The Fancy Chickens Get Even Fancier

Well, as I mentioned before, my birthday gifts largely included chicken-related items. Among those, the first additions to the coop included a food stand with jingle bells and a swing! That head of lettuce was not long for the world, so I'm thinking they liked that fancification. Also, isn't this year's Lavendar Orpington (there are two, Ma and Aunt Docia) just the fluffiest?!

Imagine my surprise to find some fancy inside the chickens' water bucket! It is hard to understand from the pictures, but it was a clear cube of ice that was hollow in the middle and missing one end. Inside the shards of ice looked like giant glass snowflakes, it was the prettiest thing!!

Fancified chickens, coming up next! On an oddly warm and humid December day, Brennen and I decided to head up the hill to dress the chickens in their winter best . . . they were not fans! Lol! But, how cute are they in their little hats and scarves? They were too big for the denim aprons, I didn't even try the helmets, but Honey Chicken looks pretty ladylike in her red-polka dot apron :)

What on earth happened to you?! All the chickens are perplexed :)

This look seems to say, "I am NOT amused." Ha!

It might have been harder to get the clothes off the chickens, since they were running away from the things attached to them. Brennen is a good chicken catcher, though :)

Pastor chicken update . . . they got an egg!! Too cute, so exciting, yay chickens!!

Couch Shopping

It could no longer be avoided. The springs had sprung. The cushions had crushed. My attempts at sewing the large holes in the fabric of our decade-old, floor-model sectional were at their end. But did you know, that along with everything else, there is a couch shortage? There is! In fact, we went to one of the largest furniture stores, probably on the planet, and they had one . . .  ONE couch that fit the layout of our downstairs. I'm sure it had to be a God thing that the couch we moved to this house fit the layout, because it seems couches like that aren't very easy to find. Also, if we wanted a custom designed couch, we were looking at 18 months before it went into production. Gasp!

We took the boys with us, and they agreed because we promised a stop at the football card store and to buy them dinner :) Both of those things happened, as did a grocery shopping trip and attempt to return my incorrect vision correcting contacts. But first--hours, HOURS, I tell you! trying to find a couch that wasn't stupid expensive and would fit our needs. The boys thought the overstuffed, squishy couch pictured below was nice. In fact, I think G$ might have taken a short snooze in its fluffy depths. While Buck and I debated our limited potential seating options, the bored boys wandered the store taking pictures of overpriced chachkies--they make their own fun! A few treasures included: a massive golden ant, made of bronze, that registered in the hundreds on the price tag, a variety of also bronzed turtles in a variety of sizes, and singing frog statues that were about two feet tall. Yes indeed, they found some pretty great stuff, lol!

Pictured above are the only two couches we found in the store and in the discount store that might work. The first was wheeeeee! for a price, and the second was meh-looking, shorter than our current couch, but had a pull-out bed. Ooh, tempting! I was so tired of trying to make a decision at that point, that we just walked away. I later went online and pulled up a couch at the same store the current, fitting couch came from--they exist! In our price range! Well, not many. Most options were completely sold out, but there was one (with free delivery) . . . 

Taadaa!! I like the gray; it matches the carpet. What it does NOT match--is everything else :) We have done nothing with this "family room" since we moved in; that wall color is the color that was there when we bought the house. So now, we get to redecorate (it really is time!) So, Buck and I went to the paint store and picked out these really cool, unique colors that we both like!

And then I got home, walked into the kitchen, looked at the paint sample in my hand, walked over to the kitchen window, looked between the trim and the cabinet, and stuck it in the gap. The fabulous "new" color we purchased, Splishy Splashy, is the EXACT same color we picked for the kitchen a few years ago, Racing the Rain. Lol, at least we're consistent :)

Hopefully, when we wrap up our school year for Christmas break, we'll have some time to get the downstairs project started and completed. It will be fun to have a new look to the room we spend a lot of time in, but never did much to make our own (other than pictures on the wall). Stay tuned!

Weekend in the Woods

Buck usually tries to pack in some back-to-back days off leading into the Christmas season; he can't take vacation, so it is usually a long stretch of workdays on either end of snuggled up regular days off. Normally, we head up to the small town near my family where Buck and the kids participate in the first weekend of deer season hunting. However, since they hunted already in Colorado, we decided to use a few of those weekend days (we gave one back) to spend 40 hours with our NGFs in the woods. Well, sort of :) 

There's a resort state park with a kabillion amenities that is basically impossible to book without planning years in advance. During the winter season, though, it's a little bit friendlier on the reservation side of things. I liked that we didn't have to bring bedding, towels, rugs, hot pads, etc. etc. Plus only staying two nights meant that we didn't need to bring the full range of meal preparation luggage, either. 

