Ruby Slippers and Georgia Peaches

This kid turned three.

She designed her own cake this year.

It was a masterpiece and she LOVED it. Red velvet cake, with hot pink/red icing, with sugar letters. The icing is exactly how she wanted it.

Eating cake is serious business.

But more about her. She’s spunky, sweet, sassy, a great snuggler, extremely independent and willing to try just about anything.

There was a time a year ago that she wouldn’t talk to anyone.

Now, if you make eye contact with her, she will tell everything she knows.

She’s a great little, tag along buddy.

Or maybe I tag along after her.

She is a great little “mama” to her babies and Matt.

She is his complete opposite in personality and takes care of him every chance she gets.

(cutting and “fixin” his hair)

One thing the kid wants is to be “bigger, bigger”.

She wants to be “bigger, bigger” so she can take care of more people, run like Ruby and do activities that Ruby participates in.

She was SO excited to turn three.

She is bigger, bigger.

I know one day she’s will be so big, she won’t need as many snuggles, as many hugs, as many hand holds or call out so many “wait up, y’all!” on walks.

We are trying SO hard to make sure we enjoy her growing bigger, bigger.

This three year old is bigger, bigger.

What else are you to do when your parents are busy putting out miles of irrigation pipe? ( a.ka. phhhiiiiippe…I see you KJ) J

For almost a year now, we’ve been doing a different behavior system for the girls.

As a teacher for many years, I used many different behavior systems for different student’s needs. It was really no different coming up with one for our girls.

I also get really good ideas off the internet. J

It is a visual reminder how the girls are doing on their behavior during the day. They move their clip up and down depending on the choices that they are making. If they make it to the AWESOME part of the chart, they receive one pom pom in the GOOD jar.

Also, if they are making bad choices, their clip goes down the chart. NO ONE wants to get to the pink LOSE PRIVILEGE part of the chart. It happens though.

At the end of the day, if the clip is on the GOOD JOB or higher, they put their age number of pom poms in the GOOD jar.

Ruby gets to put five pom poms in and Clara gets to put two in.

When all the pom poms have been transferred, they get to select an activity from our selected list of activities.

1. Park play with Matt—he takes them to a park and plays exclusively with them. It is a super special thing for them.
2. Ice cream dinner party. They get to have ice cream and only ice cream for dinner and as much as they want.
3. Buy and watch The Jungle Book. (or a new movie)
4. Buy and watch The Lion King. (or a new movie)
5. Sleep one night in the bed with Mama and Papa B. This rarely happens, so it’s an extra special thing for them to get to do.
6. Swim at the Aquatic Center.
7. Bowling trip.

They’ve earned just about everything on the list at least one time.

The girls FINALLY earned a bowling trip.

We scheduled it on one of our WalMart trip days.

Yep.

Super Bowl, Lanes, Lounge, Package Liquor.

You walk through the bar/lounge/package store to get to the lane area.

They had a BLAST.

This girl was SO EXCITED. She was so happy for everyone bowling.

Matt and I had a pretty good competition going.

Pretty good score for people that haven’t bowled in 6+ years.

Ruby and Clara’s score:

We did our Resurrection Eggs again this year. The girls are getting better and better about remembering the whole Easter story. There was that one night when we were going over the coins that Judas got for his betrayl, and Clara declared he got money for putting his clothes away (like she does). We will have to go in more depth with her in the next few years. J

Ruby was with me when I was buying the Easter basket stuff. She knew what each item was and was just waiting for Easter morning to get it.

When the girls got up, we read through the story, went through the eggs to tell the story and see the empty egg. They know that they get small gifts because of the ultimate gift that Jesus did for all of us.

The girls got: peeps, flip flops, umbrellas, lip gloss/fingernail polish, bubble wands, side walk chalk, water balloons (that they plan on attacking Papa B at work in the late spring), a rain poncho for Ruby and a stuffed rabbit for Clara and some chocolate eggs.

They have really wanted some umbrellas. We live in the high desert and RARELY get rain, but they have many plans for them.

We went to church down in Worland. Ruby and some other kids sang a song in front of the church to open up the service. We all had forgotten that she was going to do that, so no pictures or videos were taken of the event. She did really well though.

We came back home to eat our ham, hash brown casserole, lima beans, green beans, Watergate salad, rolls, and dump cake.

The day was cool, windy and high in the 40’s.

We had a small egg hunt for the girls in the yard.

Happy Easter!

Everrrryyy now and then I get to take about 45 minutes, drive back into a canyon and take a good, quiet hike.

I park, pick a wild game trail and go.

Sometimes it’s almost straight up.

There are interesting finds all along the way.

Nothingness and quiet. You won’t hear airplanes, trucks, the highway, people, or cows…nothing.

For miles and miles…nothing.

Until you hear the birds flapping their wings in flight 50 yards above you.

(circled: the birds)

It is good just to be out, silent and taking a hike.

Spreading fertilizer. You call it in, they bring it, they load it in the spreader, they wait while it is spread, they go back and get more while you are spreading and the process starts over again.

Soil samples were taken back in October, sent off to a lab and the results come back. Matt analyzes the data and orders a special blend of fertilizer that will help boost a greater yield on the alfalfa.

We go and deliver meals and play.