Hello Blog World…let me introduce myself…

I’m Susie, wife of this handsome turkey farmer, who doesn’t look so much like a turkey farmer in this picture…. And the mother of two gorgeous daughters, and 1 precious tow headed boy who has a hint of mischievousness to him. We’ve been enjoying most of March 2010 road tripping across Indiana making brief stops back at home where we have remodeling going on in the little man’s room changing this 1950s old farm house closet…….

……….. into the  a 2010 closet…..it’s still under construction but definitely somewhere to put Griffin’s stuff and it will look like a little boys room…without the 1994 big flower border!

In the midst of remodeling…our family and a few of  the Heller cousin’s made a Road Trip North to Cayuga to see my, niece, Jessica, make her debut as a nun in The Sound of Music.  She was excellent along with the rest of the musical. It was hard to contain myself from getting on stage and participating myself…but I did manage….It was a fun trip only delayed by a minor flat tire on my niece, Courtney’s car,….but Never Fear….Uncle Les to the rescue!!!  He had her spare tire on and back on the road within 30 minutes. He is pretty handy think I’ll keep him around a while longer.

The weekend of the Musical, also happened to be right in between, my sister and I’s B-days…so we had to take a picture of us both being 38….we threw in Cassie & Courtney just to show how young we were when they were born….must have been pretty cool to have teenagers for Aunts…well at least Courtney…Cassie likes to remind me that I’m exactly 20 years older than her…anyway we always have a great time with our nieces and love spending time with them so it was fun to have them along for the road trip! 

 

While Doug & Lisa  made a road trip in March…… we got to keep Alton & Kaelyn with us overnight…so much fun….Natalie got to put her little momma skills to work and actually rocked Alton to sleep…too sweet.

 

OH Yeah, somewhere along in this month my drier went on the fritz along with my computer….urg….

We’ve also been doing a little fishing up at the pond.

Lots of fun…convincing myself that putting worms on fishing hooks isn’t gross….what mother’s won’t do for their kids and husband!  Having a GRAND time all the while.  And eating yummy fish is a bonus.

We’ve been to “Camp-Read-ALOT” at BR school…which was a lot of fun…free books and Griffin won a Colts Poster in Bingo.

And We’ve been off and RUNNING again.  The girls and their family of runner’s participated in the Andrea Boes 5K/10K Memorial Run.  Which was a great time.  Big Cousin, Courtney (who by the way has a BIRTHDAY today ~ Happy Birthday Courtney!! ) Happily ran along side with my girls (I still worry about them running on the streets by themselves).

My brother Kevin, nephew KC, also ran and my niece, Chloe, too…she’s behind them a little…… in the red shorts.

Aunt Lisa ran the 10K even with a bum leg muscle. 

Our running family – Kevin, Courtney, Lisa, Natalie, Chloe, & Megan.  Kevin was the overall winner for the 10k and Natalie was 1st place and Megan 2nd place in their age division!  They were pleased this was their first time to run a road race for 2010.  Both improved their times without much running practice prior to the race….must be their long legs growing!

Of course there has been work to do down at the Turkey Barns…getting ready for baby turkeys.

Farmer Griffin taking care of the waterers.  I Love how he sticks his tongue out when he is concentrating!… it must help.

  

Natalie became the Clothes Pin Girl…we use the clothes pins to secure the cardboard rings together…she decided it would be easier to carry them this way instead of carrying the bucket.

Then there is the tractor driving and who’s going to drive first!  The girls decided they needed a break with cheetos ~ Thank God for Grandma’s who brings drinks and snacks down to her grandbabies while they work!

Griffin even let me drive the tractor….He thought he needed to teach me how! AND that I needed to wear his John Deere hat while driving it….(he doesn’t know the story of many tortuous joyful summers of me having to mow lawns)

Anyway momma got the tractor moved all the while…. Beauty Queen Megan waved to the busy workers from the trailer. (whatever makes work more enjoyable I guess)

We also had the boom box blaring as we worked so we could hear our Barr-Reeve VIKINGS win Semi-State!!  Whooop Whooop!

More tractor driving with Neal and more Beauty Queen waving only this time with the added volleyball.  Hmmmmm how’d the volleyball get to the turkey barns anyway??   Like I said Megan is about making work fun!

