Springing into Spring!

Time sure does fly when things are crazy!  The horse drama had a sad ending, I'm sorry to say.  After going up every few hours for a few more days, the little foal was not doing well.  We figured we would just keep on doing what we were doing, but she had developed big open wounds on her fetlocks (that she walk on).  So we took her in to see the vet to clean the wounds and figure out what do with her feet, as well as get some general prognosis advice and information.  We told the vet the whole story, and he said we really needed to do some blood tests.  So we did, and the results showed that the foal didn't get enough colostrum within the early hours of life.  He told us that she would need a plasma transfer (which costs $1000) and even that would only give her a 50/50 chance.  Well...that was just too expensive for bad odds anyway, so we had him euthanize her.  Boo hoo.  Joey was with us and he was crying, it was so sad.  But at least she died peacefully and didn't have to suffer.  Rest in peace little pony!

 Although Dutch, the mom, took it well, Crazy Alice did not.  After we had separated the horses (before we had the foal put down), Alice would do one of 2 things: 1) she would stand like this at the fence STARING DOWN the foal.  It was creepy.  Or 2) she would chase like hellfire a couple of the other horses in the field with her.  It was so bad--she would chase them full bore as hard and fast as she could and it she caught them she'd kick and bite them.  For no reason!  Poor Penny had run so hard and so long that when Eric went in the pen to help she actually ran behind Eric for protection!  Eric scared Alice off and we put Penny in with Dutch and the baby.  I thought Alice was going to kill her!  She practically had fire spewing from her nostrils!

 Well, amidst all of the horse drama we managed to celebrate Easter.  The Easter bunny found us once again and left baskets of candy stuffed to the brim!

 We had dinner at Katie's house--I made 2 cakes.  The first is a chocolate spartak cake.  It has 7 layers of thin cake with frosting.  It was a new recipe I tried and it was actually super delicious.  It was hard to make but it has to sit in the fridge for 1-2 days before serving so I got to do it on a day I didn't have much going on.   The picture I took showed the first slice which got a little smoothed, but the rest of the slices were nice and layered looking.  The other cake is a recipe I've had for a long time, Fresh Strawberry cake.  I love it.  It is really sweet but has such a nice strawberry flavor.  The only problem was dinner and dessert was so good I ate too much!

 Maggie has been getting in the cooking spirit herself as well--lately she's been bringing home library books from school that are cookbooks!  These two cracked me up.  We actually made a couple and they were good.  A new family favorite is slow cooker pulled chicken tacos.  Yum!  Maybe I can get Maggie to cook dinners then I can have nights off...

 Guess who finally lost their first tooth?  Joey has been DYING to have his teeth come out and has been incessant about asking Eric to see how loose it is.  Finally Eric gave in to Joey's pleadings and pulled his tooth out.  It probably could've used another few days, but Joey wasn't having it.  So Eric pulled out the pliers from the tool drawer and popped it right out.  I've never seen a kid so excited!  And Joey is also by far the toughest of our kids--our older kids have learned NEVER to let dad know you have a loose tooth.  But Joey?  He came back a couple days later and had Eric pull out the other bottom tooth!  LOL, no whining or saying it hurt.  I think this is Joey's way of earning money (tooth fairy).  We'd better be careful or one day he will come home and need a full set of dentures!

 Jacob had a fun thing he got to do..his friend Breyton invited him to go to the big Supercross race in Salt Lake.  They even got to go into the pits and meet the drivers and stuff.  The bad news was his friend got sick in the middle of it and spent half the night throwing up in the bathroom!  What a bummer!

 I love to cook and bake (and it shows in my figure, ha ha).  I love making crusty bread loaves in my dutch oven and I found a recipe to make a 5 seed crusty loaf---doesn't this look delicious!  It was sooooo good!

 Okay, folk, this is happening outside my house the end of April...really, Mother Nature???  It lasted several hours too.

 I took my boys and a few cousins and friends to the homeless shelter in Provo to serve dinner.  It was a great experience and opportunity to serve others.  The boys had a good time doing it and even have asked to go back!  I would have taken Maggie and Joey but you have to be 10 years old.  But the bummer of the night was that Katie's back window of her car got smashed in!  Oh no!  I've been there before and nothing has ever happened so I hope it was a fluke, but I felt bad for Katie....

A couple funny moments:

Joey and I got stuck waiting at a train crossing while a really long train lined with coal cars passed in front of us.  Joey asked where it was going and I told him I didn't know, to which he replied, "Oh, it's going to the North Pole to Santa!  Wow, that's a LLOOOOOTTTT of naughty kids getting coal this year."

Joey asked Eric last night at dinner, "Dad, what's it like to be a cowboy?"  Cute, and it made Eric feel manly and awesome.

Maggie likes to watch the America's Got Talent videos, especially the ones of kids.  She told us all one evening she wanted to be on the show.  Tyler asked her what her talent would be and she said "I will do pole dancing."   Ummmmmm......what are they teaching her in her dance class???

Lastly, I just wanted to point out that I can really tell I'm getting older now.  How?  The difference between how I look BEFORE I get ready and AFTER I get ready is getting steadily wider and more dramatic.  And I don't even wear that much makeup or anything, but I'm getting to the point where, boy, I really need it!