The Birds...

Our house has been taken over by birds and their nests!  We are finding nests everywhere...

This is a huge rose bush in the backyard.  The nest was cradled inside the branches, and I guess the birds broke off or bent some of the branches trying to get the nest set. I am going to give it a week or two and make sure no residents are there before I cut back the branches.

They love the drain pipes!

One in a dead tree that I have marked to take down.  I am going to give it a couple of weeks before having the tree removed to I don't disturb any babies!

The owner of this nest is really aggressive.  We have a slot for newspapers under our mailbox.  Logan grabbed the paper the other day and said something was in the box.  He pulled it out before I could get to him. Fortunately, there were no eggs in it.  When I mentioned it to Lyndon that night, he said that he had already pulled out several nests and threw them away.  I was horrified that he had done that.  He said he thought the boys were putting stuff in there and did not realize they were nests. But, I guess it does not matter because they rebuild in record time apparently! I will leave it alone for a week or two and see what happens.  I guess I will have to leave a note for the newspaper guy!

And, it is not just birds.  We have two rabbit nests in the front yard.  I watched one rabbit work really hard one day gathering stuff for her nest.  It is under this small bush.  There is another one in the island right in the middle of the yard.  I covered it up with mulch not realizing what it was.  The next day there was another hole in the same place.  I am really hoping to have some pictures soon of baby birds and bunnies! We shall see!

Meals!

One day late is better than never!  I will get used to this new schedule...eventually!
April 25-May 1
25) Chicken tortilla soup
26) Egg Sandwiches with salad
27) Sneaky baked zitti with fresh fruit
28) chicken chow mein
29) leftovers/ out to eat
30) easy stroganoff with asparagus
May1) Chicken enchiladas with rice and black beans
Happy Meal Planning!

Happy Easter!

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead...

~ 1 Peter 1:3.

On a day filled with egg hunts, bunnies, great food and new spring frocks, let us all remember the true purpose for our celebration.  Jesus is the son of God who has died for us so that we may have life. On this day, I pray you will celebrate in the beauty of renewal and growth and God's amazing grace!  May you all have a blessed Easter surrounded by family and His love! 

Planting of veggies!

A little egg coloring!

Sweet gifts from Nana and Papa! Thank you!

The Easter bunny visited!

Not my grandma's banana pudding, but still pretty yummy!

The boys got a combination of money and candy in their eggs.  Luke opened one that had a dollar bill in it and was upset there was no candy.  Logan kept looking for the ones with money!  Gotta love kids!

Content with candy!

The loot!  We are trying our best to teach the kids about money.  We have created money jars for them.  It is something we learned about through our financial class at church.  One jar is to save, one is to spend and one is for tithing.  I will let you know how it goes over the next few months.  Of course now this means that they have to get money from somewhere, so we have decided to do a chore chart and give them a small allowance to start with.  I am not a fan of paying them at this age, but it is not like they have other opportunities to make money so they can learn about spending.  I figure a few dollars a month will give them something to start with.  We shall see!  Here is to a wonderful Easter!

Big help and mystery smells!

I walked into the living room the other day and discovered this...

...Logan was folding laundry.  I had left two baskets full of laundry on the couch.  I did not ask him to do it; he just walked over and started.  He and Luke (who joined him a bit later) folded both baskets for me, and they did a really good job!  It is moments like these that make me feel like Lyndon and I are doing something right.  Lyndon sets a great example for the boys in that he is constantly helping me out with household stuff making sure not to define housework as a woman's job.  One of my goals for them is to make them self-sufficient so that they never expect anyone to do for them what they can do themselves including laundry, cleaning and cooking.  This is a step in the right direction!  Thank you boys for your help during a rough week, and thank you Lyndon for being a great daddy!

In other news, we returned from our great vacation to a disgusting smell in the closet right off the kitchen.  My mom had discovered it while we were gone.  She suggested it could be something in the walls after we cleaned out the closet and did not find anything.  I cringed at what that meant, so I did what I could to get help.  It took four days and several calls, but I finally found someone who specializes in this kind of work...thank God for people who take on these kinds of jobs.