Griffin and Megan both are going to show Libby in 4-H again this year…Griffin will be in mini 4-H so he will be allowed to use the same dog as Megan…Here is big sister showing little bro how to give Libby a bath….to get her ready for the 4-H kick off night at the 4-H grounds in Washington.

My sister and her kids came to visit us on their Spring Break, which happened to be the week before ours but the kids still had a grand time playing with each other after school.  Natalie & Kyle enjoyed pushing each other on the tire swing!

It just so happened to be Leanne, my sister’s, birthday…so now we are no longer the same age and she can official say she is 39 and holding.

I baked cakes and Jessica decorated a Hershey Kiss for Leanne’s birthday cake!  That Jess is pretty crafty with a knife and icing!

 

Typically our baby birds come over our Spring Break and the kids get to help…but with our Spring Break being a week later they came while our kids were in school and at 9:30 a.m. right smack in the middle of the morning…normal time is like 5:30 a.m.  So we were short on help and got a new set of volunteers…My sister and Jessica and Kyle.  They were really good help especially for never having stepped foot into a turkey barn before!

Well the next weekend we headed on another ROAD TRIP to INDY to see the BR Vikings play in the state finals game!

The kids had a blast showing their school spirit!

And Cheering on their team!

BR ended up bringing home the runner-up trophy but they definitely played with a lot of class and we were very proud of them!  The kids have determined that BR will win the State Title some time…..Connor says when they do it’ll be because he’s playing on the team! LOL!  Only time will tell!

They also had exploring all the fun things around Conseco Fieldhouse….. like all the pictures of the Pacer players and shoes!

Sunday we went to Grandma and Grandpa Grabers for Easter Celebration since the Klopfensteins were going to Ohio over Easter weekend.  Grandma Gwen…made up a “Bunny Hop Treasure Hunt” for the kids….they LOVED it! 

Especially reading the clues….

Doing the Bunny Hop…..

And finding the GOLDEN egg!!

Which lead to Easter Baskets from Grandma and Grandpa!

Lisa and little Lisa Kaelyn posed for a picture together with Kaelyn wearing an official Vintage dress that had been Lisa’s when she was about the same age as Kaelyn.  I caught Kaelyn in a “twirl” that was the best part about wearing a dress when you are a little girl!  Too Cute.

 

After leaving Grandma’s and Griffin having baseball practice…the kids and I along with co-pilot, Cassie,  headed off for yet another ROAD TRIP back to Cayuga since we were on Spring Break.   My sister’s family moved to a place out in the country last Fall and we had yet to initiate the place with an overnight visit with the Grabers + Cassie.  LOL.  Jessica and Kyle couldn’t wait to take us back into the woods and down to see the river.   I went along….I don’t think they were too keen on the mother going along but when I hear “river”….I think  it’s best I go along…especially when my 5-year-old boy says “Cannon Ball” at every body of water we go past.

It was beautiful back in there but there were a lot of RAVINES and ups and downs and climbs to go across….Bless my sweet little man’s heart…..he was such a little gentleman and wanted to take care of his mommy all the way through the woods….as you can see the others were a bit ahead of us and Griffin kept yelling…. “WAIT for Mommy!”  LOL!  Let’s just say when you are 30 something you just don’t move as fast as the “Tweens”…. who would rather jump and run up and down the Ravine’s instead of taking the straight path…(which by the way I found a flatter course to navigate on the way back…since essentially our guides didn’t have time for momma blogger to take pictures in the woods.)

We did manage to find the Vermillion River and headed back.  Natalie, Jessica, and Griffin agreed to pause a moment for me to take their picture.

And I was able to recruit Natalie to hang back with her mom and little brother for some photo ops…Megan she’s ALL about the adventure and not wanting to miss out on anything and her cousins and their friends are much more cooler to hang out with than her mom.

Griffin & Natalie chose these poses and props…I think I’m getting them convinced that picture taking is fun! LOL!

The next day we went to school and ate lunch with Kyle…well Griffin and I had lunch with Kyle b/c being in 5th grade…. girls and boys don’t mix so much….. so the girls ate lunch with a family friend, Kate S., ….I think my kids …..think she is a cousin too….because they get to see and play with her when we come to Cayuga.   They love the hanging out (I’m told when you are a tween you don’t play anymore but hangin out??)  with the purdy kids and the shepherd kids.

