Wile E. Coyote

There was another attack on our chickens. Last Saturday morning around 1, I was awoken by the sounds of our chickens clucking loudly. I decided to get up and go see what was wrong. I went outside and walked around the coop and run, but I didn't see anything and went back to bed. The next morning, the same thing happened at the same time. I got my robe and slippers on, started walking outside and about half way there I saw a coyote come around the corner of our run. It was about 50 feet away from me. We stood and stared at each other for what seemed like forever. My heart was pounding in my chest like crazy. I yelled at it to go away and it bolted. I went inside to wake J up. He got his shotgun and came outside, but by then it was gone. We lost 2 chickens this time. The coyote got away with 1 before I came outside and caught it in the act with the 2nd one. It had crawled underneath our coop and dug up the wiring we had stapled to the legs and buried in the ground. When I found our poor white chicken, it looked like the coyote was trying to drag it underneath the wire. Ever since then, we have been putting the chickens away in the coop at night. We got a leg trap from our neighbor and had been setting it up using the dead chicken as bait, but that didn't work. We are setting the trap up for one more week to see if the coyote will come back, but so far it hasn't. I'm really hoping I scared it away for good.

 Not long after the coyote attack, I was moving some boxes around on the back porch and I found this box that had about 18 eggs in it. Those silly chickens were flying over our old fencing and laying eggs around the house. 

Last weekend we had storm after storm and a lot of rain and we were unable to get the lawn mowed like we needed. One day after work I came home and was cooking dinner and taking care of the kids and I heard a lawnmower outside. Our neighbor had decided to come over and mow our lawn for us. I felt so grateful to him and so relieved that it had been done. 

Little miss Eva sleeping. She has learned how to roll over and is getting more and more active each day.

Eva and daddy chatting it up.

Bonnie's last day of school was Thursday. She misses it but I think she likes getting to sleep in.

Jared invited a coworker and her family over for dinner on Friday. They have 5 kids and we have 5 kids, so they had lots of fun playing together. Jared made me beef wellington (yummy!) as a late Mother's Day dinner. We had lots of fun chatting and playing games.

I found this bouncer on a buy, sell trade site for Eva and she loves it! It came with lots of extra toys from the previous owner.

Bonnie lost her first tooth!

The kids went to get the eggs and one of them was extra extra large! It turned out to be a double-yolker.

Twins!

  We planted the garden on Saturday and were probably outside for 7 hours. My neck got sunburned pretty bad. Thank goodness I was wearing long sleeves. We planted our usual stuff, but this year we added artichoke and eggplant; stuff I won't eat but J really wants to try. I told him we needed to scale back the garden this year because I'm working full time, but he insists that we keep it just as big as it's always been. He plans to get the kids a lot more involved. I'm hoping his plan works.

Goodbye Is Not Forever

 At the end of April, we had to say goodbye to Elder Gonzalez. We were his first area and got spoiled to have him for 6 months, but his transfer came in and he came over to say goodbye. Jordyn was heart-broken because she was sure she was going to marry him, but we told her she will get to see him again some day. He was lots of fun to have around and we can't wait to go to his homecoming in Provo in 18 months.

 We also had to say goodbye to a member of our ward who passed away. His name was Gerhard Luttmer and he was 81. He sang in the choir (was pretty much the only tenor) and his wife lead the ward choir. They lived only a few houses down from us and have been very kind and loving to us ever since we moved in to our house. He always gave the kids candy and high-fives at church. We will miss him.

 Here's some more pictures of Eva sucking her thumb. I am sad to report that she has stopped doing this and there won't be any more adorable pictures of her with her thumb in her mouth.

 Eva taking a bath in the tub; first time without mommy.

 Mommy and Eva at church. Eva likes to look at herself on the camera on mommy's phone.

 Last week, we lost 3 of our chickens to an unknown predator. 2 of them were missing and one was left dead, so we bought kennel panels and got them put up. I'm hoping that helps keep the rest of our chickens alive.

 We also worked very hard last weekend to weed, rake and plant grass seed in the space between our garden and yard. I had to take a picture of it so I can see how different it looks once the grass grows in.

 The apricot tree we bought last month has some fruit on it. We are excited for them to ripen.

 One of the pear trees we bought last year is loaded with pear buds. We are going to have to support the poor thing, as I'm sure it's going to fall over once the pears get bigger.

 Uriah had a strings concert at NVA this week and he did SO good. It makes my heart so happy to see him play the bass. He is incredibly good at it, hardly looking at his fingers while he plays. I hope he keeps going after this year.

 KyLee had her first dental appointment this week. I was so sure she was going to clamp down and not open her mouth, or cry and wiggle so that they couldn't get anything done, but she watched Bonnie go first and then she couldn't wait to get into the chair when it was her turn. Our friend, Matt, did a great job engaging her and getting her to open her mouth. She also liked pretending to be a tiger because that is what was on her bib.

 I took Eva's 4 month pictures last night (even though I'm about a week behind). She is growing so much. She had her checkup yesterday and she was 13.8 pounds (20th%) and 26.5 inches (98th%). All of her growing power has been going into her height instead of her weight, but that should even out soon. I'm not breastfeeding her anymore because going to work every day decreased my supply, but she will still nurse with me at night before bed. She is such a sweet little darling.

 KyLee had to get in on Eva's photo shoot. KyLee had been sick for almost a week with a nasty stomach bug that was giving her the worst diarrhea and vomiting, but she is better now. I really missed my sweet, sassy girl during that sickness.

 Last night I rocked Eva to sleep. I have to get in all the snuggles I can now that I'm not home during the day.

This is my new work photo.