Christmas card photo this year, but now we will have to see.   I'm thinking a collage...

🍛The night after my cousin, Aaron, and his two boys stayed here, we hosted a YSA dinner at our home.  We loved having the extra sets of hands, with Cam here, to help with the cleaning and prep.    Glen smoked a brisket and we served brisket tacos, roasted corn salad, watermelon, and lemon strawberry shortcake.  The food was VERY well-received and we loved having the YSAs in our home for an evening! 

👶Oliver is at a delightful stage of life (around 18-months-old) and I very much enjoyed watching him learn and grow right before our eyes. He's only been walking for a month or two, but he's quite the adventurer now and I loved hearing him try to say new words.  He was obsessed with our toy cars and he ended up adopting one of the few teddy bears we still had left in the house, after hew grew pretty attached to it during his time here.  He is a sweetie pie!   

👸I also really enjoyed my interactions with Little Miss Sassy Lucie!   She'll be four in a couple months and she is a girl who knows what she wants in life...which is made-up stories, dress-up clothes, all the good food, and no naps!   When she's slept well, she's fun, talkative, and silly.  When she's fighting bedtime or skipping her naps, she can be quite the grump, but she's still pretty darn sweet even when she's grumpy! 

👪Some adventures we went on together included, early morning walks to my Dad's grave and the neighborhood farm where we saw peacocks, camels, horses, cows, etc , Thanksgiving Point to see the butterflies and ride the ponies, meals out on the deck, holding the chickens, a visit to our YSA ward... 

🚗And a  visit to Midway to hang out with Cami's sisters-in-law and Lucie and Oliver's cousins.  We visited the Ballerina Farm Store, where we got some good food.  Then we mostly just window shopped at several cute boutiques.     Marissa, Annie Grace, and Jack stayed with us one of those nights too.  

🌄Cami and Adam hiked Kyhv Peak together.  Spence started out with them, but ended up turning back before they reached the top.  I think they both really enjoyed the sunset hike together.  

😐After a few days, Cami and her family took off for a B family reunion at Sundance.  It was sad knowing they were so close, yet mostly out of reach, but we tried to embrace sharing them like the mature adults we are (most of the time).  We did join them for a dinner one night in the canyon, which was fun, because we love Garrett's family and it was fun to be able to spend a little bonus time with them!   (a couple of these photos are from the evening in the canyon, but, sadly, I did not take many).  

💕Then Mika and McKenzie came to stay with us for a few days!   McKenzie had just finished Home MTC and was heading to Provo MTC before her mission to Gilbert, AZ.  It was delightful to have a missionary in our home again for a bit and I very much enjoyed the time to catch up with my sister-in-law, Mika!   We miss living close to them!   Sadly, they just missed seeing Cami and kids, as McKenzie's drop-off time was at the exact time Cami had a couple hours back here at home before we  drove them to the airport.   

👴👵As per usual, we loved the opportunity to be Gigi and Papa in real life.   It's fun to send postcards and do Facetimes with them  when they are far away, but there's nothing quite like the snuggles, giggles, and  general silliness that come with spending time together in the same house

💗💗💗

Saying Goodbye to the Chicks

Remember the little baby chicks in our bathtub from a few weeks ago?  

Well, I am pleased to say that with Ellie's, Adam's, and Emma's tender loving care that...

Rose....                                            Felix.....                                                and Stripe....

are all grown up....

and now free ranging it at Shelly's farm (pics coming soon)!  

And the best part of all?

Getting rid of the chicks meant we had room for Spence to bring home a new pet.    

Spence adopted Zeus from the animal shelter on Saturday.    Spence and Zeus are only here for a couple more days until Spence heads back to school this week, but Zeus has already become a well-loved figure in our home.

Except for Rocky (our dog).  He hates Zeus with a passion and barks incessantly at the closed door where the cat is staying until Spence leaves.

I think that he thinks that he's protecting us from the "big, bad" cat, that's actually quite sweet and nice, but all he's really doing is ensuring that the next pet we welcome into our home is more likely to be a quiet, easygoing feline instead of an obnoxious barky, underwear chewing canine.

