Gianna's 8th Birthday

 I missed Gianna's birthday because of work.  She had plenty of friends and family to help her make up for me being absent.

 Our good friend, Laree, gave her this set.  Talk about a happy girl!!

 A kite

 and an extremely cool stars and fairies wall sticker!

 This thing was a bugger to get on the wall.  Make a momma rethink wall stickers!

 new swimsuit

 shoes

 and more shoes

 a little dress for what?

 Sticker books

 a little purse?

 a little pair of pajamas

 hair bands

 more shoes (which did not fit her, ugh!)

Finally! The doll she asked for!!

This is ONE happy girl!

 Showing off her new pajamas

 What a haul!

 cards and money!!

 The best gift of all was a homemade cake that Darren made her.

He even decorated it.  He's hired!

Happy birthday, sweet-tart!

Working for Daisy

I spent April 3-9 working for RPR.  First in Chamberlain for the South Dakota Catholic Daughters of the Americas convention and then for Pastoral Ministry Days in Rapid City.  While I was gone to Chamberlain Darren bought a calf.

 The twins named her Daisy.

 Here's my table set up for the convention.  First attempt at staging for an event.

 I was really working to buy Daisy I just didn't realize it until after the fact.

Here's more pictures of Daisy.  She's a sweet calf with more energy than one little calf should have.  The kids love her, which I think will make eating her a bit harder.  Last year's bucket calf was Rex's from start to still going on.  This one the girls have some affection for and named.  It will be interesting to see how they handle eating Daisy burgers.

Book Club Update #3

I've been terrible about reading lately.  It comes from working so much in the evening through half of April.  Here's the rundown for the last few months!

The rest of February was not as productive as I would have liked, but still a lot was read.  I finished the month with 1,068 pages read.  I finished The Backyard Homestead and kept reading on The Discerning Parent.

March ended with 904 pages read.  I finished The Brothers Karamazov, The Discerning Parent, Child of the South Dakota Frontier, The Cross & the Beatitudes, and The Screwtape Letters.  That's a lot of books finished!!  I also started reading Saint Fernando III (great book!!).  At that point I had read 3,079 for the year.  Not bad for three months.

Then April got ugly!  Wow, it's almost embarrassing.  I only read 287 pages total.  Ugly.  The only book I finished was The Privilege of Being a Woman.  I also started Black Elk.  

Then this month I have been slowly reading through the current books and added in The Grace of Enough.

That means, at this moment, I am reading:

The Grace of Enough

Black Elk

Orthodoxy

The Discernment of Spirits

Saint Fernando III

Wow, I better get to finishing something before I start another book.

Duck Sitting

When I think of things I want to do, are capable of doing, or could possibly put on a resume in the future - DUCK SITTING (like babysitting) was never on that list.

We duck sat for our friends for about a month.

 Ohh, and they gave us these beauties too!

 What an interesting mix of breeds!

That big rooster also came from them.

Gianna was sad to say goodbye to them.  It was a good experiment for us to see if someday we want to get our own ducks.

St. Patrick's Day 2019

After two years of not celebrating St. Patrick's Day on the actual holiday, we were able to celebrate in style this year.  We also invited our dear friend, Laree, out for a supper of corned beef and cabbage along with all of our normal St. Patrick's Day food traditions.

 This was the first St. Patrick's Day the twins can actually remember.

 They helped decorate and brought our excitement level through the roof!!

 St. Patrick and Our Lady of Knocks statues graced our family altar for the day.

The food was amazing!!  Laree is coming again next year she said.

I had cooked all day the day before for Papa Bestgen's St. Patrick's Day party.  I make a mean corned beef and cabbage meal - so volunteered to cook for the family.  It's one of my favorite times of the year and favorite meals.  I was happy to celebrate with all the family for a change.

HP Joined the Family

This is HP.  

She was a free to us addition to Our Farm for Wayward Animals No One Else Wants

We got her on St. Patrick's Day, so we called her Patty.

Patty got upgraded to Hamburger Patty or HP for short.

Rex was not thrilled with the name.  In fact, I think he was offended. 

 HP was sick from the start.  We tried to nurture her and give her a reason to thrive.

She didn't make it through the night.

HP had been with us less than 24 hours.

You have never seen a more relieved young man than Rex.  He really didn't want a calf named Hamburger Patty.  I'm gonna try for another HP one of these times.