Two First Born Children

On Monday Brad and I had a meeting in Chicago and Grandma Diane picked Vincent up from school.  Kristine was on spring break and was spending time with Grandma too.  Kristine is a freshman in high school and the oldest of 3 kids.  Vincent is in preschool and the oldest of three kids.  Grandma Diane had them make chocolate chip cookies and color Easter eggs together.  From the reports I heard the two of them had an interesting dynamic.  The easiest way to explain it was they both thought that they were right and neither one of them was about to be pushed around, however they were very polite with each other.  Grandma Diane was entertained by all of it!  It sounded like Kristine and Grandma both enjoyed Vincent’s stories about school, his friends, and his first best friend at school, Lilly.

Kristine and Vincent

Vincent is really good and convincing people they need to do his work for him, they don’t even realize it until it is too late.  He started coloring an egg with an orange marker.  He asked me to help and I told him that I would not be helping him because it was his idea and he could easily keep working on it and get it done.  It was not a hard task.  Less than five minutes later I hear him ask Grandma Diane for help and she stops what she is doing and she starts coloring the egg for Vincent.  She didn’t realize she had been had until I said “Vincent found himself a worker bee.”  The kid is good!

What do Farmers do all winter?

A lot of people wonder what farmers do all winter since they aren’t out in the field.  There are a lot of things to do in the winter.  Here is a quick list of what they have been up to this winter.

      1.  Meetings.  Constant meetings around the farm with seed dealers, chemical dealers, grain brokers, insurance agents, bankers, landlords, equipment dealers, fertilizer salesman, real estate agents, peer groups, etc

      2.  Meetings.  A trip to Kansas City, thanks to Claas, to examine the newest Claas combine design and meet with some of their engineers from the USA and Germany.  They also met with executives from other agricultural manufactures.   

      3.  Meetings.  Bob and Sarah went on a trip to Germany to see the Claas factory and were also able to meet with the owner of Horsch Manufacturing, who build a planter that we are interested in.  The guys saw it when they were in Kansas City.

  

      4.  Meetings.  Bob and Brad attended an all-day safety seminar on farm safety

      5.  Manufacturing.  Brad had an idea to make a fast system for remotely opening hopper bottom doors.  It has been a true group effort between Brad, Bob and Craig from design to manufacturing to installation.  It is now on the road being tested and they are happy that there have been very few glitches.

      6.  Hauling Grain

      7.  Equipment clean up and repair

      8.  Land Purchasing

         9.  Installing field tile

     10.  Cleaning up fields: removing fence rows and shrubs

     11.  Working with a manufacturer in North Dakota (Norwood Sales) on making a seed/fertilizer tender.

         12.  Preparing equipment for the spring planting season.

What it boils down to is the winter is the more mentally draining season and the spring, summer, and fall are the more physically draining times of year.  Either way they work hard all year long!  For a more detailed explanation of some of the activities check out www.stewart-farms.com 

FaceTime with Family

Technology is a wonderful thing most of the time.  Last night was one of those times!  I was able to FaceTime with my dad, Alyse and Jill with out the kids around to steal my phone.  Then when my dad insisted on seeing the children, who were sleeping, I was able to take my phone upstairs and show them Vincent sound asleep (as I am typing this it sounds a little creepy).  I am not brave enough to sneak in Joel or Cecilia's rooms, I would probably wake them up.

Last weekend they called us on FaceTime too.  The kids thought it was hilarious.  They were taking turns talking to my dad and sisters.  For some reason there was some sneezing going on and my sisters started pretend sneezing into the phone.  The boys were cracking up, and pretty sure their aunts were the funniest people ever! 

When the kids are involved FaceTime is great!  However, I prefer just talking on the phone.  Then you can be in your messy house, wearing ugly clothes, with your hair all over the place and kids hanging off you, and as long as there isn't too much screaming in the back ground it sounds like you have your act together.  A video chat of any kind ruins your cover and makes it quite obvious you have nothing together as children dart in and out of the screen shot still in pajamas at noon, and steal the phone and run around giving tours of the dirty house to people on the other end of the call.  That is the worst case scenario and those things would never happen around my house, but if they did it would be my luck that they would happen while I am on a video call.  Plus when you are on the phone you can hold it up to your ear with your shoulder and still have two hands free to wash dishes, type, wrangle children, etc.  With a video chat you are forced to hold the phone up and stare at the picture of yourself thinking "wow, do I really look like that?!" while you talk to your friends or family.

Like I said FaceTime or a video chat can be fun, but it is not for every phone call!

