Heidi and Woody's Wedding

On Saturday, we attended my cousin's, Heidi's, wedding in Angola, IN. It was a beautiful wedding and reception. We wish we could share pictures with you, but we forgot the camera so you will have to take our word for it. The bride and groom did provide entertainment for us by the way of a photo booth.

We all went in and made some wacky pictures. It was fun! The kids went in several times with Grandma and Grandpa. Maybe Uncle Kevin will even post some pics of the wedding.

Up on my soapbox

There is a movie on PBS this week that I think all of you should watch. It's called Food Inc, and it will be shown on a program called POV (point of view). Here in Indy, it is shown on Wed at 10 pm. Check your local listings

I think you should watch this movie if you eat. This movie shows how our food has become incredibly industrialized. Is this good or bad? Please watch this moving and decide for yourself. I have seen this movie a couple of times with friends and we have all walked away making some change in our family's diets. For more information, check the website www.foodincmovie.com

What's missing???

Look closely to see what we did this weekend......If you guess removed all the overgrown square shrubs from the front of the house, you win!! The prize is coming and helping us plant new landscaping over the next couple of weeks.
According to Jim, the shrubs were easy to take out. I was sceptical and had already hired an excavator to come out and remove them. A weekends worth of digging and pruning saved us the job. Now we get to go pick out the new plants. And with the money we saved (haha) we can get some proper planters for the front stoop. It's like we are grown ups.

While the work was being done, the girls played outside all day. They found some sticks and practiced their batton twirling skills.

A likely future Golden Girl or maybe the Girl in Black to march with the Purdue All American Band in 2026?

And then the monkeys climbed the tree (the little one got help from Dad). They spent a good part of the afternoon up there./

Our pretty redbud with our pretty girls.

Mulch

I love spring, but there is one job associated with spring that I do not enjoy. That job is the loading, hauling, and spreading of the mulch. Mulch is stinky, dusty, dirty and takes up a big space in my driveway. It makes my back hurt and gets dirt in my contacts. I do not like it at all.

Fortunately for me, there were two little girls who were very happy to see the mulch truck arrive. As soon as it was dumped, they grabbed their shovels and got straight to work. There was a lot of dumping shovels of mulch on each other until they both started working on their own wheelbarrows (ps--Paige, I stole your wheelbarrow from your garage)

You guys aren't going to get a lot done standing around. Get moving.

Queens of the Mulch pile. They did a pretty good job of filling the wheelbarrows. We probably got half of it moved tonight. Tomorrow will be another filthy night. They were so dirty, we ate outside on the deck when Jim got home.

The best caption for the picture is "Dirt. Ball." You should have seen the bathtub tonight after bathtime and I know that I didn't get all the dirt out of her hair. I figure they are just going to get dirty again tomorrow and I will change their sheets on Thursday.

Goof Ball. She gets to go to the Children's Museum for a field trip tomorrow and then a play date after school. Lucky Duck.

They practiced playing catch with a ball that dad hung up from a tree limb while we finished along the back of the yard. I'm not looking forward to tomorrow.... sigh....

The last day of spring break

Spring break came to a close today and the weather was more like summer. The spring flowers are out and the trees are in full bloom. It is too nice to be inside. We took the kids to Connor Prairie. It's a historical village, a la Sauder's, but way way better. Sauder's has it's merits--like the ice cream shop and the general store, but Connor Prairie is way more authentic. I can't believe I have been driving past it on a weekly basis for 3 years and this was our first trip!

They have an animal encounter area (barn) where the animals just come out. They are so used to people, they will just walk right by you. There were 2 sets of baby goats (kids) and we loved on them all. Don't Jim and the girls look like they would make great goat farmers?????

And the momma needed milked. After the kids tried, I got to try. I need to practice because I was not very good at it.

Our other livestock venture will be chickens (someday....). Annalise practiced holding a baby chick.

Outside of one of the homes, there were toys of the time. The iron hoop and stick. Evie took it for a roll down the hill.

Evie taught Annalise how to do it too!

Outside of the potter's shed and kiln, there was a "clay box" for the kids to play in. After they finished playing, they had to dump out their shoes. We will have to come back to Connor Prairie soon because we only saw half of the grounds and pretty much nothing on the inside. We also want to take a trip up in the balloon this year. So much to do!

It is a long standing Seibert family tradition to have pizza on Sunday nights. We don't always have pizza because sometimes Jim does the cooking. On a beautiful day like today, no one wanted to be in the house, but I started some dough with the idea that it would be something I could make up quickly and we could eat outside. Then we decided to try baking it on the grill instead of the oven. I was in charge of preparing the dough and Jim watched over it while it baked. (Also, you can see our cherry trees behind Jim. they didn't get bit by the frost. Cross your fingers that there are enough bees to get them pollinated!)