This man walked in and called it right away, a dead mouse in the wall.  It was pretty amazing how quickly he found it and extracted it.  I was very perplexed at how this happened considering it got in through the attic and made its way down to the bottom floor.  Needless to say, I am going to have pest control out to do some serious work in our attic. Apparently, we are not the only ones to have this kind of issue before, but it grosses me out nontheless!  Once again, I am grateful to the wonderful people of AA Wildlife, and I hope to never see them again!

Meals!

And here they are for the week of April 18-24!  Happy meal planning!

18) Eggplant croquettes with homemade bread
19) Chicken pita sandwiches
20) Broccoli and beef polenta with asparagus
21) Homemade pizza
22) leftovers/out to eat
23) Mini cheddar potatoes with salad
24) Beef stir fry with rice

San Francisco!

We had the priveledge of traveling to the skinny pants capital this past week!  I love this city and the surrounding towns, minus the possible earthquakes.  This is my 5th visit out there, and I still have not seen everything.  I could totally live in either Napa or Sonoma if I could convince Lyndon to move there and if I was not concerned about falling off into the ocean.  But, otherwise, I would go in a heartbeat.  Oh, and I guess we would have to have A LOT of money seeing that it boast one the othe most expensive areas in the U.S. to buy real estate. In the meantime, it is a great place to visit! Here are some pics for you to enjoy!

We had to take a trolley ride!

It is difficult to see in the picture, but our hotel is the one with The Palace on the top. It is the oldest hotel in San Francisco. It is really a beautiful hotel and right in the middle of the city!

Pier 39

Napa!

This was our first stop.  We did a tour and tasting at this place!  They make yummy champagne!

Our second stop, Rubicon winery! This winery is owned by the Coppola family as in Francis Ford-Coppola!

This tree was on the property.  It has both oranges and lemons, on the same branch.  I have never seen anything like it!

We at lunch at this amazing winery! The building was old but very beautiful!

Our third stop was the Robert Mondavi winery, the oldest winery in California!

This is a statue of St. Francis, the patron saint of nature and animals...and wine?

Mondavi wine barrels!

Our last stop was the Beringer winery!

This house was built by the original Beringer proprietor.  It is gorgeous, and they use it now for wine tastings!

These bottles date back to the 1940's!

Beringer winery had tunnels that were used to store wine back in the day.  They still use them for storage and for tastings and parties!

We also took a day trip to Sausalito!  It had great shopping and beautiful houses...very expensive houses!

A little rock art in Sausalito!  They had some great art galleries one of which had some original art by Dr. Seuss!

Just one of the examples of some of the fun things one can see in San Francisco!

Alcatrez

Something that I found interesting and never knew about Alcatrez is that there were several families that lived on the tiny island.  There were schools, and stores and a small post office.  I guess I thought that the guards and staff simply lived in the city and only worked here.  They said that they never felt unsafe or even locked their doors.  I am not sure I would be ok with my children inhabiting a tiny island with a man named "Machine Gun" Kelly...

This man was an inmate at Alcatrez for several years.  He was there to talk about his experience which was very interesting.  He was one of only six inmates that was actually released from Alcatrez!  The others either died at Alcatrez or were taken to other facilities when they finished their time there.

Solitary confinement...very creepy. 

The cells are tiny, but the inmates seemed to use what space they had to make it their own. 

This is a very small window in one of the halls that looks out over San Francisco. 

This is another view of the city from the prison.  This is basically what the inmates saw when they got a glimpse outside parts of the prison.  It is just a mile away but very out of reach.  There were several escape attempts because I am sure a mile swim seems attainable, but that water is miserably cold and rough. 

I will leave you with this picture.  This is just one of the houses that I would be happy to live in if we lived in Napa, had a lot of money and did not mind living in walking distance from one of the oldest wineries in California!