Choosin' A Wight!

Ari: talk kine, nice woads, no skeemin', & choose a wight make Jesus happy! Seen a song, Mommy, make Jesus happy! (interp: kind, screaming, words, right, sing...:)

Me: {singing} "Choose the right..."

Ari: You choosin' a wight!!

Later...

Mommy: Ari, please don't draw on Mommy's face...

Ari: Not daw on Mommy face, not daw on Daddy face?! Choosin' a wight!

Easter.

 

 Eh, it's an 'ok' vignette, but since thrift is the name of the game & I only paid $5 for the window frame (outdated flowers pictures had to go, painted white, distressed a bit--voila), I'd say it's good enough for this year :)

 The 'Pagan' side

 The 'Real Easter' side

We invited a few friends over....then a few few more last-minute, but they didn't come after all, so it was what was planned for. With my rusty 'meat-making' skills, I attempted a chuck roast in my new roaster and well, it's going back to the store--the roaster that is, though I would take the roast too if they'd let me. As one guest said (I gave him permission & encouragement), "it's a little tough..."Fortunately, the $5, already cooked rotisserie chicken was stellar. We also had a boatload of potatoes, carrots, green salad & fruit tray (thanks Ginny). AND, Carrot Cake, CCK style found here. I made it last year, but wanted to try again since it was a bit dry the first go-around. As I was honest about the roast, I'll be honest about the cake--it was great! So moist, great frosting and a 110% competitor with the most 'unhealthy' of Carrot Cakes :) 

Since our camera is currently uncooperative, there are no other Easter pictures, but we did have a little egg hunt (with agave gummy bears, who knew?) the day before & luckily we have another video device so we got the littles running around with utter glee upon their adorable faces. We also talked about the last week of Christ's life with the boys which is great because the older they get, the more we can discuss. 

Here they be (the pictures...May 5th the pics are inserted!)

poor guy...don't worry...from the future I'm telling you you're about to get a lot better...

And a little pizza on the tramp to go along with the celebratory nature of the day...

Conference was fabulous. We all love it so much and it feeds our soul each and every time...along with our tummies since we had: pumpkin choco chip muffins, fruit dip w/ oat honey pretzels, pb cookies & flax crackers. Not only that, but I found a new thing on Pinterest (new to me at least) to better keep track of my conference notes. I made a couple little ones for the people I visit-teach and one for myself and it worked great! I plan to use it each conference and it will be easier to refer back to them! Hooray!!

I have to point out that this picture/postcard is from one of the elders in the area who was transferred & then sent this to us. It said some kind things and it is so funny.

I have a cork board I use to post school notices and the like that could not hold anything else due to these love notes--isn't that a great problem to have? So, I saved a few, left a couple up & took this picture of the rest to have the memory forever-more.

A visit from mr. pink eye. Thanks to Colloidal Silver, he didn't stay long.

Empty out the toaster & the Vitamix and hang out. What could be more fun?

Rhett learned to 'cheese'

A little couch lovin'...never have too many of those kind of pics!

Once Upon A Maple Farm

We have these awesome friends in the ward who, in turn, have an awesome friend whose family has a certified Maple tree farm which they harvest the sap & make syrup. It was neat because they all work the farm together...aunts, uncles, sisters, brothers, & kids of the afore-mentioned. The season is pretty short (4-8 weeks), but very intense with long hours. They can't have schools come for field trips for liability purposes anymore so they invite as many kids/families as possible instead & we were the lucky ones this weekend! We got to go see the first half of the process (they do the actual boiling down on Sundays :( .

Our crew.

 
The filter

The copper basins that are the originals (like, 100 yrs-ish) that the sap is poured in to boil it down. It takes 300 gallons of sap to make 40 gallons of syrup!

 
All the past jars they've used to package the syrup.

The current jars with the goods.

While they were cleaning the basins, we visited the horses and sheep.

Then the boys rode on the back of the 4-wheeler while the gals rode in a little trailer behind to go check the lines...

The up-to-date technology of maple farms is gravity lines that snake through the trees downhill the sap into big blue containers. 

Our job was to run our hands along the lines checking for squirrel nibbles via the sticky drips, see exhibit A: the picture below (on the black connector piece)

Then, back to the house hitch up the team to go collect from the sap buckets. Work horses are trained together their whole life & if their partner dies, they can't work with another horse...

Jaydon got to sit up front

Watch out, here we come.

A bumpy mile down the muddy road into the trees...hold on, you could fall off for reals.

The path in the trees is narrow & the branches are ruthless say my thighs & their purple bruises

The buckets hung from the spyles on the trees

The sap wagon has a big 200 gallon drum hooked on the back so we'd run to all the trees, pick the big ice chunk out (sap doesn't freeze, just the water in it so that has to be thrown out)... 

...then pour the sap into our buckets 

& then when they're full we take them back to the wagon so they can pour it in. Multiply that by a million and that was what we did :) It was so fun!

Some trees had a couple buckets and the amount of sap varied a ton

Jyson is pointing to a 'scar' from a drilled hole from a previous year...as long as it's not too high on the tree you can drill many many holes, but each has to be so far away from the other holes.

 

This is a picture of an old-time bucket, sap collector

Pretty papery leaves that decided they wanted to stay with their tree.

The forest is beautiful!

Just don't step on any of the rusty relics...we asked about the story behind this car ending up amidst the tree and awesomely...he said he couldn't remember!

Back at this house after our labors...this stained glass was done by the wife of one of the guys there, complete with the little 3D buckets on the trees. Gorgeous.

They called later in the week & said we cut their time in half we were all such great helpers & wondered if we wanted to come back! Seriously, the boys were amazing (so were the little gals), didn't complain a bit about hauling heavy sap buckets and loved every minute! Go Indiana!