my niece & nephew's debut

Last Friday found Haven and I at the Illinois Preview Show here in Bloomington to cheer on Adam & Amelia as they both showed their first heifers.  While this may NOT seem like a big deal to most cattle folk, these two have a legacy behind them & many shows ahead of them that yell "Angus show world-here I come"! 

They both did GRR-ATE and Adam ended up in the top 3 for pee-wee division showmanship!

Great Job Adam & Amelia...even though Haven slept through the inaugural event, we BOTH are proud of you!

Friday's Funny-GOP humor

Friday's Funny~you gotta love some people

Published in the current issue of WORLD magazine:

Store-bought drinks

It's not being generous if it's with other people's money. Police say a 23-year-old Montreal man robbed a pair of local convenience stores and a video rental company on May 7, walked across the street to a bar, and offered to buy all the patrons free drinks with the roughly $1,000 in stolen loot. After seeing police combing the neighborhood outside, one bartender grew suspicious of the unusual bar patron and alerted authorities, who quickly arrested the man.

http://www.worldmag.com/articles/19507

beating the heat

The last 3-4 days in Central IL have been scorchers...upper-mid 90's with very little wind or rain to cool us down!  So we have either running through sprinklers, heading to splash parks or staying inside working on adoption paperwork to Beat the Heat :)

sprinkler fun!

helping out Grandma & Grandpa on the farm

 McGraw Splash Park with our friends, Reese & Elle

 

 

Miller Park with Daddy...yes, the park's name is actually Miller Park :)

Haven's Play-Doh worm collection

 

rabbit stew, anyone?

**WARNING...pictures may be graphic*** :)

I like to consider myself a hard-working, Iowa girl who can handle, make that "tackle", most any task in front of me...my pride, when not held in check, likes to think I can do some things that other women would not like or even could not, do...hmm, my pride was greatly humbled yesterday morning during my weekly mowing chore...

The rabbits in this town like my flowers...I've tried many ways to deter them: fences, Irish Spring soap & yes, even dried blood (it's disgusting mind you, and if you can stand the smell, dried blood tends to work the best)...we've tried adding sod to our fence line to ensure they can't burrow into our yard...Haven and I even run after them trying to scare them into submission...she just thinks she is trying to catch one so she can pet them. [what she doesn't know won't hurt her, right?]

Yesterday while mowing however, my instant dislike/hatred for the neighborhood rabbits changed as I came across a rabbit who had met it's Maker...yep, right there in the small garden we just planted to honor my Dad, a rabbit was comatose (aka dead as a doornail...where does that phrase come from anyway?) in our landscaping...I stopped the mower & looked at it for a few minutes with several thoughts running through my mind...

"oh, that's sad"

"I wonder what killed him?"

"maybe it's the flowers we laced with poison...just kidding" [smirk-smirk]

"Does his family know?  Do they miss him?"

"oh, why couldn't he have made it to the neighbor's yard so it's their problem?"

"hmm...garbage day is Monday"

"oh NO!  flies are starting to set in!"

"uh-OH!  Arlan is going to want me to take care of this...oh, boy!  oh, boy!"

Yep, sure enough...after a quick call to my husband, his only reassurance was, "yes, Katie...you need to take care of this as the hot sun is only going to make it worse"...UGH! 

So with shovel in hand, a large garbage bag to serve as his tomb & for me, God's grace and sense of bravery, Mr. Dead Rabbit is now waiting for Monday to meet our garbage man. 

Let me till you, riga mortise sets in quite quickly with rabbits :)

Side note: Haven was inside watching Winnie the Pooh this 10 minute drama happened.

the group ~ family weekend

This past weekend was attempt #1 to get our out-of-town "group" friends/potluck together with not just ourselves this time (click here for that weekend) but all our kiddos....
12 adults + 16 kiddos (ages 12 months - 10 years) = 28 of us on a 90 degree day!

We started at a park here in Normal with games, bubbles, playground & snacks and then headed to Megan's house for dinner, more fun & laughs...it was a great weekend and great time to briefly catch up and enjoy the warm weather and chaos of all our kids together :)  We then all attended church Sunday in Bloomington.

Friends~thanks for making the effort to come to Central IL & we look forward to our fall get-together!

since we only had 1 child to ran after vs.  twins, 3 or 5 kiddos, we decided to be the group photographer :)

Friday's Funny - craziness in Champaign

Last weekend proved fairly busy for us: Grandma was in town, I hosted a garage sale, we helped with the Big Build project & we also traveled to Champaign to help Amber celebrate her graduation from U of I-again!  She received her Masters in Social Work and will begin working at ACCFS in late June.  Congratulations Amber...we are so proud of you!

 rounding up the troops for a group photo...

 "hooray", says Charlie!

 a riveting game of Ring Around the Rosie-led by eldest cousin Amelia...

 ...the results of Ring Around the Rosie :)

 I would stick to a farmer's hat there Orlan :)

....and without TOO much complaining, a group photo was had...possibly a Christmas card?!

if you look REALLY close, Haven's shirt says "BEST BIG SIS" :)