In an otherwise orderly,

manicured yard,

why do we have a crazy bush that looks like this?

For the same reason this robin is cautiously creeping up

and giving me punctuated warning tweets…

Can you see why?

Baby robins!

Jeremy found the nest a few weeks ago and was going to tear it down (pre-babies) because we have had bad experiences with nesting birds (flashback College Station, Texas circa 2003: crazy swallow birds nesting above our doorstep. In order to enter the house, you had to call someone inside and tell them you waiting in your car in the driveway, so that the door would be opened before you arrived on the doorstep, so that you could run before the swallows swooped down on you like flying missiles thus causing you to dart away screaming and protecting your head.). However, he left on pastor’s retreat the day right he discovered it, and by the time he returned, four bright blue eggs resided in the nest.

Once we realized the nest belonged to robins, the necessity of ridding ourselves of the it was no longer important. Robins are so stinking cute!!!, and they are not super aggressive, so we were confident the heads of anyone who crossed our threshold would not be in need of protection. Plus, I thought Chloe would love the chance to watch baby birds go from eggs to little peeping mini-robins!

Yesterday, I went outside with my camera to take a picture of the eggs (because they were the most gorgeous shade of blue–we serve an awesome Creator!), but instead of finding little eggs, I found little birds! The mother bird darted away as I came close to the nest, but kept a watchful eye on me as I squealed with delight at her four tiny babies. Chloe had the same reaction, and now every day, we go outside and check on our baby birds. Each time I lift Chloe up to see the birds, she asks to “hol” them. Obviously, that is not an option, but she loves to look any way! Today we saw one of the birds stick up its little head and open its beak as wide as it could! It was amazing! She was so excited and told Jeremy all about it over dinner like this: Chloe: Mom!!! (points outside) Babe!! (points outside)/ Me: Are you telling daddy that we saw the momma bird and her babies outside?/ Chloe: Ya! (this conversation was repeated at least three times).

So, until the summer ends, or the baby robins learn to fly, we will have a crazy, un-manicured bush. I can’t bear the thought of putting the baby birds in danger from the falling branches, sun, crazy Oklahoma wind, or carnivorous blue jays that lurk in our oak tree! We are so excited to watch them grow and to experience the miracle of life in yet another way!

Last weekend, we took a trip out to Orr Family Farms with our little family of four. Chloe is way into animals and the noises they make, so we thought she would enjoy a chance to be up close and personal with some of her favorite barnyard friends.

When we arrived, the pig was asleep, so Chloe threw food at its head. (I am sure she was just trying to wake it up…:D)

Apparently the pig took no offense to being pelted in the noggin with food pellets, because he woke up and ate.

And ate.

And probably wold have kept eating if we hadn’t pulled Chloe away to see some more of the animals.

After the pig came the goats.

There was one goat in particular that she was quite smitten with, and she got a little more up close and personal than we expected! (don’t worry, I am sure there are worse things to kiss than a goat!)

Goat Kissing! from Jeremy Horton on Vimeo.

After we fed the animals, we walked around and explored the rest of the farm. Chloe found another love of hers (cars) outside the sweet shop and took a ride and loved it!

After exploring the farm, it was getting pretty warm, so we went for a ride in shade of the train! Chloe tried to bail out before we took off (I caught her by her shirt), but besides that incident, we enjoyed chugging along and making train sounds!

Our day ended with a ride on the carousel! She loved riding on the horse and after we were finished she yelled “Wide! Wide! Wide!” all the way to the car.

We enjoyed our time on the farm, and I am sure we will go back again and explore some more when it is a little cooler! Any fun ideas to share about summertime outings here in Oklahoma?

Chloe has, or should I say had, a mullet. An adorable, little blond mullet. The mullet is a right of passage for little babies that lose their hair. I feel like the baby mullet is three things: cute, trademark and innocent. Jeremy, however, did not (does not) feel the same way. He felt that it was time for Chloe’s mullet to go and to give her hair some “shape.” In all fairness to him, he did give me about 2 months to get used to the idea of getting rid of the mullet, but come time for her hair appointment, I was still unsure. Something about the fact that those little hairs have been on her head since she was a wee little baby made it hard to say goodbye to them. Jeremy put his foot down though and away we went to Take 5.

We caravanned to Jeremy’s hair place (all four of us!) to watch the mullet be put to rest (Eddy didn’t watch so much as sleep). At first, Chloe wanted NOTHING to do with ANYTHING at the salon. She is always extremely cautious in new situations and with new people, so we let Jeremy get his hair cut first to give her some time to explore and witness the painless process.

After Jeremy went, it was Chloe’s turn. She was still a little unsure, but 2 suckers–that she attempted to get in her tiny mouth at 1 time and then drooled a pile the size of Texas on the floor, 1 bowl of snacks, 1 iphone playing itsy bitsy spider, and 1 spray bottle later, she was ready to go. She actually did a great job of sitting still and didn’t fight Kelly at all, and she is now the proud owner of a mullet free head!

“Whatcha doing Mom?” (notice the wee little mullet)

“Oh no! I can’t handle this!”

Trying to bribe her with an Easter egg…fail.

Take 2. So far so good.

Smiling at Daddy!

Almost finished (notice her 2 suckers and the iphone game! what you can’t see here are her snacks and spray bottle!)

Mullet free! And so cute!

This year was our first year to celebrate Easter with a child who could actually participate, and then Jeremy and I realized at the last minute that we hadn’t really talked about what we wanted our Easter celebrations to look like! Whoops. In all fairness, we just had a baby and so it seemed like Easter came out of nowhere. In the future, however, we would love to put more thought into. (if you have things to share about what you do as a family to celebrate Christ’s death and resurrection, please share!) Nonetheless, Easter this year was a little chaotic but fun!

Our morning started out with celebrating Christ’s resurrection at church. So sad, but I didn’t any pictures of our two little ones all dressed up. To be honest, you wouldn’t have gotten to see much of what they had on anyway though because they were bundled up to keep warm in the freezing Easter weather. After church, we came home and took naps (a coveted gift at this point), and when everyone was up and awake, we opened our Easter egg baskets and hunted for eggs. The egg hunt was hilarious because initially Chloe just wanted to open each egg that she picked up because they made fun rattling noises and so she ran around screaming “O(pen). O(pen). O(pen).” After she got over opening each egg, she ran around screaming “Mo(re)! Mo(re)! Mo(re)!” And when she dropped an egg and realized that there was candy inside, it was all over–all our small one wanted to do was eat chocolate! We concluded our day by having Easter dinner with some good friends, enjoying their company and all of the gifts that we have been blessed with.

Here’s a small glimpse into Chloe’s Easter basket opening…enjoy!

This is her “Hmmm” face…excited to explore!

Trying out her first peep! (she did not share her mommy’s affinity for them…so sad)

Playing with Easter Mrs. Potato Head. (she kept spinning her headband and saying “wid (lid)”…so cute!)

After the egg hunt…cheeks chubby with swedish fish!

Shaking up some more eggs! (if one was empty–because she already ate the candy, she would toss it aside and pick up another)

Laughing with daddy!

Live action footage!

Easter 2011 from Jeremy Horton on Vimeo.