The finished pizza. It tasted good too. I have a feeling that we will be eating a lot of grilled pizza this summer.

And we finally hauled out the furniture so we dined on the deck for the first time this season! It was a great spring break. Summer is just around the corner!

Spring break in Ney

The girls and I decided to give Jim a little time to catch up on his work so we drove up to Ney to visit Grandma and Grandpa Seibert. Grandma decided to take us to the famous Spangler Candy Company for a tour!!
While we waited for our turn, we checked out the museum and store. There were lots of suckers there. We even got to try the newest flavor--blueberry. It wasn't bad, but don't wear a white shirt when you eat it.

Since we were going into a candy factory, we had to wear hairnets. I think these two are ready for working on the candy cane line.

Here's a picture of us with the Trolley. The only things we really got to see on the tour was the warehouse and some of the packaging lines. We didn't get to see the candy cane line at all, but we did see a nice movie and had a very colorful tour guide that told us much more than we wanted to know, like the factory gossip.

After Grandpa got home and we ate dinner, it was time for Grandpa's workout at the pool. We got to go with him. Annalise and Evie are all ready for swim season.

this is just cute. Annalise is wearing Evie's old goggles which are on her face upsidedown and far too loose. Evie has new goggles this season and needs a new suit. When she finished swimming, she had red marks where her suit was digging in on her shoulders. I guess we better start looking for a new suit for swim team.

Basketball in my life this week.

Blog fans, you knew that I couldn't go without commenting on the business that happened in Indy this week. My FAVORITE team played the hometown favorite (and some would call America's team). It was a win-win situation, but ultimately, I was with the rest of America and would have really liked to see the Butler Bulldogs win. Duke and their mastermind of a coach proved too much for the Dawgs. Way to go, Coach K. You and I have a date for the next time Duke plays at Clemson. Please don't bring Singler,I don't want to have bad dreams.

But I read some good news about the hometown team. Old Man Stevens here signed a 12 year contract with Butler. (He's 33 and been to the Final Four!). Coach Stevens, you and I also have a date next season. I'm going to make the 8 mile drive and meet you a Hinkle Fieldhouse. Please bring your Babyfaced Assasin, Gordon Hayward, with you for next season. So way to go Bulldogs for playing for all the small schools that never made it that far. And thanks to all the Indy media who made constant reference to the movie, Hoosiers. What a way to end my season. Norman Dale, Jimmy Chitwood, Coach Stevens, Butler, Coach K and Duke. Love it. I can hardly wait for next season. But please, CBS, make your One Shining Moment worth staying up for. This year's was REALLY bad (if you don't believe me, youtube it--it was horrible.)

We went downtown a couple of days after all the action for a Pacers game. The Pacers are pretty miserable, but they still try to get the crowd into the game. Jim caught a t-shirt from a cannon!!! Wow!!!

The Pacers also employ one of my favorite former Duke players--Mike Dunleavy. I think I may have been the only Dunleavy groupie there.

And to top off my week of basketball madness, I had a sighting of Indiana's favorite son, Larry Bird. Here he is picking his nose. During time outs, he signed stuff for fans. He's great. We love Larry in Indiana.

Happy Easter

We loaded up the station wagon and headed up to Cleveland for Easter. While we were there, Grandma and Grandpa Taller took us to the Cleveland zoo. It's a great big zoo and we still haven't seen all of it. This trip, we visited the Australia exhibit and the Rainforest Exhibit. We were impressed.

Evie tried to jump as far as a kangaroo.

After a trip to the local ice cream and candy store, the girls thought it would be fun to fly a kite. So dad and grandma went and found one at Walgreens. They did a great job of sharing and taking turns.

the wind was gusty so there were lots of chances to help one another get the kite up in the air.

Easter morning, they were both excited to start hunting Eggs.

Grandma set the girls up with some Easter baskets.

Annalise was excited get started.

They found the hidden eggs in the basement.

They counted their loot before we went to church.

After church, we got a cute shot of them out by grandma's Egg tree.

Thanks for having us Grandma and Grandpa!

Of course,what is Easter without presents? Thanks for the books and the chocolate bunnies.

Grandma also got Grandpa a book about squirrels eating fromthe bird feeder. They have that problem. Grandpa read it to the girls.

then it was time to eat some bunnies!

Evie ate all the way down to the neck. On our way back to Indiana, she complained of a belly ache. Gee,I wonder why.

Butterfly Cuties

Annalise's preschool teacher sent a bunch of pictures to us today of things that the kids did in class this week. This picture was too cute not to share Annalise's buddy is Chloe--she is the only other girl. Chloe is from Korea and doesn't speak much English, but she and Annalise play together all the time. Fun is universal.