something new. and a little annoying.

I could probably list the number of people on one hand that will be interested in this post.  Feel free to look at the pictures and move on.  I will post more pictures of the girls soon.

So over the past few weeks, we have seen several tree trimming crews up and down our little road.  I didn't think too much of it.  About 2 miles down the road, we also saw a red helicopter pretty low over one of the hills.  Again, didn't think too much about it, but I did wonder what the helicopter was doing. 

Fast forward to late last week, when one of our neighbors filled us in: they were trimming the trees along the power line right-of-ways, and he told me to have my camera ready because they'd be to our place soon.  Lovely.  

Fortunately, Lily was fascinated by the "airplane" and thought it should live at our house.  She now knows that it's a helicopter and right after we put the girls to bed last night, it came back to do a little more trimming and Jesse looked out the window, pretty annoyed, and said "perfect, right in time to wake our girls up."  This from the guy who always argues that if the girls can sleep through jack hammers in our basement, they can sleep through anything when I tell him to be quieter after bedtime.  I didn't say it, because I'm pretty sure Jesse is annoyed they were killing our trees with nothing we could do about it, but I thought how we'd moved to the country for the quiet and we can't seem to get away, apparently...

here it comes...what's it carrying?

circular saws.  just swinging away.  did I mention how windy it was yesterday and that this was directly across from my house?  

And I really do mean windy.  The pilot had to keep doing huge circles away and coming back to wait out the wind.  I had to keep reassuring myself that these spinning blades of death were not going to detach and come hurdling towards my girls and house.

I mean, I could pretty much see the pilot

"look, Momma! an airplane!"

fascinated

sitting to watch 

destruction.

I learn something new every day.  Never a dull moment in the country, don't let people tell you otherwise.

spring cleaning

Jesse tells me it's been 15 days since my last post and that it's time to update again.  So I'm back to it today and trying to remember where I left off. 

Lily was sick.  And then, she demonstrated, quite effectively, that she is listening as Jesse and I try and teach her the concept of "sharing," and proceeded to share her bug with me.  And then Jesse took his turn.  Then poor Emma came down with a particularly nasty cold...we almost didn't get to go celebrate Easter at my parent's house because we just all seemed to be struggling to get healthy!

We survived though, and made it to Findlay late Friday night.  Lily was her usual silly self and super excited to see everyone.  A typical trip to Findlay involves kenneling Zeke, which kicks off our Friday mornings.  Normally on this trip to the kennel, I fill Lily in on the weekend plans.  On this trip though, she started asking about who we'd get to see and then listed everyone she could think of.  And really, we got to see everyone she listed over the weekend!  Which made for a super busy weekend, but we got to see so much family that it was worth the busyness, I think.  

checking out a new bath toy, thanks to Nikki and Rick! 

My aunt from Florida drove up to celebrate with us, and finally got to meet Emma.  Additionally, Great Grandpa Pagano and Pat came to visit, as well as Aunt Terri!  On top of all this, I got to see one of my best friends before she heads off to Alaska to be awesome AND Jesse and I got to go out to lunch with the Brennan family.  Nikki, Rick (with their twins), Uncle Don, Aunt Patty and Paul came down from Toledo to see us.  We had quite the party and family filled day.  Unfortunately, I didn't have my camera for any of it, apparently.  Bummer.  Jess, please send me some pictures of the Easter egg dying?  I heard that Lily loved it.  And my mom should be the Zout spokesperson, because apparently, there was dye and paint or something everywhere...and Lily's shirt is perfectly clean.

Easter Sunday came and we all went to church then headed to Primrose to have dinner with my grandparents.  Delicious food, good company and it was all over way too soon.

Lily's "Easter basket" was a Rasca this year!  incredibly excited to be able to use these for everything!

Lily was unchallenged in the Easter egg hunt this year.  Daddy was just being nice..

blowing bubbles with Gigi

stealing Poppo's cake

Now.  This past weekend.  Whew buddy.  I looked at Jesse yesterday and said "well, I think we can consider this weekend carpe'd!"

We further procrastinated on all indoor chores and projects to work on outside things because the weather was so.gorgeous.  Oh, how good spring is for me.  The main thing we tackled was the garage. Jesse has a beautiful workbench out there that is huge and flat, so of course we stack piles and boxes there which makes the space unusable.  Well, it's usable now!  We worked very hard to clean it up out there and even unburied and unpacked a box that may or may not have been even looked in the past 3 years because when we started unpacking it, we were shocked at what we were finding and have no idea when or where we used it last.  So that was a success.  Jesse did some modifications to our chicken coop taught me to change the oil in my car!  I'm pretty excited about that, and plan on doing it myself next time.

Oh!  I forgot!  We finally got our chickens.  Lily is a huge fan and loves going to check on them and greets them with a "hi, ladies!' and when we leave, she says "bye, friends!"  Zeke isn't too sure about them.

Anyway, today was another gorgeous day.  I got to hang up 2 loads of laundry on my clothes line and then decided that I should take some 10 month pictures of Emma, especially since I think I never got around to taking 9 month pictures...

At 10 (give or take a week) months, Emma is awesome but grumpy.  She is trying to get the hang of sleeping better through the night, she is napping much better, finally is getting her first tooth and has decided that crawling is for the slowpokes and is about 70% walking.  She will attempt walking the majority of the time, but will fall, stand back up to take a few steps, fall, stand back up for a few more steps, then give up and crawl.  But she is able to easily walk short distances.  

Then Lily wanted her picture taken...

I just need to take more pictures down in our field when the trees and grass are green...so we actually would have a pretty backdrop.

Lily loved her "scarf"...I'm not really sure why she thinks skirts are called scarves..

oh my word I love this.

Lily was twirling for the chickens

I have more pictures..but both girls are awake now so that will have to wait.