"Grandma Jane's" birthday party

We had a sunny day for my mother-in-law Jane Hurlburt's birthday party in Cornell.

At left with Michael and Leila: Jane's grandson Andy holding his daughter Ellie (son Jamison sitting just behind). And Andy's sister Jessica's two children, Seth and Malia are nearby (all four kids are Jon's brother Mark's grandchildren).

These Hurlburt family gatherings grow larger every year. More and more of Jane's grandchildren are married or have significant others, and now are having kids of their own. No fewer than three of Jane's grandchildren are expecting their first children.

Two of these future great-grandchildren come from the Sime family (and will be Jon's sister Ann's grandchildren). Ann has two married sons, and both of Ann's daughters-in-law are expecting babies. The amazing part is that both daughters-in-law have the same due date: July 29th.

Pictured left: Joe and Nicole.

Below: Eric and Sarah.

Ann and her husband Pat hosted the party at their hunting cabin. As in other years, the children found similar-aged cousins to play with.

Emma doesn't have a girl cousin quite her age, but she was delighted to play with the younger girls. They seemed to flock around her... must be all those funny faces she makes!

Left: Emma with Malia, Leila, and Brook.

Ellie made a grand entrance in her stroller car and sunglasses. She has light blue eyes and dark hair... and looks just like her father Andy when he was a little kid (if you ask me).

I didn't know Andy when he was this little, but I've seen pictures, so base my opinion on that. I remember Andy as an older child in our wedding in 1995-- he was the one who caught the garter.

(And Allison caught the bouquet--anyone else remember that?).

My stepson Jonathan also had a birthday this month, just a few days ago. He made it to Grandma Jane's party too, and tossed a football around with his younger cousins (though in this picture he is tossing his sister Emma around).

I think I'll end on that note. Happy Birthday "Grandma Jane"... and great seeing you, Hurlburt family.

David Has Short Hair Now?

I have about 20 minutes to throw this blog together, so nothing fancy this week! But I have a few fun pictures to post.

Here's Emma and Leila... Emma fixed Leila's hair and decked her out in some fancy jewelry. Leila was very pleased with herself.

The spring-like weather continues. We've had a couple of rain showers, but lots of sunshine too. Every day that I walk with my neighbors, we notice a little more color on the way... green leaves, grass and alfalfa. Red buds. Dandelions and purple wood violets.

The bugs are coming back... but gently. No mosquitoes or flies yet, just moths, caterpillars, and the occasional butterfly. And wood ticks, of course. One nice thing about chickens in the yard is that they eat the wood ticks like candy.

The sounds are changing, too. In the morning there are birds... I wish I could recognize all the different calls. We see lots of robins and woodpeckers. One day we saw a bluebird on a neighboring farm's fence post.



In the early evening, if there's no wind, we can hear frogs chirping in our neighbor's pond.

The daffodils that Leila trampled last week have recovered, and now they're joined by red and yellow tulips. I don't know what the little blue flowers, pictured at right, are called, but have some in our backyard too now. They do real well in shade and grow in fairy rings around old trees.

My stepson David has a new look! Here he is pre-haircut...

Doesn't the hair stylist look excited?

And now... the transformation.

We're excited for our big trip to West Virginia, at the end of May. That's when we'll see David graduate from highschool.

We now have a date set for his graduation party here in Wisconsin: July 4th, at noon. We'll be having it at the Mill Yard Park in Cornell... so mark your calendars!

I'll close with a picture of Emma with one of her BFF's... neighbor girl Cienna.

Have a good week!

Mom's Visit, Leila's Birthday & Easter

See, Don... you're not the only one who can post pictures of flowers in bloom! As this triumphant photo shows, Spring is well-established in Colfax, too.

But now... the "rest of the story."

Leila was with me when I took the shot at left. These were our first flowers of the year, and I wanted to do them justice. I'm no great photographer; I have a pretty ho-hum camera.

So as Leila watched, I crouched down on one knee beside the flowers. I adjusted my focus and took two shots (in case one was better than the other).

Having given the flowers a decent effort, I turned my attention back to Leila. What delightfully impish pose might I encounter from her?

Well. I'll give her this: Leila knows how to get my full attention.

She STOMPed those flowers. Stomped them while wearing the pink rubber boots I gave her (boots sweetly adorned with butterflies, hearts and polka dots). As my jaw dropped and I moved toward her... did she stop? No. She stomped FASTER. In fact, it looked as if she was trying to crush as many flowers as possible before I could reach her.