Easter Eggs

Brad wanted to do something fun on Sunday and I suggested coloring Easter Eggs.  He was all for it!  I was super excited and I was more than happy to share the egg coloring duties.  Otherwise the kids and I would be coloring the eggs later in the week while Brad was working. Coloring eggs with kids is not a clean event.  There are spills and splashes and if you are lucky you end up with some eggs that look good and aren’t cracked.

Joel all ready to get started

Joel is so excited to have an egg in his whisk

Fun times!

What color to I use next?

Vincent almost done with the first round of eggs

Brad showing Vincent some tricks

Brothers hard at work.

I set everything up at the counter and the boys sat down and started working on their eggs.  I put Joel’s egg in a whisk and my hope was that it would be a less messy endeavor.  It worked really well for a little bit.  Joel was carefully swirling the eggs in the different colors and having fun.  He was jabbering to himself as he swirled each egg and changed colors at least 5 times per egg.  As time went by he decided to slam the whisk with the egg into each color and use it like a hammer in the bowls.  He was having a blast, and talking up a storm, but he was making a mess.   He did end up with some lovely pinkish brown eggs and stayed relatively clean.

Vincent and Daddy

Mommy and Joel

Joel and Mommy

Cecilia waiting patiently...sort of

Joel and his swirling technique

Vincent and his beautiful eggs

Brad coloring eggs

Vincent was having a lot of fun with the egg coloring too.  I had given each kid six eggs to start with and within five seconds Vincent had colored all of his eggs, one egg per bowl of dye.  That is when Brad decided to show him how to color the eggs with half one color and half another color.  It slowed Vincent down a little bit.  Vincent really just wanted to put the Angry Bird stickers that came with the kit on the eggs.   At one point Vincent accidentally spilled a bowl full of the egg color and it went all over the floor.  The bowl he spilled was blue.  The color that it turned on the floor was pink, I can’t explain that!  Poor Brad was a little stressed about the mess!  

Cecilia and her egg

Tiny hands

So excited to be destroying the egg

So much fun!

Why didn't they let me do this earlier?

Before we knew it they had colored the 20 eggs I had ready.  Brad and I didn’t get to color any eggs yet, so upon Brad’s request I boiled 18 more eggs.  By the time the eggs were boiled the kids were not very excited about it anymore and I think Brad finished most of the eggs with a little help from Vincent and me.  While we were coloring eggs Cecilia was playing in the kitchen, eating snacks in her highchair and climbing on top of the little table.  She wanted to help, but I didn’t want to let her help.  Cecilia was less than thrilled to be left out so I gave her a cracked egg to play with! 

Joel organizing a few of his eggs

All 4 of them ended up cracked

He was very proud of his eggs

I think over all everyone had fun.  I don’t think Brad will be so excited to color eggs with us next year.  The mess making abilities of the children had him a little stressed.  Somehow seeing Brad a little stressed over it made me a little more relaxed about the whole thing.  The down side is that I now have a refrigerator full of hard boiled eggs, no one really eats them, and the smell is making me gag every time I open the fridge.   At least we made some memories! 

The final product

The second tray!

Brothers and Sisters

Cecilia thinks sitting at the kids’ table is so much fun, but there are only 2 chairs.  I will let her out of her high chair and if she will go straight to the little table.  If the boys are sitting there she will try to push her way onto a chair and usually make one of her brothers mad.  If there is an empty chair she will sit down and eat whatever food is left at that spot.  If there is no food left than she will steal food from whoever is still eating.

 

Super Hero Cecilia!

Cecilia sneaking in to get some food

Vincent was pretending to be a super hero last week.  He wanted Cecilia to play too.  Joel was taking a nap so we borrowed his super hero cape for Cecilia.  Vincent was happy to have someone else pretending to be a super here, Cecilia was happy to chase him around, and I was a little bummed I didn’t have a cape to wear.  Luckily once Joel woke up Cecilia wasn’t too upset to give up her cape.

Super Vincent and Super Cecilia

Joel is so tolerant of Cecilia.  She will run up and steal one of his special items (Lightning McQueen, Francesco, his bunnies or blanket).  She will then look over her shoulder with a grin to see if Joel is coming after her.  If he doesn’t then she returns the toy.  I think he has figured out if he ignores her she will bring back the toy.  Once or twice a week she will take it a little too far and after stealing a toy for the 10^th time he will retaliate.  Usually he just grabs the toy from her, sometimes he hits her and almost every time she loses her balance and falls on the floor.  After all the teasing she does she kind of deserves it!  Even so, Joel still ends up in time out.  Cecilia doesn’t hold a grudge, she is constantly kissing both of her brothers even when they are in time out for hurting her.  Joel and Cecilia both move too fast and I don't have very many pictures of the two of them together.

 

Vincent and Cecilia