Griffin also got a special treat, since my sister, is a Kindergarten Teacher’s Aide at the school, Griffin got to play at recess with the kindergarteners….who just so happen….to have….their very own playground.  Can you believe that….Kindergarteners have a completely SEPARATE playground from the rest of the school kids!

They even have these cool little bikes and a bike path for them to ride on in the playground area!

A Sandbox with all the toys to go with it! 

Monkey Bars…which Griffin had to show his muscles on.

And fun little bouncy animals to play on…along with swings to boot.

 

The girls gained ALOT of attention from ALOT of little boys on the playground….they just flocked to Megan & Natalie and they played Monkey in the Middle with them until they all started chasing and trying to kiss them!!!!!!!!!! YIKES…Thanks to Mrs. Leanne she saved them! LOL

Seeing how Griffin had inside connection to the Kindergarten classes, with his Aunt Leanne being the Aide, we got to tour the kindergarten rooms so he could see how they do things there.  The teacher even gave him a paper to do and sit with the other children….while they were doing the paper…she came over and told me that if it was OK with me, she would be more than fine for Griffin to stay and spend the afternoon with the class and he could come home with Leanne!

Griffin was SO excited to get to stay and Aunt Leanne introduced him to this little boy, Alonzo, who was going to be his friend and take care of Griffin if he needed anything.  It was so sweet.  Leanne went over to tell Griffin that I was leaving & see if he wanted to tell me good-bye…well Griffin was so busy into his papers and didn’t have time to look up…so Alonzo took it upon himself to do it for Griffin…and said “Goodbye Mom, I LOVE YOU!” and proceed to tell the rest of the kindergarteners to say “Goodbye Mom! I LOVE YOU!”  LOL!!  it was too funny…in an instant I had become “MOM” to the entire kindergarten class!

Cassie, the girls, and I all left him there and headed back to my sister’s but had to get a quick picture of one of the Vermillion County Giraffes….It’s kind of an “eye-spy” kind of a thing throughout the county….. these painted Giraffe’s are placed at different spots as identifying landmarks or something like that…anyway the kids think they are fun…so we snapped a picture of them.

Jessica and Kate had put like 30+ braids in Natalie’s hair the night before so she would have wavy hair the next day and Megan already had French braids in…so there was a lot of Blonde wavy hair blowing in the wind that day….as well as when we caught back up with the Purdy’s after school….two different reports…. one being from the kindergarten boys “there were two hot girls on the playground” and another Kyle saying he heard some boy say that one of those girls at lunch was “hot'”. ….I reassured Megan & Natalie that I was sure that they were talking about Me and Cassie! LOL!  They surely couldn’t be referring to my darling little girls as hot! I’m SO NOT ready for that!

Griffin also enjoyed trying out Aunt Leanne and Uncle Kevin’s big bathtub at the new place (ignore the sponge paint…my sister is not a fan of it but obviously the previous owner had a thing for sponge and stencils….my sister has painting plans in the future when schools out).  He Loved it an only SPLASHED a few times.

We made the ROAD TRIP back home only to wake the next morning and head down to the turkey barns to wash up the feeders and waterers with Grandma Gwen.

Natalie spraying out the feeders above and Megan (the tween) rolling her eyes at momma blogger trying to take pictures of her in action…

 

Griffin taking a break sitting on the tractor having snacks and drinks once again provided by Grandma Gwen!  Notice the powder sugar on his hat!  He was lovin himself some doughnuts!

We finished up and headed back home to get cleaned up and headed down to Kevin & Carrie’s to color Easter Eggs with the cousins and Courtney’s college friends ….needless to say this momma was tired and didn’t get any pictures of coloring eggs….but it was fun….and that brings us back up to April!  YAY!  One entire month worth of blogging in ONE POST!!   I’ll try to stay on top of the blogging but that’s not a promise b/c now with the nice weather we are going to throw in mowing the lawn and outside work along with everything else…..Hopefully I’ll get back into my digi scrapbook pages….I’m blogging from the lap top, which doesn’t have my Memory Mixer software on it yet and the old computer was on the blink….eventually I’ll get everything back on track…but right now just trying to stay afloat among the remodeling/re organizing and getting everything put back to where it is suppose to be.  Nice to feel I’m caught back up to April on my blog!!