Homestead Happenings - March 2016

We couldn't let St. Patrick's Day go by without celebrating! Hailey helped me make a key lime cake for my friend, Jeni, whose birthday is also on St. Patrick's Day. I use any holiday as an excuse to give books to my kids, so each of them got an Usborne book. They all dressed up in their Celtic garb that day. 

Sounds funny, but we got to celebrate St. Patrick's Day and Jeni's birthday at the fabulous new Japanese restaurant in town. So yummy! We always have a great time with this precious family.

My sis visited us during their kids' spring break which happened to be on my niece, Lily's, birthday. Our friend, Gracia (11 years old), made this fabulous Elsa doll cake for her. She loved it! 

Josiah and his cousin, Andrew, wanted to check the honeybees together. I love watching them work as a team! 

My mom and I were able to take a group of Eastern Oregon Christian Home Educators through the Pendleton Underground Tours in March. Mom does touring guiding on the side and I used to work for PUT 20 years ago when I was in college. So fun to see homeschoolers from all over Eastern Oregon enjoying themselves underground! They are in the Shamrock Card Room in this photo with my mom giving the tour. 

Our friend, Alli, who is in our Prairie Primer co-op, had a "Little House" themed birthday party. Her dad made this adorable "covered wagon" and give the kids rides around their pasture. They all had so much fun!

I dressed Rina for the occasion as well. Love those chubby cheeks! 

Michael was overseas for work again for 3 weeks. He got to go to Bulgaria and Romania this time. He visited Transylvania where Dracula's castle is located. He bought Hailey and I these beautiful traditional Romanian shirts while he was there. Michael has had to travel a lot this year for the military. I'm so thankful to have him home right now, and so are the kids!

Easter Sunday with a tired, teething 10 month old. It was cold and windy that day, so my dreams of having family pictures went up in smoke (again). Sigh... One of these days....

Hailey is still just young enough to participate in the Easter egg hunt at Dufur Christian Church where we were visiting family. Josiah is officially old enough to be the egg-hider. 

Easter evening, brought us to Hood River where we visited Michael's folks. Hailey has been wanting to learn how to crochet, so Grandma Kay obliged her by teacher her. I love this picture!

Michael dressed Rina, LOL. Hey, it works, right?

 We advertised that we would remove honeybee swarms, and we got a call. When we got there, the bees were gone, but they left a whole bunch of honey and comb. We got 2+ gals of honey out of all of it, some we gave away as gifts and some we sold and put towards the kids' camps this summer. What an unexpected windfall of honey!

Our little cutie started really walking at 10 months. She is on the go and a busy little thing!

My mom and I were able to take my girls and a couple of my nieces to our church's spring tea. I love this picture of the ladies reading from the Word of God. So precious!

One of my favorite photos of all time! My sweet girls. Hailey is in heaven now that Rina is old enough to really play with her. I've always said she was born to be a big sister! I'm really liking my new camera although I haven't had a chance to use it much. Hopefully now that Rina is walking I'll have my hands free to do some more picture taking.

As usual, I'm nearly a month behind in blogging, but I hope to catch up on all your blogs soon. Spring is such a busy time of the year, but I'm so thankful for the renewed life it brings. 

May God bless you all,

Jackie