Miscellaneous and a Birthday

This is our dog, Fell-Over.

When the dog is found sleeping on her side, we say she "fell over".

She found a nice piece of exposed grass to nap on.

One of us in the house had a birthday this past week.

That would be me.

I turned 41.

That's 41 God-given years on His planet.

I'm thankful for that.

My birthday also marked 8 months since my surgery.

My how time flies!

My awesome husband made me a cake from scratch after he got home from work.

We did use store bought frosting... because we could. ;)

I'm not a big fan of "selfies".

Nolan took this.

I got a monopod, among other things, for my birthday.

I promptly named it my Dufflepud.

(Only true Narnia fans would understand.)

I can't wait for warmer temps so I can go out and take a bunch of pictures!

I'm not going to say which child this is.

You can guess.

This is our dog Linus, I mean Pepper.

The giant chunk of snow was the left over bottom of a potential snowman.

It had holes drilled in it from all sides.

(Just in case you were wondering about the weird snow block.)

This is Pepper after she realized she was being watched.

I think she was watching the school bus.

She waits for it every day, which is funny considering

our children don't even go to public school.

Faint morning sun pillar.

Another science activity.

This shows how warm & cold water molecules move at different speeds.

The boys drank the green water when we were done.

Last but not certainly least, Connor had his first ice cream cone!

I found a package in Lafayette that were safe for him.

We didn't tell him about them.

We filled it with ice cream and made him close his eyes.

The first thing he said was, "Is it safe for me?"

Yes, son.

He loves the ice cream cones.

We've bought more ice cream in the last week than we have in months!

Science Things

We have been studying about static electricity and different energies.

Winter is the perfect time to study static.

We got the small pieces of paper to not only stand up but jump to the balloon as well.

You can hear the paper hit the balloon.

It was kind of like popcorn.

We raced balloons to show potential energy.

We had strings going from the bookcases in the dining room

to the computer hutch on the far side of the living room.

Ready, set, go!

More Snow

This is our dog, Snow Carpet.

For some reason she let the snow accumulate on her.

I couldn't figure out why she didn't just shake it off like she usually does.

Oh wait, I'm talking about Pepper, the goofy dog.

She thinks she can stare me down.

I was already outside once.

Apparently that wasn't enough.

(She may have been mad at me for not letting her help chase a calf.)

The cows breaking a trail to the ditch after the weekend storm.

This isn't the best picture but it shows the two calves.

On Wednesday we had another round of snow.

It was at the height of this mini snow storm that the cows

decided they needed a drink at the ditch.

Only one of the calves made it back the way he was supposed to go.

The other one thought our back yard would make a good detour.

Pepper didn't like his visit and sounded quite the vicious alarm.

Pepper made some trail of her own.

Hers are not as straight.

Reminded us of Billy from Family Circus.

We think our dog has ADD.

This is Our Dog

This is our dog, Psycho Spastic.

If you have ever watched Psych, you know the numerous names

Shawn comes up with for his friend Gus.

That's kind of what we do with our dog.

Today Early this morning, 6:15 to be exact, she earned today's name.

I awoke to the sound of the dog playing on the porch.

She single-handedly mashed all of the fresh snow on the porch.

It wasn't even light out yet.

She was having a party while I was trying to sleep.

I'm not a morning person but we seem to have a morning dog.

This is how she typically looks into the house.

All she wants to do is play.

Eventually we did venture outside.

This was taken late morning.

We had about four inches of snow, and it was still falling.

We took Pepper for a romp in the woods.

We passed the neighbors cows...

we were down wind.

It was beautiful but very wet.

She is so full of life and energy and orneriness.

In the afternoon the boys went sledding in the back yard.

It's too wet to make the trek to the big sledding hill.

Dwayne is fending off the dog.

She likes to jump when you sled down the hill.

Here are some of her jumping abilities in action.

This goes along with her name for the day.

Psycho Spastic.