Surprise on the Bunny Front

Yesterday afternoon after co-op, my friend Sue and her crew stopped by to have a little peek at the bunnies', ahem, reproductive areas.  Much to my dismay, Strawberry is not so aptly named!  Should be more like the Mike part of Mike and Ike.  Yeah. :(  He had already sprouted the necessary gear to start the baby bunny-making process, so he had to vacate these premises forthwith!  He went back to his previous owners last night and we will wait and see if one of the other two bunnies that are available might possibly be a girl. Otherwise, Sue and her crew are expecting baby bunnies soon and we may be able to get a girl from them eventually.  Until then Shortcake is hanging solo, except Ailey keeps her lots of company. :)

Bunnies!

Sam and I have been talking for some time about possibly getting bunnies.  We are very interested in their poo for our garden and we were thinking they would be good first pets for the kids.  Well, it came sooner than expected.  We found out there were some bunnies in need of a good home and so we took the plunge!  Our newest additions:

We borrowed a cage from our fantastic friend Sue D.  She also supplied us with that first batch of hay and the feeder.  Thanks so much, Sue!

We started discussing names and Braden immediately came up with Rosie and there were some other rather odd names, but we kept on brainstorming until we all agreed on two names.  The list we had was:

Lavern and Shirley
Kit and Kat
Peppermint and Patty
Butterball
Peanut butter and Jelly (thanks James!)
ice and cream
nilla and wafer

Sam put in the following:

Thing 1 and Thing 2
Appetizer #1 & #2
PM 1 & 2 (poop machine)

We finally settled on Strawberry and Shortcake.

This is Strawberry (she's the oldest):

This is Shortcake:

They are so very sweet and fun and super soft!

I've already run amuck at Petsmart.  Sam was a trooper and went out the first night we got them to buy a water bottle.  It was the only kind at the store and it was a total flop.  The claim on the bottle was that it didn't leak.  Well, we filled it up and it immediately started leaking.  Yeah.  I gave it a chance, but to no avail.  After I had to fill it up twice within two hours and it leaked all over the floor by the morning, I was done and went to find another that evening.  The one we now have does not leak.  It has a water droplet that hangs out at the end of the tube after the bunnies have gotten a drink, but that's all.  Yay!

I, of course, had to google as much info as I could find about keeping bunnies as pets and I came across this lady on youtube.



She is a fountain of info and its neat that the kids can watch how they are supposed to handle and care for the rabbits.  After watching the one above about litter training a rabbit, I put that into action and it works!  Woohoo!  I also fixed a rabbit run so that the kiddos can have access to the bunnies throughout the day and the bunnies are not stuck in the cage.

Our next goal, which will hopefully be realized this weekend, is to build an outdoor rabbit hutch and play enclosure.  I have found these online and really like them:




















I like the first and the last the best because of the larger doors.  I want the kids to be able to get into the enclosure to play with them.  I would also like to put two wheels on one end to be able to roll it around the yard so the bunnies can partake of the green grass goodness for as long as it lasts. ;)

Be my Valentine!

Sam and I had plans to go to the Valentine Banquet hosted by and benefitting our youth group at church.  On Monday, Braden woke up with a sore throat, but I thought it was just drainage.  Later that day, he had a fever, but I was still just observing.  He slept that night okay, but when he woke up this morning, his throat was worse and he was still feverish. :(  He was having a very hard time eating and drinking and I was thinking he might have strep, so I called the doctor, got an appointment and away we went.  My suspicions were correct and we got the necessary antibiotics, but we had a bit of a pickle.  We had already paid for the banquet and childcare.  So, Sam came up with a great idea!  He suggested I take Zekey as my date and he would stay home with Braden.  Ailey and Brea could still go into child care.  I was running around trying to get stuff for the bunnies and the prescription for Braden and decided to pick up Rudy's for Sam and Braden's Valentine's Day feast.  Couldn't let my guys go hungry on Valentine's!


I got back and purtied myself up.  Sam helped me get the kiddos ready and into the van.

There's my little Breaboops!

Here's Lerloo all gussied up, too!  I've been really loving her hair like this lately.  She has, too, for that matter. :)

Here is my handsome date!

I asked him what he was thinking about when we first started eating our salads and he pointed to the chocolate cheesecake sitting in front of him!  Haha!

After a very patient, but undoubtedly excruciatingly long wait, he finally got to dig into the chocolate yumminess....

He was very happy about it. :)

He sat all the way through the whole 2+ hours.  I think there was one other kiddo in the dining area, but we weren't close to her.  He ate all that focused attention up!  Everyone was talking with him and paying him compliments and he was loving every minute of it. I asked him two separate times if he wanted to go into the children's area and play, but both times he said he would rather stay in with me!  I loved spending this time with him. It was very special and this type of thing seems to be his main love language. :)  I'm thinking we may be doing more of this type of thing with each of the kids.  We go on mommy or daddy dates with the kids one on one to the store or running errands, but this is pretty unique.  I'm thinking Daddy needs to have a tea party with his Gracie!