The downside was that the on-site restaurant we were going to order pizza from the first night, was closed the entire time we were there. But the upside to that is, the six of us had to go out to eat and we found the BEST bbq restaurant we've eaten at since the KC trip we took . . . when was that? We were drooling. Buck was over the moon about his smoked sausage and everything else sandwich. The onion flower (Caelan had to order it because it was a flower ;) was extraordinarily crispy without the usual grease puddle at the bottom. The sauce was saucy, the Crew was happy :) It felt like we were on vacation! All of us together, this time 💓

So the "cabin" we rented turned out to be massive. The main level had a kitchen with two stoves/ovens, two sinks, and even two toasters :) There were enough cupboards for the little kids to play an epic game of hide-and-seek (Brennen was the seeker and got a few very unexpected surprises when he popped open doors that seemed impossible for children to be hiding behind :). Each side of the living room had a hallway with two big bedrooms and a bathroom. The back bedrooms were connected by a screened-in porch (which was also behind the fireplace). Buck kept a wood fire roaring over the hearth, and we were all snug and cozy in the giant space.

When our NGFs are around, there is also a lot of tech around. Oculus took Buck and the kids into other worlds to fight robot dinosaurs, a high-end drone flew through the house before crashing on the turn down the stairs, videos games appeared on every phone screen, and (a bit lower tech) the kids played poker in the basement, ha! Well, it was really a lower level more than a basement. It also had two bedrooms and two bathrooms (one bedroom had an additional murphy bed and the other had bunk beds; one bathroom had a jetted tub the size of a small swimming pool ;) and a full-sized kitchen (minus the stove), with an additional seating area/TV, foosball table, and of course the poker table. Clearly this place was set up for family reunions and large gatherings. Buck LOVED it!

The next day was the coldest we've had this season. The kids stayed up, literally all night, but after breakfast Gabby and Brennen set out to find out about bikes and observation towers and hiking trails--they came back bright pink and shaking with cold. They decided to take naps and stay indoors while we parents went shopping! We didn't expect the nearby country town to be so charming. It was like my favorite little town that we moved from, but in another state! Our mission was directed at browsing one cute store, but we ended up finding a whole street of them! All the old buildings with original hardwood floors, mosaic tiles, tin roof panels, adorable, quaint, loved it! We giggled and explored and laughed at all the stackable animal designs Buck found (one had glitter water swirling around it like a snow globe). And coffee, the guys and my NGF found so much coffee (not for me, of course, I had a hot chocolate :) 

We shopped and talked and sipped and after a couple of hours got a text from the cabin saying, "We're hungry. Should we be starting lunch?" Well, I didn't plan in a lunch, because we ate breakfast late and were having soup for supper. So, we stopped at the grocery store and bought a bunch of sandwich stuff (the man in the "deli" gave us freshly sliced turkey for a fraction of its *for sale* price, because he was so surprised anyone would actually ask him to slice it, and he thought it was marked too expensively anyway--we got $30 plus dollars' worth of fancy brand meat for under $10 and so did our NGFs). 

The kids were happy to eat when we got back, and we all found ways to keep busy until the activity center opened in the late afternoon. I addressed Christmas cards, my NGF edited photos, and the dads took naps :) No one wanted to go outside, so the trails remained unexplored and the ponds remained unfished and the mini golf course remained unplayed, but maybe next time we'll be able to do those things and more!

I found Caelan a sign :)

While we were disappointed that the outdoor ice rink was not yet up and running (it was in the 60s last week), the indoor rock-climbing gym was no joke! What a cool feature to have available to guests at the resort. The kids climbed and climbed and repelled (which took a lot of courage the first time from some of those heights), they raced, they challenged themselves, and they all had achy hands and sore arms to remember the experience by ;) Also, the massive indoor playground was pretty fun, even for the big kids in the crowd.

That time when the kids were literally climbing the walls, lol!

Hot soup and bread tasted just right for supper. Evening activities included watching football by the fire, the little girls chasing Brennen around the cabin, and decorating giant gingerbread men with the youngest of our NGFs' bunch.

We parents required sleep by midnight and all the kids complied. Caelan got up early to head to class, but not until we'd enjoyed our NGFs' traditional family Christmas breakfast of croissant French toast with berries, whipped cream, and syrup. She put my burnt eggs from the morning before to shame (I cannot stand those silver cooking pans without the non-stick bottoms and it seems like that's the kind of pan EVERY rental property chooses to stock their cupboards with, ugh :)

We made a few stops along the way home and then did lots of truck stuff (because Buck's NGF is a police officer and he said our truck is a prime target for theft; he actually recommended a club and some anti-theft lights). We got it registered and got plates and paid taxes (gasp!). The girls went to work, the rest of us unpacked, and we ordered that elusive pizza from the first night for dinner at home. I also put my quaint, country-town find in the Christmas tree--aww, a nest of eggs! Overall, I'd say it was a nice little weekend away. Yay for that!