Apple Picking

We took the apple kids picking this past weekend. We were having incredibly warm weather for October and picked apples with shorts on, something about that just felt off. The kids had a great time!

Egg Hunt

Easter Morning 2011

The Easter came to The McFarland house and sure did leave a mess, thank goodness I didn't find poop on the floor!

Helicopter Egg Drop

A local church was putting on an egg drop for the kids on Saturday.  Jessica, PapaMom and the boys came out to go to it with us.  We got there on time to register and had to wait around an hour for it to begin.  It was at the middle school on the athletic field.  It had rained the night before so you can only imagine how muddy it was.  We met up with Tim, Angie and Chloe and waited for the drop to begin.  The longer we waited the more people showed up.  Finally we heard the helicopter in the distance, it hovered above the field and dropped thousands of plastic Easter eggs.  Once it flew off the horn blew for the kids to begin getting the eggs.  The crowds moved in, we searched the ground, squeezed further into the crowd, searched the ground and......did not find one egg!!  Aiden cried for a good five minutes as kids with baskets full of eggs walked by.  All around kids were crying with empty baskets.  We met back up with Kyle and David who each had found one egg.  They were such good big cousin and gave their eggs to Aiden and Owen.  Next year.....we won't be doing the egg drop.

After reading about the event online I found out the church expected 4,000 kids more than 8,000 showed up.  Add parents to that number and there were A LOT of people there.

Coloring Easter Eggs

I bought a new kit this year to color eggs, it was a tye dye kit and it was horrible!  It was taking forever, one egg at a time, and the colors weren't very bright.  It dawned on me I still had the egg spinner from last year in the basement, so I went down to look for it.  Of course while I was down there Owen spilled the green dye all over the counter, good thing he's so cute.  The boys had a lot more fun with the spinner and the eggs turned out beautiful. 

Popsicles

It hit 83 yesterday, you know what that means......POPSICLES!!

Colored Bubbles

 






Dear Crayola,
Your new colored bubbles are very pretty. I have to say I'm surprised how vibrant the bubbles were when the kids blew them. But I have to believe the inventors of this product do not in fact have children themselves. These were THE messiest thing I think they have ever played with!! Everywhere the bubbles land they leave a little "love". The driveway, the hood of the car and the siding on the house do not apprieciate said "love". These will only be played at Grandma's while the children are naked from now on.

Sincerely,
Lindsey

Spring Zoo

 We LOVE the zoo! I could go 100 times and it never gets old. The weather man promised 60 and sunny, what we really got was 45 and cloudy but that didn't matter the boys had fun anyway. We even got Papamom to tag along. It was Luke's first visit and he got excited seeing the animals, the few he saw while he wasn't napping.

Hiking

The boys have really enjoyed going hiking in the evenings.  Owen has to pick up every stick and every rock and try to carry them all with him.  Gary showed the boys how to start a fire this last time, they thought that was pretty cool. 

Happy 8th Birthday David

We celebrated David's {I was informed he'd like to go by Dave, though he will always be David to Aunt Lindsey} 8th birthday today.  The boys had a great time with nerf guns shooting anyone that was in range.  Time sure does fly!  We love ya David James!

47

47.  It was 47 degress today and you would have thought it was 80!  The sun was out and the snow was melting.  I pulled out the mud boots today only to discover that Aiden's didn't fit so we made an emergency trip to Target for a new pair.  The boys loved jumping in the puddles.  There is even talk of a trip downtown to walk the boardwalk and possibly get icecream. {Crazy I know}

First Snow

The first snow of the year has arrived and two little boys were so anxious to get out there and build a snowman.  Bad news though, it was 8 degrees out and it wasn't snowman snow.  Aiden didn't understand that there is differend kinds of snow and kept telling me to make a snowball so he could start rolling.    So instead of snowmen we made a few snow angels and called it a day, it was too cold.

 

Painting at The Scott's

Jessica and Tony decided to paint their house so Gary went over with the boys while I worked on Sunday.


Before: White house with black trim



Tony and Gary hard at work


Almost After:
The guys were almost done painting...the garage door and some trim needs to be done. Of course they only got the front of the house finished. Good luck Tony on the other three..lol


The boys had soo much fun hanging with their cousins for the day. When I got home from work I was shocked how dirty they were! Owen was covered in dirt from head to......

toe.....



Both the boys got a bath at Aunt Jessica's before heading home.

Our Day In Pictures....

Goats, Canning, Playing, cousins, Peacocks, baby, chickens, four-wheeler...fun!

The Park

The boys ask to go to the park as much as possible lately. Aiden LOVES the slid, e and you usually can't get Owen off the swing. Most of the time we head downtown to the Mill Pond and play there then go feed the ducks and walk to Dairy Queen. Aiden asked the other day if we could go to the other park. I asked him why he didn't want to go to the Mill Pond. He said Daddy always wants to leave and go feed the ducks and get ice cream and the other park doesn't have ducks or ice cream so Dad won't want to leave and I can play the whole time. He's a smart cookie.

Nature Center

I took the boys to the Kensington Park Nature Center on Saturday. We packed a picnic lunch and a fun scavenger hunt I made up for them. They each had a clip board with a crayon and paper showing some of the things they might find while we were out hiking. Aiden had a blast looking for our items and circling them as he found them.

Raspberry Jam

My in-laws have raspberry bushes in their garden and this year has been a great crop. The last two years they have hardly got berries, but this year with all the rain and nice warm days, they've had a HUGE crop. The boys and I picked a ton and decided to make some jam. I found the simplest and tastiest recipe, no sure-gel was needed.

Aiden and Owen helped me smash the berries and measure the sugar.



The finished product!!!


Raspberry Jam
4c. mashed raspberries
4c. granulated sugar
1T. lemon juice

Bring 4 cups mashed berries to a boil in pot
Let them boil approx. 2 minutes
Add 4 cups sugar and 1 T. lemon juice
Stir until the sugar dissolves and bring back up to a boil
Let the berry/ sugar mix boil approx. 4 minutes.
Spoon into hot sterilized jars.

Chloe Comes Over To Play

Tim came over to work on the plumbing in the bathroom the other day and brought along Chloe to play with the boys. I was daring enough to pull out the play-doh for all three of the kids to play with


Chloe

Building a tower....

Easter Eggs

I found the greatest thing to color Easter eggs this year at Walmart. It was an egg spinner, and to top it off it was only 5 bucks!! You put the egg in, put a few drops of colored dye on the egg, snap the top on and push the button to spin the egg. It was fantastic, no spilled dye, no splashing, even Owen could do it.

Happy 7th Birthday David!

Tomorrow is David's 7th birthday, boy how times flies I remember being so excited to be an aunt!

Jessica and Tony had a little bowling party today for David and a few of his friends. The boys had a great time, it was Aiden and Owen's first time bowling. Owen was so excited, anything that involves a ball gets him excited.