Congrats to my brother Hank! He earned a degree in Engineering and to celebrate they invited us to one of our most beloved activities, the Tulip Festival at Thanksgiving Point. We mostly missed it due to an unforeseen (and as it turns out unnecessary) visit to the pediatric cardiologist where Liza was pleased to earn yet another stuffed animal from primary children’s hospital for our family. We did catch a few pictures, none of the graduate.
Happy Easter! I love this time of year. If I lived another 500 years, I would still find the magic of spring breathtaking. How can I explain the miracle of tulips pushing up through snow and blossoms and leaves popping onto bare branches after the desolation of winter other than by remembering that this earth is part of an organized plan. Spring is a time to reflect on the plan of salvation—Easter, a time to celebrate our resurrected Savior and his atonement.
Liza, busy at work collecting eggs from the bunny.
She set down immediately to organize those eggs. Stuart is a good brother. He isn’t in many pictures today. 
Basket? 
The frustration of trying to open those plastic eggs.
My dear sweet Alison. She loved her dress this year even though she was initially quite skeptical of the fabric with all the little people on it as I was making it.
And of course, the chickens.
I told Liza to open her eyes and look at me. Though willing, this proved to be too difficult without the accompanying mouth.
We spent the latter part of Easter break staying at Snowbird, skiing and swimming (except for those of us that have a pinky toe stitched on to their foot due to an unfortunate and untimely misfortune in the garage). Then returned on Saturday to paint eggs and await the bunny. Liza liked painting eggs and tried very hard to be patient. She made it through purple and blue before she dyed herself yellow and was expelled from the party. 
The kids love holidays. Liza is no different. She was delighted with the bunny. She refers to him as the hop-hop and tells everybody he left her a treat. “hop-hop, tweat. hop-hop, tweat.”
Good News: Our chicks survived the first 24 hours. And then the next 24 hours. Here they are closer to 7 days (to us) old.
Bad News: They are still very very loved.
Alison and Stuart weigh them every day. Whitey and Lucy are growing quickly, adding 50% of their weight every 3-4 days. Little Spring is our bitty girl. She’s also Liza’s (mostly, since we did agree to share) chicken. I was somewhat alarmed with her tiny-ness next to her sisters. Although I’m not entirely sure her stunted growth isn’t related to the abundance of affection she receives from Eliza, Google did assure me that she is a slower maturing chicken variety. Phew.
Whitey seems to be asserting herself as the leader of our little flock. Lucy cries pitifully—and alarmingly loud—when she’s left alone; she either needs Whitey or a person (exception to person: Liza). Spring is our most skittish bird (also probably attributed to the abundance of affection she receives from Lu). 
We finally got our backyard chickens. We’ve been talking about it for a few years but never ever got around to building our coop. Finally, we stumbled across a used coop that we liked and the following day started shopping for our chicks. Meet Whitey, Lucy, and Spring. The three most loved, maybe over-loved chickens ever.
Lucy, an Ameraucana. Alison named her and is delighted with the possibility of her laying “easter eggs”. Hopefully we’ll get a few blueish/greenish eggs from Miss Lucy.
This is Spring, aka: feed-eater. She probably won’t lay well but she has feathers on her feet and Lizee (and I) really liked her. She’s a cochin and has the unpleasant distinction of being mostly Liza’s chicken.
This is Whitey. Although we agreed to share all our birds, Stuart named her and is especially fond of this one. She’s a Buff Orpington.
