Thursday, April 23, 2009

Flowers


Sierra and I made these flowers the other day. They are made out of magazine pages and a pipe cleaner. So cute. I was going to make a vase for them, but I didn't know what to make a vase out of, so I stuck them in this plant instead. It looks so cute, but I am just waiting for the day that Maddie decideds to touch them with her messy food hands and ruin them. At least I can make more if I need to.

Wednesday, April 15, 2009

Easter 2009

We had a really fun Easter this year, so much fun that I am going to do two posts. We took a lot of pictures. :)
Megan came over on Saturday and spent the night - of course the girls loved that. They love their Aunt Megan. We started the day off with finding eggs and baskets. Jake informed me that the Easter Bunny doesn't know how to hide eggs very well, because Sierra found them way to easily. Oh well. The girls got little buckets (baskets), little shovels and gardening gloves for Easter - I figured since we have an unlimited supply of dirt - this would be a good idea. Luckily the weather was beautiful so the girls could try out their new stuff. After spending the morning playing outside in the dirt, flying the ever-so-cool inflatable kites and eating egg shaped pink pancakes for breakfast we went fishing - where Sierra caught her first fish!

If you look closely, Maddie has her mouth full of candy. She loves candy - I don't know where she gets that. This is also a good picture of our new coffee table Jake made for our new home. He decided to paint it instead of stain it. He went for an antique look with a black undertone. The color turned out to be more of a rose red- a little pinkish, but it still turned out very nice. I like the new look. Adds a little color to a very brown space.

The girls enjoying their new toys. Surprisingly, they didn't even get their dresses dirty and they wore them all day - even fishing. :)

Sierra flying her kite all by herself. The Easter Bunny gave the girls inflatable kites. They actually worked very well. Great for little kids.



Easter Fishing 2009

Jake wanted to show me a natural spawning spot that his boss had showed him. It was only about a 30 minute drive from our house. It was actually really cool. There was a fresh water pool that the fish lay their eggs in. They have to swim upstream and then jump through a culvert that is gushing out water (they have to jump in while the water is gushing out) to get to the pool. The fresh water is so clear you can literally see the fish swimming up. We saw probably 30 fish while we were there.

Here you can see the fresh water stream and the muddy (due to spring run off) Missouri River. The green plants in the fresh water stay green even throughout the winter.


Can you see the fish? He is resting getting ready for the big jump through the culvert.


This is where the fresh water meets the Missouri River. It's kind of cool to see the difference in the colors.


Right next to the river is a train track. Trains come by pretty often - we saw three in the two hours we were there. We were pretty close to this train as it came by. Sierra loves trains, so I was glad she got to see one up close and in action.


Next we went fishing. Well, Jake and Sierra went fishing. I don't have my fishing licence yet...




Jake's big catch. A nice rainbow trout. The river he used to fish (the one right behind our old house) has much smaller fish than this, so this is a big fish to me. I think it's cute that you can see the excitement in his face.



Sierra's big catch that got away. Sierra caught her first fish! It was a nice big rainbow trout. Almost twice the size of Jakes fish! It took a while to bring it in and Jake had it right there (I should have taken a pic while it was in the water), then the line snapped and the fish was gone. Sierra didn't seem to mind, but it would have been cute to have a picture of Sierra and her first fish. They tried again, but no luck. We needed to go home anyway. I had a ham in the oven and it had already been in there an hour too long. I guess always expect fishing trips to take longer than expected. But the ham turned out great (thanks to Brandi's ham glaze recipe).

Monday, April 6, 2009

Can you see him?

If you look hard you can see Jake hard at work. These pictures were taken while standing on my back deck. It is so nice to have Jake working so close to home. It is just way too convenient.