let's catch up

Steve has been off from work for a week or two and we are loving it! He's been getting to spend so much more time with Riggs than ever before and I know they are both soaking it up.

Steve has been working on projects in the garage for a few hours each day, and Riggs loves to go out and join him. Aren't they too cute in their matching bibs? I just love them!

Also as I mentioned a while ago, our chickens weren't laying during the winter (since about late November) because the sun went behind the mountain and there just wasn't enough daylight. We wanted to give them a break and didn't light their coop (or heat it, they are hardy girls!). I checked every week or so to make sure there wasn't an egg in the nesting boxes, and for months, there was nothing. I checked last week on Monday or Tuesday and there was still nothing. Then a few days later I decided to check again and I found 10 frozen, cracked eggs all piled up in the nesting box. I'm pretty sure the chickens thought I was crazy when I cried out in surprise and excitement. I gathered them up and brought them in to show Steve.

I was sad to waste them but they were pretty gnarly, so we had to toss them. But since then we've been getting three to four each a day and you can bet we've (very happily) been eating lots of eggs since then. I am so excited to not buy eggs for the rest of the summer!

Riggs has been keeping busy with lunch dates (slurping up his miso soup through a straw is his new favorite thing to do), play dates and even managed to get his hair cut last week. I just love his little personality and his facial expressions during his hair cut were killing me. He was really good about sitting still and following Sarah's directions as she snipped away, but you could tell he was very skeptical about the whole process. So funny!

It's been snowing little bits here and there and so when the sun was out and shining warmly Monday we decided to take advantage of it! Steve and I spent half the day outside, and Riggs just went inside for a nap.

Riggs is able to play outside for longer and longer without needing direction from Steve or I, it's been so fun to have him tag along while we work on projects that before would have been hard to do with putting him in the stroller (and even then he'd often get bored quick). He skied for a bit, then drove his car around the driveway and then just lounged in it while watching the flames at the burn pile. So fun!

We love where we live so much but the winter months can seem long and especially dark for us since the sun stays hidden behind the mountain for the darkest three months of winter. February is always an exciting time for us as the sun comes back for longer and longer throughout the day. It only disappeared for a few minutes behind the tallest peak so I know it will be here to stay on sunny days by next week. Yay for more daylight hours!

I've been baking and cooking more which has been keeping me busy in the kitchen - both while I'm cooking and for clean up. Our dishwasher is leaking and we would rather just buy a new one than fix the old one (again - Steve already fixed the leak once). BUT we have pretty hard water and so we'd prefer to install a water softener of some sort before investing in a new appliance, so for now I'm hand washing all our dishes. I don't really mind too much since I didn't have a dishwasher for the seven years before we moved into this house (or even running water for nearly two years of that!). It just takes a little more time, especially if I let them pile up after a meal or two. I try to wash them after each meal, but sometimes they have to wait until the end of the day.

Riggs has been helping me in the kitchen but he hasn't had an apron all this time, so I finally got around to making him one last week. It turned out so cute (and easy too) and I'll be sharing a simple tutorial a little later for how I made it.

We've also been hit with Olympic fever and have been watching them as much as they're aired on NBC primetime. We only have bunny ear antenna for our TV and I'm completely fine with that - until the Olympics rolls around. Then I wish we had all the NBC channels so I could watch more events, and a DVR recorder so we could record it when we're not home or busy and fast forward through the commercials.

Anyway, this has been the longest post ever and if you're still reading congratulations, you've finally come to the end. Thanks for hanging in there and catching up with me :)