May Day

So many blessings to be thankful for as I'm thinking back on what's been going on these last few months! After we came home from Scotland we 'dug' right into the garden haha:P Couldn't be happier with how it's turning out so far. We have quite a variety of new things growing (garlic, onion, basil, watermelon, green beans) and probably just as much work as last summer, but at least we don't have to stress about getting things ready to take to the farmer's market this year. Since the baby is due in June,we decided that we would sell out of house instead. And will most likely do what we did our first year and give away plenty to friends.
Speaking of baby, here's an update on how he's growing:

That was taken at 31 weeks during our visit to California. While Ted attended AAPG conference in Long Beach for a few days, I got to spend some time with my in-laws and have a nice little vacation. Some of my favorite activities included: lounging in a chair on the patio, watching Brigham throw food to the chickens, shopping for baby clothes and mommy clothes with Carolyn, seeing Redlands Farmer's Market, attending a new church, eating fruit, and reading books!
This week is Ted's last week of classes at KU, then on to finals next week. Seems this semester has gone by the fastest of them all! He doesn't have much longer and he will be graduating; A possibility of that happening this December already, my goodness!

Scotland

For Spring Break this year, we traveled to see Raymond and Mary Blake in Scotland. They are living in a cute little stone house a few miles from St. Andrews, where Ray is attending school and MB is working. We were very impressed by the lush green fields filled with sheep, and how everything was so old!
Ted and I took a walk around a small town and found this ancient church (1183) that is still holding services to this day.We also really enjoyed spending a whole day walking around St. Andrews seeing all of the old medieval castles and churches. We even crawled down into a mine, yeah, actually had to crawl because the ceilings were incredibly low!Spent a nice day at a beach town. Took a walk around the rocks by the sea and found a few cute little pubs to hang out in until our bus came to pick us up.
One night MB's friend offered to babysit for us so we had a couples date night and we went to this really awesome Indian restaurant, had the best nan bread I've ever had there! Ted had the hottest spicy dish he's ever had.
Another day, we rented a car and drove around the Highlands for the day. Up the road from one of the towns we found an amazing castle that was still in pretty good shape. Ted and I had a lot of fun walking the trails around the castle, seeing the waterfalls, and walked up to a peak that overlooked the town.

Thank you Mary Blake and Raymond for your great hosting skills, and showing us around to some of your favorite spots!

Baby Chicks

Our four chicks arrived last week, and already they have grown so much. Their names are: Hattie, Lomi, Fira, and Ping. We keep them inside in a cage up on a shelf in the window. They like their heat lamp and we see them piled on top of each other snuggled up several times during the day. Everyone wonders why they are black instead of yellow, but it's just the breed that they are. They're Barred Rock hens and will eventually have black and white polka-dotted feathers. I'm excited for when they can move out into their coop, but the weather is just a bit too cold.Day 1 (above): Tiny balls of fluff

A couple days old (above): 3 sleeping in their food bowl

This was how the coop looked all winter. Since, we've remodeled it a bit and put up a fence for their pen.

Our weekend

Quite the exciting time around our house this weekend. Brigham said a new word: "hat", as I pointed to a cowboy hat that was on my head. And today I'm pretty sure he tried saying "one" after I had said it.
So, I felt like mother-of-the-year on Saturday. That morning I was going though some old seeds that I wanted to get rid of or trade at the annual Lawrence Seed Exchange. Brigham got the sweet corn seed package open and tried tasting a couple kernels that had been treated with some fungicide or something. So we called poison control, turns out he didn't eat enough of it to do anything to him, thank God!
Later that day, we went to Target so I could get Breaking Dawn and Brigs found a tricycle in the store..poor baby got to going fast and fell off the trike onto his head.
And all this time we noticed his eye had been getting more and more irritated. We first noticed something after his haircut. I was like, "wow he cried so hard he made the corner of his eyeball red," I said that night. The next day it looked about the same and just looked like he hadn't gotten enough sleep. I also noticed his nose had started running and thought he was either teething again or caught a cold. And finally Saturday night his eye looked like a blood vessel had popped in the corner of it. We had a hunch it was pinkeye...and then Sunday morning he woke up with a swollen eyelid and the other eye was turning red.
Sunday Brigs was miserable. I've never seen him sick where all he wants to do is lay on my chest and have me rock him all day. I have to admit that it was nice getting to hold him for such a long time and getting some snuggles..but you could tell he just felt awful:(
Today we went to the doctor and he's on an antibiotic. Hoping within the next few days he will start feeling better.

Haircut

After the last 2 weeks of strangers calling Brigham a "her", we decided that yes.. it was time to chop those curly little locks off. I was mostly just putting it off because I thought it would make him seem older and I just wanted to hang on to that baby a little longer. But it was time, especially since Ted had trouble with it getting stuck and caught in zippers when he got him dressed. So when daddy went in for his usual haircut, so did Briggsie. Here's before, during, and after the haircut:

Trying to squirm away off my lap (above)

He really hated that comb and then those scissors made him mad too, but it got a little better once we took his cape off. And then once we found a clip to play with, he was okay for the most part (videos above and below)

Here's the new short look! Still getting used to it, but it's so easy to rinse shampoo out now!

Christmas Break

Hooray! I'm finally getting around to writing on the blog again. We had a great Christmas with my family, then headed out to Seattle, WA to meet up with Ted's family. After all that traveling we got to come home for 3 days before leaving again to meet up with our friends in Illinois; Kim, Brent, and their newest addition, Ella live in Streator, IL. We rode a train there and it was a lot of fun, and my new favorite way to travel!

The day after getting back from that, Ted had to leave yet again for Nevada to do some work for a grad student in the geology department. It was a lonesome and long week for me and Brigs. But we got to spend MLK day all together biking in the warm weather and getting a lot of outdoor work done.

Ted started school Jan. 17th, and his schedule this semester seems to be a breeze compared with last semester's Calc. 2 course. He's very excited to be taking Volconology, a topic he's been interested in his whole life. Me and B have been finding all sorts of activities around town to do since the weather is too chilly to be outside. The past week we have gone to the Nature Center, Natural History Museum, and several trips to Doodlebugs (a new used kid's clothing store here in town).

I'm getting very eager for spring to get here, and last week I put up a bird feeder right outside our bedroom window. I have been attracting all the birds from the neighbors' yards, and it's fun to watch them eat and fly away when they see Milo getting ready to attack from inside the window. My goal was to get cardinals to come and I have seen many at the feeder, so yay for me! I'm now in the process of fighting off the nasty squirrels that keep knocking the lid off and dumping the seeds all over the ground.

Here's a little video from a park we visited while in Seattle:

Drilling