G’morning, chicks

If you want to have some excitement on a Wednesday morning, try ordering 53 baby chicks and have them delivered via USPS at 7am, and have your 9 year old dash out in the rain to pick them up with his little red wagon before leaving for school. Yes, never a dull moment in the House.

Here’s how they arrived. We got 50 ladies and 3 gentlemen. Thanks Hoover’s Hatchery!

Did you know that they overnight chicks?! So cool. I’ve obviously never been the recipient of live animals via the postal service. But it’s pretty neat.

Let me back up. We are not keeping 53 chicks. These are to replenish our ‘family flock’ that we all glean eggs from at a family member’s farm. They’ll go there in awhile. But for now the kids are enthralled with them, so several may leave with names and ‘name tags’, as Lucy calls it. Lucy has already named a black one ‘Vanessa’. Which black one, you ask? Good question. She doesn’t know either.

Amelia is ‘Chicken Helper #1’ as I call her. She goes out at least every hour, checks their water and food and gives us an update. She said goodnight to them tonight before she went to bed and was quite concerned that they may be afraid of loud thunder or the van. She won’t stop talking about the baby chicks. She is improving her handling skills and thinks they are the cutest things ever, and is amazed at how soft they are. She pours over books and pamphlets we got on raising chickens and tells us if we need to raise or lower the heat lamp. We think she has a future in poultry. She thinks she’ll have chickens on her horse farm someday. I hope she does!

I wish we’d gotten more cute little yellow chicks, but the mix that we got has mostly multi or black ones. They’re still cute. But why are chicken feet so huge?

I’ll keep the cyber-world updated as the chicks grow and become less cute 😉

Lucy’s First Holy Communion: 4/7/19

Lucy had her First Communion today. It was beautiful! I think I smiled the entire Mass…and we had a great party after! For the many family members of mine that could not come from afar, I thought I’d show the day in pictures. I pray that Lucy always remembers this day and continues to cherish her relationship with Jesus and grows in the Catholic faith. {Photo cred: Uncle Cam}

We woke up even earlier than usual to get ready and get the food warming up. Lucy jumped out of bed and we had no wardrobe or hair malfunctions. She looked like a princess! I had a flash forward to the future when I was putting the veil in her hair….is this what marrying off my daughter will feel like!?!?

We had done all of her shopping weeks ago and got just what she wanted, within reason, because we have 4 daughters and I realize we are setting a precedent with Lucy that will carry on. We did have to exchange her original veil because, believe it or not, there is a HUGE difference between white and off-white, and you can totally tell if the two are different. She wanted to wear a tiara and have her hair in a bun. Easy enough! She also wore a new bracelet from Aunt Mel where each bead corresponds to a part of the Nicene Creed. Very pretty and really neat!

Mass went great. Lucy got to read the first half of the Prayers of the Faithful and did such a great job in front of the 100’s of people at Mass!

The big part of the day arrived…Lucy had her first Communion! I didn’t cry, I was just so proud of her and happy for her!

Lucy had 14 kids in her class. They each made a banner for their First Communion and hang them around the church. It’s really neat to see all the different designs. Lucy was incredibly proud of hers.

And then we tried to get a family picture. I look sly (?), Gabriel’s tie looks like he stole it from a toddler, Ruth is shoeless and doing everything she can to get away from me, and Kateri was only caring about the fake tree behind us. Hey, we tried 😉

The cousins got their picture with ‘Jesus’s bedroom’, as we like to call it; AKA the tabernacle!:

On the way from church I spotted a faint low rainbow in the sky. God was smiling down 🙂

And then we took a selfie because I was riding in the back due to extra passengers. #blackbetty

Afterwards, we had a great party with a lot of people, plenty of BBQ pork and a giant cake that I am currently eating now. 😉

It was a great day! Such a great day 🙂