The Barnharts: April 2015

Easter 2015

Coloring eggs...you can't imagine how hard it was for me to have to buy those white eggs at the store, but I wasn't sure how well brown eggs would dye.

Easter Morning

Well, it's the end of an era. Ty figured it out about the Easter Bunny this year. Christy spent the night with us for Easter, and on Saturday night Justin and I went out to eat at Ruth's Chris so we didn't get home to start all the Easter stuff until around 11:00. Ty was still awake but Christy was with him, so we figured he'd stay in bed so we went ahead and started filling eggs. Well he snuck out. Justin found him and he said he saw the baskets and thought we were eating candy and he said he had been thinking that maybe that's because the Easter bunny doesn't come but that we do it. And Justin didn't have a choice but to tell him. I was afraid he'd be upset but he was proud of himself for figuring it out. He said, "I'm really smart because I figured it out, but I'll make sure Dallas doesn't know." (That's my sweet boy!) We knew this was coming soon, but I'm still a little sad about it. As far as I know, though, he hasn't extrapolated this to Santa yet, so maybe we'll get one more year. Maybe. It's awfully cute, though, that now he thinks he's very grown up because he knows the secret that little kids don't know. He told Christy he wondered if he should tell Cooper, but he decided that he shouldn't...presumably because Cooper's younger than him, and, therefore, still a little kid.

Ball Practice

This year Dallas moved up to the PeeWee league. His coach is Preston's dad, and a bunch of his friends from preschool are on his team again. Should be a fun year. He's really improving on his throwing now that Justin's taught him to step with the correct foot.

Ty moved up to the Rookie league this year. He is on the Marlins and has the same coach as last year. His best friend, Jason is on his team, which was a totally unexpected surprise. He learned how to slide at this practice. His coach calls him "Wheels" since he runs so fast. At the end of the practice he had them run the bases and he said if anyone could catch Ty he would let them play whatever position they wanted. Nobody could, of course. On the way home Ty goes, "My coach calls me wheels and (sheepishly) I kinda like it."

An unrelated funny Ty story:

Tonight I was telling Ty that his feet stank (cuz they DID! Whew!) Before bed he was in the bathroom pooping. The rest of us were goofing around in his room, and he yelled from the bathroom, "Dad, you know what's funny? The smell I have right now, it kinda smells like you." We were all laughing so hard because we thought he meant his poop that it took us a while to figure out that he was talking about the smell of his feet. Not sure that's much better, though....

Valentine's Day

This is a little out of order, but here is the card Ty made me for Valentine's Day. It was so sweet, I just have to share

"Ty loves you Mom and here is a surprise for you."

"I will love you forever Love Ty Dallas and Dad."

They all 3 made me this birdhouse. That heart on top is Ty's first ever attempt at using the router. I'm so proud of my little craftsmen!

Girl Trouble

Ty wouldn't want me discussing this in a semi-public forum, so anyone who reads this don't talk about it to him. I just wanted to put it in here for my own memories. Ty has his first girlfriend at school, Kate. A while back he was having some problems with her that Justin and I had to help him figure out because evidently he told her he would only be her boyfriend if she didn't tell anybody (in true Ty fashion...he is so me.) Well, she was telling people and embarrassing him so he wanted to stop being her boyfriend. Also like me, though, he was very hesitant to confront her about it like it had been suggested to him, so he tried just not saying anything for a few days. Poor little guy worried about it all week. Finally everything must have gotten worked out, though, because at the end of the week I found this from her in his backpack. I asked him if he had given her a drawing first and he said yes. :)

Barnhart Acres Update

Here's what's new around our little wanna-be "homestead." After much deliberation, I finally made the jump and started buying raw milk from a farmer nearby. So far I am very please, although my homemade dairy products that I have been wanting to get my hands on some fresh cream in order to try have only had limited success thus far.

Here is the first batch of cream that I separated...

...and was only able to get this little pad of butter out of all of that. I haven't figured out my problem yet, but every time I use a mixer of any sort I haven't been able to make either whipped cream or butter. It just turns into this weird half butter half cream cheese looking stuff that's no good for anything. I was finally able to get this butter by going low tech and just shaking the cream by hand in a mason jar. I think maybe I'm getting too much milk in with the cream when I separate it, so I'm going to experiment with some changes to my method. I'll keep you posted...

We also had 2 unexpected additions to our flock. Two weekends ago, Justin asked me if I wanted to go check out the garden stuff at Orscheln's (Come to find out on the way there he only suggested that because there's a tackle shop next door. At the bottom of this post I'll share a little story about Dallas trying to trick me into going to Tractor Supply so he could get a sucker. The apple doesn't fall far form the tree). Anyway, when we got there they had Easter Egger chicks....guess Justin's strategy backfired. So we brought home 2 of them. I have to say it's WAY easier to raise 2 chicks than 15!

So far the hens don't seem to care one way or the other about the chicks. My Buff Orpington is broody right now, so we tried to convince her that she had hatched them, but it was a no-go. So the chicks are convinced that all of us are their moms. It was so cute to watch them in the yard. They'd follow right behind whichever one of us was closest to them and when we'd crouch down they'd find a nice hiding spot under our legs. They're really cute and sweet, although I'm ready for them to be old enough to live outside. I got home from work yesterday, and the black one was walking around my kitchen .

A conversation with Dallas:

(Let me preface this by saying that recently we went to Tractor Supply for something. They have big suckers by the checkout that the boys wanted. They didn't get any on that trip, which is what precipitated this story.)

Me: "Dallas, get your shoes on. We have to go to the bank."

Dallas: "Ugh, I hate the bank."

Me: "Well if you're good they have suckers there."

Dallas: "Mom, don't you need to have 2 bags of chicken food?"

Me: "No, why?"

Dallas: "Because then if you run out of chicken food in one bag you could just go to the garage and get food out of the other bag so you won't run out."

Me: "Do you just want to go to Tractor Supply for some reason?" (The suckers dawned on me AFTER I asked that.)

Dallas: (With his "Justin" grin) "They have better suckers there, Mom."

Needless to say, Justin was very proud (and we DID go to Tractor Supply and get the better suckers. What can I say, I always fall for the Barney charm)!

Our Family

Dallas brought me in to the playroom last week to show me this picture that he had drawn of our family. It just about made my heart melt. I'm so glad that he sees love in his home. Made me happy...

Spring Break

Spring Break Trip to Great Wolf Lodge

March 17-19, 2015

We had such a good time at Great Wolf Lodge the last time we went that we decided to go back. This year we were looking forward to the fact that the boys are old enough to play by themselves some so we could spend some time in the hot tub...something we missed out on last time.