UPDATE: Duck Grows

So, last Saturday, Evie acquired her first "for her" pet. I took the girls and met Mimi at the local Tractor Supply and we bought some chickens. Six to be exact and one of those has spots on his back and became Evie's chicken.

That chick's name is Duck. And I know you're all dying to know how he's doing.

Well, he's great. He's grown. Evie is still infatuated with him. She wants to go check on him every day first thing when we get to Mimi's. It's positively adorable. This summer we are planning on letting her interact with the chicks a lot. I hope that as a result when the chickens are adults they are still friendly and approachable. I am really excited about the future friendship for Evie and these chicks!

Of Dying Ducks and Buying Easter Eggs...Err...

I hope you all had a fabulous holiday weekend. If you didn't, well, you might not want to read ahead. Because I did. And I'm going to tell you all about how fabulous it was! No. Really.

I had a fabulous holiday weekend. Absolutely splendid! One of the best weekends I've had in awhile. It ended poorly, but the fact that they end at all is kind of a bummer. But I'll get to that later. Anywho.

My holiday weekend started on Friday night. After I finally got the girls in bed and asleep I boiled eggs for Evie.

I only boiled a dozen. I figured a 20 month-old wasn't going to have the attention span for any more than that. And I'm too old to color eggs for my own entertainment. So, an even dozen. And although it only rarely happens if I'm boiling eggs to eat, four of those eggs split. I was a little aggravated. I mean, Evie really wasn't going to care how pretty her eggs were. But I kind of did.

I plucked them from the water and plopped them back into the carton. Popped it into the fridge. And trotted my butt off to bed. It was after 11 by this time and I was EXHAUSTED. I had really high hopes for egg coloring on Saturday. And of course the chicken purchasing adventure was planned.

After our Walmart excursion and chicken purchasing, me and the girls returned home for lunch and some time with Daddy. I got everything set up for egg coloring and after lunch stripped Evie down and let her have at it.

Evie was incredibly impressed by the fizzing tablets in their clear cups. How fortunate I was to have these clear plastic cups on hand as well! I'd love to say that I had planned it this way. But it was just luck and my husband remembering that we had them while I was digging through the cabinets cursing my general lack of small, squat cups.

"Why don't you just use those clear plastic cups? Do we still have them?"

I had to pick my jaw up from the floor to go dig through the pantry to find them. I couldn't believe my husband had this idea and I hadn't! But next year, I hope to remember this, because it worked perfectly. No stains in my cups or mess to clean up. No extra dishes. Just throw them away! It was great.

The eggs looked pretty, soaking away. Evie was impressed. However, Evie wasn't particularly interested in coloring. While I had anticipated having to wrestle her for dye cups and a tremendous mess all over my kitchen, there was practically none.

Evie marveled at the little eggs scoops when it was time to get the eggs out. But otherwise, she happily sat in her high chair munching on one of the hard-boiled eggs. Yeah. Right off the bat, she reached into the carton, grabbed one of the ugly eggs, peeled it and started chomping away. Go figure. I've never seen her express any interest in eggs before. Now she'd rather sit and snack on one that make a huge mess with cups of dye. But she was happy. So I put eggs in the colors she indicated. We waited while they turned. Then I placed them back into the carton, letting her point to the ones she liked. Then it was clean up and nap time.

It was all incredibly laid back. Nearly disappointingly so. I had the video camera on standby to record the wild hilarity of it all. And there was nothing but Evie eating an egg while I colored 11 others.

When she got up from her nap on Saturday, she wanted to call Mimi to ask how Duck was. She went to the door and pointed outside and started yelling "Duck!" until I called Mimi. It was adorable. But the rest of the day was without incident.


Sunday was incredibly hectic. This was my first holiday with two babies. Getting the three of us up, fed and dressed for a regular day when the babies' appearances don't matter is hard enough. Getting us all out the door dressed to impress in our Easter best...(I didn't mean for that to sound so Suessy) wow. What a challenge! I don't know if it is more or less of a challenge that Elly is still so young. She's easier to dress and I don't have to worry about her falling down and getting her dress dirty. Instead I have to worry about her puking on herself or deciding she's hungry when it's time for us to leave. I was afraid to dress Evie too early, afraid to dress her too late. And of course, Josh was at work and therefore no help!

Believe it or not, we made it to church on time. The girls in their adorable matching dresses. Me...well, I was dressed in a dress. But it was nothing to write home about.

After church my parents came back to my house for Evie's very first Easter egg hunt and some lunch. I couldn't believe how quickly Evie picked up on Easter egg hunting. After a brief debacle where she had to fight the beagle off of one of her eggs and we discovered that the beagle had gone and eaten the eggs she could get to, it went quickly and smoothly.

Lunch was ham, mashed potatoes, corn on the cob, macaroni and cheese, and yeast rolls. Carb heavy but simple. And delicious! Josh got home before supper time and we had a great family evening.

Then yesterday I took off work to take Elly to another doctor's appointment with the plastic surgeon about her hemangioma. Got great news there. No growth and the doc thought that since it wasn't growing yet it may not. Another great evening with my little family since Josh was off work.

So all in all, the "duck" buying and Easter egg dying went fabulously! It was an awesome weekend. Wish I could take three day weekends more often!

Hope you enjoyed yours as well.

Evie's first "Pet"

Every year during the spring the local farm supply store, Tractor Supply, has what they call "Chick Days." Several weeks where they sell chicks and baby ducks. Some stores even sell rabbits, turkeys and guineas. But being a small area, we don't quite rank that sort of selection.

A few weeks ago I sent Josh and Evie to pick up dog food from Tractor Supply. They're honestly the cheapest place in town to get decent quality dog food. And when they got home Josh told me that Evie absolutely freaked out over the chickens. She loved them! I know Evie loves dogs and she is open to liking cats, but I didn't know that her affections extended to our feathered friends as well. Of course she likes watching the birds out the window on the bird feeders. But then they're flitting around and flying. They're pretty interesting. But chickens? I had no idea.

Well, my mom has been wanting to get some chickens for her back yard. She's got a fenced in area and wants to put chickens and rabbits there. Although my step dad doesn't really want farm animals he doesn't have the ability to tell his granddaughter "no" so when my mom told him that the chickens were for Evie...well, he caved.

I spent some time researching what kind of chicken we wanted on the website. The Dominques were supposed to reproduce and be pretty docile. They were a blackish colored chick so they'd be easy to pick out. 

The day before Easter seemed like the perfect time to go get Evie a chicken. So this morning I dressed her for the occasion and asked her if she wanted to go get a chicken. Her answer was of course, "Yeah, yeah!"

So we met her Mimi at Tractor Supply. She beat us there and called to tell us they had already sold out of everything but the little yellow chicks. Ah well. Evie wouldn't know the difference. They keep the chicks and ducks in these huge metal tubs under heat lamps. Evie saw the ducks first and stood pointing yelling "Duck, duck, duck, duck, duck!" The other customers were pretty amused. Several stopped to watch her pet a couple of baby ducks.

Then it was time to pick out chicks. We got one with brown spots on its back. That's specifically Evie's chicken.

She was very fascinated watching the chicks. Although she did keep calling them ducks.

But she quickly moved on to "Mine, Mine, Mine."

After we told her a few times to be easy and to just pet the chicken, she got the hang of it.

Then after every time she managed to pet one of the chicks, she would clap her hands excitedly.

It was adorable.

So meet Evie's first pet. The first pet bought solely for Evie. He (or she) is a chicken. And I think she's going to call him Duck.

Happy Easter everyone!