Happy Easter!

Wishing you all a hoppy day full of sunshine n flowers!

Keeping faith

Soooo, it's still here.

winter.

 blech!

I've great faith in the Lord and am eager for Easter.

I've lost my faith in spring.

Sarah n I are really sick. Jack is bored.

Awesome.

I went outside to try n help him with his snowman.

I did it wrong.

Broke his snowman.

Overexposed my pics.

It's the invisible snowman!

Oh well, I'd rather be practicing my photography. indoors.

Looking at these pretty springlike posies .

or

Jack kissing crocus again for mommy's photo replay

 remembering last Monday when I practiced my outdoor photography in manual mode.

(wish I could actually improve!)

Guess they're marginally better than years past, when I could only shoot in auto.

Anyone remember these?!

Preschool Jack spontaneously kissing crocus!

taken three years ago when I started this blog (that seems like yesterday)!!!

Since it was a school slush snow day so we did some of my pins!

Starting with this gluten free goodness aptly named

The avalanche bar!

Truthfully it was almost too sweet for me....

But we mustered up more paper snowflakes, epsom salt vases n glue snowmen...

If we got more snow, this would be great!

But right now I feel more like doing this!

Party Animals!

We're goofballs e v e r y d a y 

But today I really clowned around!

I surprised the kids with tickets to the travelling circus.

(Actually, I'm a bad mom cause they've never been yet!)

By way of announcing it, I dressed the part and surprised them by waiting with 

pancakes n circus candles on (the big) top when they came into the kitchen.

After their initial shock n giggles, the kids just acted like their usual selves...

Down to Jack trying to juggle while wearing roller skates

I packed goodie bags as surprises for the (45 min) drive too.

(I'm cheap)

Now maybe they can enjoy their own cotton candy, bouncy balls, silly squeezers, 

peanuts n MnMs, Barnum Animal crackers, whistling candies etc and 

avoid the over priced concessions!

Hope you find some time to clown around too!

Lucky(?!) the Leprechaun

I didn't really believe they were so bad.
I'd thought they were cute...
They are obnoxious!!!

Last night our house was rolled, clean toilets left unflushed with green pee. Maybe even footprints (?!) leading down the drain.
I was pretty mad as I'd just cleaned my very best for (my brother) Uncle Ben's overnight visit.
When we came down the furniture was all tipped over and even my table decor was a mess.
But one of my old books titled Irish Houses and Castles was also pulled off the shelf and left marked open to a pretty pic with a foxhunting scene.
Guess Lucky knew we're going to the season's final fox hunt this morning! (An Irish tradition to be sure)! 

My own little Leprechaun!

There were several notes scattered about as well!

The first read ~

Once there was a child who I knew
They looked a little like you
They got out of bed
"Good morning" they said
Then found somethings new in their shoe.

*the kids found a bag of gold chocolate coins and Orange, green n gold gumdrops in their riding boots!

the next note read ~
There better be real gold when I come back next year!

and then~
Guess who, guess who, had a lot of mischievous things to do?
Did you see, did you see?
Don't even bother looking,
you can't catch me!

Okay, we've eaten our Lucky Charms w/green milk as a quick breakfast (snacks n goodies packed for the hunt breakfast to follow) now off to pretty our ponies and don our green checked shirts etc!
Yes, there is corned beef n cabbage already waiting in the crockpot.

Our sweet friend Miss Paula always helps everyone!

ALL photos of the hunt are due to the generosity of photographer Randy Hulse!

Carrollton season end breakfast at Windswept

Uncle Ben is still sleeping - won't he wake to a surprise!
BtW~ we now realize that Lucky the Leprechaun was able to do all this because our poor dogs slept in the barn while Ben's dog was up in his room. I guess cats can't keep Leprechauns out. Or, more likely, cats are accomplices?!

Made by my bff Lori @ Dancing Fireflies

This weather is for the birds

Are you snug?

I know that many of my bloggy buds have been hit hard by big snows.

Sadly, we haven't... yet.

Our winter has been c o l d and had frequent flurries but little real snow.

Dear Tammy at Flat Creek Farm has a gorgeous blog and she's outdone herself with this slow motion video set to music of birds at her very snowy feeder!

So far we've only had one snow worthy of real sledding...

And this is how we rednecks do it:

With the old farm truck towing kids through crop fields while Olivia follows!

Sarah's no dummy - she's in front w/ goggles!

Go check out Tammy's post for cultured snowy serenity!

And THINK SPRING!  ;-P