Cadets First Game

It's never official until you get the uniform. Being the girly-girls that they are, P & C were so glad that they got a cool color and matching visors.

The coach has a hard time telling them apart, and then he forgot to throw in a initials. Poor P & C will constantly be confused, but they'll look cool doing it.

A Walk in the Woods

We've had about five days of rain, which is the way spring should be, but yuck. Finally today, it cleared up so we could go outside a play a bit. Ava, Ike, and I went for a walk on our trail. The kids both found great "show and tell" items.

Ava found a robin egg blown out of the nest after the storms we suffered yesterday. It landed in a pile of ferns, so it was undamaged. Not even a scratch.





Isaak found the greatest treasure of all -- a morel mushroom. All this rain has brought out a few. I'm hoping to go out later without all the happy, stompy helpers and see if I can find a few more. Mushrooming is a hunting I can get into. There's no weapons or need to be quiet.










I'm dreaming of a big pan of these with some butter -- yum!

Pleasant Surprise

I've been a bit bummed about the lack of color in the landscaping. Our huge, wonderful trees allow for mainly shade-lovers, hence the lack of color. All the indoor work kind of threw a kink in the landscaping budget for this year. HOWEVER, this front yard tree turned out to be a hidden gem. It just popped open this week. Nearly every neighbor has a flowering tree or bush in white, pink, rose, or purple. Walking the dog just made me a little happier.

Before and After -- stairs

Here was the first thing you saw when you walked in our front door. Yuck, right? We'd had the carpet professionally cleaned, but the fibers were so beat down, they just looked dirty all the time. Also, the carpet was pulling away from the stairs and had become a tripping hazard.
This is the middle phase. This is where it got scary. Tons of small work. Pulling up staples and boards. Disposing of all the junk and dirt. Also we had four little pairs of feet that kept running through our work zone. Good times, good times.
Ta-da! I love it! It's so much lighter and brighter. For not a ton of money, we attained a huge wow factor. Now our entry way looks so much cheerier. Even though it still needs a few more coats of poly, I love my new stairs. Big thanks to the hubby for doing all the labor, so I could pretty up with the paint, stain, and poly.

Happy Easter

Don't you just love Easter, especially when even the weather is rejoicing?! Such a beautiful day. We had visited our families last weekend, so it was just the six of us. Perfect though. The service was awesome, as always Pastor K. We have chocolate out of our ears and tons of left over ham. That equals a great day in Hamby world.

Switcheroo

Paige and Claire did not switch classes for April Fool's Day. Instead, they traded clothes and put on opposite name tags. They haven't really looked much alike this year, so I don't think it worked out as well as the class switch last year. Still it's fun to be a twin, especially in third grade.

What I did on my spring break. . .

Well, at least the good parts of what I did on my spring break. I left out the huge laundry room project because it's ugly and is going to take over a month to get finished. Unless you really know construction, you would be scared by it, but since we seem to live in a constant state of construction, I'm immune. Brant's dad and mom came up and gave us a huge hand getting a start on this project. I'm so grateful and can't wait to have a real laundry room soon. The one draw back to this house is that you have to go out into the garage to do laundry. Yuck. But someday (hopefully not to far off) I'll be able to jot right in off the half bath to do laundry. Yeah!

The kids had spring break off all week, and the weather was great for most of it. We've been practicing up for softball and t-ball. Paige seems to really enjoy this sport. However, I'm afraid she might bite her tongue off from over-concentration.



We took a quick trip over to see a few Lincoln sites with my Dad. The kids were fascinated with Abraham Lincoln after studying him during President's Day. They couldn't believe you could actually go to his house. Brant and I were so used to it being in our backyard growing up that we forgot that is kind of impressive. The kid's liked the house the best, the tomb was too somber. It still makes them very sad that his three sons died so young.



We stalked one of Grandad's cows for a day waiting for it to calf, but we missed the window and it hid it's calf away. We missed the birth and couldn't even see the baby. Did you know mama cows hid the calves for a few days? I think that's sort of funny how protective they get. The kids were disappointed, but still loved naming all of the cows. I try not to burst their bubble by telling them the cows' real names are "Hamburger" and "Steak".