Children are full of little life lessons like that.

One parent who never received anything but joy from her child is the woman pictured at left... my mother.

Mom came and stayed with us for four days last week, while the kids enjoyed time off from school (spring break).

While Mom was with us, Emma boiled and colored Easter eggs for the family. This year we used ordinary food coloring (mixed with water and vinegar) to color the eggs, rather than buying a commercially-packaged egg dye (and our home-made recipe worked just fine!).


PS: Please overlook Emma's visible annoyance at being photographed by me for this blog.

Mom and I took the girls to Johnne's farm one sunny morning. We walked past the cows quickly (I'm still a little wary of them--they're BIG, and one was moo-ing at us).

Johnne's fields are divided by a series of gates. She has a small herd and moves her cows to different pasture frequently, so the grass stays rich and thick. Beyond the meadow is a hilly wooded area, and if you follow the trail long enough you come to an old apple orchard.

The orchard was "retired" years ago, but the trees still produce. Johnne uses what she can and shares generously with friends and neighbors (lucky us). At the end of fall she lets her cows into the orchard, and they completely eat up whatever's left of the fallen apples. Insects and wildlife take care of whatever's still hanging in the trees. So nothing's wasted.

At Emma's request, we sat on a grassy hill and rested awhile. There are ponds nearby. We listened to frogs chirping.

On the way back out we spotted a small calf. We didn't pay it much attention because the cows were some distance from us.

About half an hour after we'd gotten back to the house, Johnne knocked at our door. She wanted to know if Emma would like to come see the new calf that had just been born.

Turns out, we'd already seen it! The calf we'd passed minutes earlier had just been born... possibly while we sat in the orchard and listened to the frogs! I followed Johnne back with my camera and took the photo, above left. The calf was still wet and its umbilical cord was hanging down.

Right after I took the above picture, the calf walked underneath the wire fence and came up to Johnne. She petted it; it seemed to like her voice. Luckily the mom-cow wasn't mad... she was just a few feet away, busy eating the placenta (I know; yuck).

We also took a couple of walks in our woods, too. But that was a work-out... so many fallen limbs and dead trees to step over! Quite a few had blown down over the winter.

Mom will be happy to hear that since her visit, Jon has cleared the trail. So her next walk here should be easier.

One kind of quirky thing that Jon did this weekend was use his chainsaw to carve a couple "chairs" out of tree stumps. He cut the wood off in sheets, thinking he could use it later in some kind of project.

Here's Mom trying out one of the new "chairs".

On Monday a neighbor watched the kids while Mom and I went to Eau Claire for some shopping. I picked out birthday presents for Leila, and Mom found some goodies (for the kids) too. It was fun. Unfortunately I forgot to bring along my cell phone, so we cut our trip short. If I'd had my phone with me we could have called home and been reassured that Leila was napping and there was no need to rush home.

Oh well. Less money spent!


We took Mom home Tuesday and stayed overnight. We were sorry to hear that the tree stand Mark and Jon had put up last year (the one we visited on a snowy walk last Christmas) had been stolen. I don't know if they ever got to use it; I don't think so.

Fast forward a few days... to Easter, and Leila's birthday.

We had a (mostly) traditional Easter morning. The kids (including big brother Jonathan, who'd stayed overnight) had to hunt for their Easter baskets. Emma got up first and was so good at finding her Easter basket I had to hide it three times before she felt sufficiently challenged and was satisfied.

Leila slept late, but when she got up was very happy to eat chocolate and jellybeans for breakfast.

We wished her a happy birthday and tried to get her to answer the question "How old are you?" by saying "Two" and holding up two fingers. She said "Two!" just fine, but held up her whole hand rather than the mere two fingers.

We brought dinner over to Jon's parents in Cornell (I'd done most of the food prep the day before, so the actual Easter day cooking was pretty easy). The meal was supposed to be our treat, but of course Jane had made all kinds of extra dishes to compliment it... including the lucious white birthday cake pictured above. Jon's nephew Nathan (who will be a first-time father in a few weeks!) joined us at dinner.

We opened all Leila's presents at Bud and Jane's house. Emma and I agreed that the biggest "hit" seemed to be the giant toddler-size crayons from Grandma Jane (she's big into coloring these days).

I'm sorry the picture at right wants to stay sideways. This is Emma and Leila with their (second?) cousin Brook.

Well, this blog has to end sometime! If you read everything word-for-word up to this point, I congratulate you... it was rather wordy.

Anyway, I'll close with a couple short video clips. Enjoy!