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Welcome to the Zoo (literally)

On Monday, we were a normal suburban family with five kids, two minivans, and a dog.

On Tuesday, things got weird fast.

 First thing that morning we got a phone call that it was time to pick up our new  baby chickens from the post office.   We're only taking care of them for a few weeks, but my kids were grinning ear-to-ear at the cuteness that lay within that little chirping box.

FYI this is what chicks look like when they get sent by mail.  Three of the four survived the trip.

Our kids immediately claimed and named them, except for poor Emma who happen to be the last one home that day and by default ended up with the dead one being named hers.

Meet Rose (the yellow one, named by Ellie), Stripe (the tan one, named by Adam), and Felix (the black one, named by Cami)...our temporary pet chickens.

We don't have enough yard to keep them when they're older, but our friend, Shelly, was nice enough to let us "foster" them for a few weeks for her.  They're all females and will eventually grow up to be free ranging egg-laying hens on Shelly's mini farm.

The kids are in love....

Most of the kids anyway...

We are keeping them in our bathtub with a heat lamp, which explains the inordinate amount of time my kids have been spending in the bathroom the last couple days.   Whenever I don't see them for a while, I can guess where they've ended up.   

Well, we thought that getting those baby chicks  was the end of the excitement at our house, but today my friend Lillian dropped by with a few more additions to our little zoo.

We've got a pretzel jar hosting luna moth caterpillars.  They eat only sweet gum and hickory leaves, so our first order of business was locating a suitable source of food for them.  Luckily we found a sweet gum tree about a half mile walk from here.  They will turn into gorgeous moths eventually.  

Lillian also brought us some Cope's gray tree frog tadpoles....

and a praying mantis egg case (of which I took no picture of).   

I figure that now that we've got a regular zoo going on here, I may as well invite the whole world to come visit.  If you happen to live locally and want to come see our little menagerie of wildlife, give me a call.  

Speaking of wildlife, our adventure with animals continued into the evening time.  While we were at the pool, we suddenly started noticing a little brouhaha with a teenage boys and a bird going on at the fence line.  When we  went to investigate what all the commotion was about,  we discovered a poor little parakeet who was clearly out of his element in the great outdoors.    He seemed disoriented,  skittish, yet oddly drawn to all the people.  I called my friend who had a parakeet and she informed us that he would certainly die if left in the wild. 

Thus began our mission to save the poor little thing.  

It took a lot of finagling and several prayers, but eventually we got the little fellow into a box (with the help of some teenagers)....

and for the second time in two days, we got  into our car with a box containing a live bird...

we brought it to my friend Julie's house,  where they are fully decked out for a pet bird.

Julie placed a FOUND ad on Craigslist and my kids are making signs to hang around the pool, so that hopefully we can return him to its rightful owner.

With up close experiences with six different animal species (including our dog) in a two-day period of time, now we are wondering what kind of animal adventures tomorrow will bring.   A pet unicorn?   Maybe a flamingo?

Whatever it is...we are ready!


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Distracting Myself...

Things are getting really weird in my neck of the woods.   

Read here if you want to know what I'm talking about and keep in mind that this lady is from my ward  and that it's my wonderful bishop she's badmouthing and feeding to the media wolves.  

As a result, I am edgy, sad, worried, and  standing in need of some serious mental distraction....

so tonight I'm posting about cutest, most innocent, most distracting thing I can think of.

Baby chicks!   

My friend, Shelly, invited us to her house to admire and hold the cute little fuzz balls that had just arrived in the mail (yes, the mail!) that very morning! 

My kids couldn't get enough of them...

and would have stayed there all day if I had let them.  

Cami even skipped school for the cause...

And don't ask me quite how this happened, but somehow these cute kiddos...

talked me into fostering some chicks at our house too.  

We don't have the space in our yard to keep full grown chickens, but we are going to pick up some little babies in the mail this coming week and take care of them for a few weeks, before bringing them back to Shelly's farm.  

My kids are sooooooooo excited and I hereby invite any and all wannabe countryfolk  

to drop by and visit our three-week long bathtub based little farmstead, 

because....

 it's gonna be cute in here!  

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