We ended the night by rounding up the rest of the crew and heading home.  It was good all around.  The girls had a good time, Zekey and I had a good time and Sam and Braden had a good time.  This was a great Valentine's Day!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Baby Shower Fever!

We had ourselves a baby shower for some very dear friends yesterday, Sean and Christyn.  They are expecting their first baby boy near the end of the month!  So exciting!!  I am so blessed by a wonderful group of ladies in our church and home group.  I basically co-ordinated the plan, donated a few items to the cause and they brought the party with them and then took the party away when it was finished!  Fantastic!  I have to admit that my house was in complete disarray and it took most of last week to get it cleaned up and into party shape.  I need to start praying for a maid...for realz!

Anyway, we had such a great turn out.  The men folk came, too, and Sam started a fire in the fire pit in the backyard for a focal point addition to the party. ;p  They mozied back and forth between the fire and the food and occasionally to speak to their respective spouses.  :)  We had a full house, that's for sure and not enough seating, but that didn't seem to matter.  Lucy took over photography duty and I'm so glad she did because I didn't even think about it!  So, I have visual aids for blogging purposes!  Yay!  Plus, she was totally having way too much fun experimenting with my camera.  Work your artsy-fartsy skillz!  We had fun, managed to get one game in, ate lots of yummy food and the parents-to-be made out like bandits with the gifts!  Mission accomplished!

After everyone left, Sean and Christyn stayed so that I could do the indoor portion of the maternity shoot.  I was having lighting issues and then my fabulous husband had a stroke of genius and brought in our green house lights and he and Sean set up a make shift studio in our dining room.  It worked out really well and now I am going to see if getting different bulbs and making some diffusers for them will make it any better for future use. :)

At some point during the process, the guys decided to take a field trip to do something guy-ish...looking at a derelict truck at a junk yard. ;p After plenty of fidgeting and different poses and pondering and all the jazz that goes with the territory that is my life, we got done with the shoot and they offered to get pizza for dinner.  Fine with us!  Then we hung out til after dark and they went home and we eventually got everyone into bed.  Lots of fun packed into one day!

Anyway, I decided to use an online photo editor and played around with the pics and they turned out pretty well, even though I do say so myself!  I will eventually play around with editing the outdoor shots that I took a week or so ago, too.  I still have lots to learn by doing more shoots and figuring out what works and doesn't and all, but for now I am content with how it all came out.

So, here follows a bazillion pictures!  Enjoy:

Lucy made the diaper cake and did a fabulous job!  Leah A. made the topiaries and most of the hanging pom poms!  She, too, made fabulosity!

 I made the banner....felt is my friend. :)

 Hanging pom poms are my new favorite party decoration!

 Beautiful mom-to-be

 Lucy busted out her mad gift basket skillz and put together two of them from our home group.

 This was the beautiful and super yummy cake that our friend Christina made!

 Christina had to wrestle and wrangle fondant and I believe she now has the same relationship with the stuff that I do...we agree to just be strangers. ;)  I blame Lucy!  She had the idea for the baby bum cake, I then googled for visual aid purposes and then asked Christina if she wanted an, um, interesting challenge. ;p  She agreed and the masterpiece above was born!  She did a fantastic job!

 I, of course, had to make a funky, inspired at midnight mobile for little Liam's room.  Felt and ribbon brought together by hot glue....I'm in total like with these crafting mediums!

 Sam opened the festivities by praying over Sean and Christyn.

 Ummmm, Lucy!  You were s'posed to be praying!  I'm tellin'!

Food yumminess!  We had sandwiches, a veggie tray, a fruit salad, a cheese and cracker tray, cinnamon bread (I could have eaten a whole loaf of that stuff!  Accolades to Kim M's mom!), ducky s'mores, breakfast casserole (tater tots, scrambled egg mixture, shredded cheddar cheese, sliced up lil wieners and biscuits), punch, coffee and hot chocolate.  I'm thinking we can get together to do this food combo anytime!

 Christina also put together this fun baby ornament tree!  I love this idea!  She was so funny.  She said someone had given it to her and she saw this idea and also saw a way to give this tree to a new home. ;p

Laury and McKayla chowing down...

Baby food tasting was one of the games and then we were supposed to play baby charades and just ran out of time.

Caught in the act! 

 This was on the punch counter...the duckies would not cooperate and kept tipping over.  Can't really blame them, they didn't sleep well the night before.  Ailey kept trying to take off with them!

 Man-gathering around the fire.

 Ladies who braved the cold to eat outside.

LOTS of gifts!

Ducky s'mores!  Yum!  Saw the idea on pinterest for heart ones for valentines and just decided to make them duckies instead.

Heather right and Christina left.

 Baby food tasting...

 I think there was much pondering going on....

 Eun and Kristen chillaxin' in the corner.

 Sean even joined in!  

 Ms. Leah A. in the foreground there..

 Time to open prezzies!

 Sweet Nadine!

 No, Sean, it isn't a hat!

 Saw this idea while googling. :)  He like it and wore it proudly.

Mommy corsage. My take on a google inspiration. ;p

Lovely Lucy and Laury.

And now....the indoor maternity shoot.