May - Part 1

May's been a busy month for us, here's a few highlights.

Amelia is one of those crazy ones that loves to run. :) She enjoyed a track meet at school with the K-4th graders. She always has fun and does well.

I can't believe I'm old enough to have a kid in band! This year Ethan started playing the drums at school. He had the intent of quitting after his first year but has since changed his mind. He enjoyed marching band at Tulip Time and the trip to Adventureland. 

   

Ethan is playing snare drum. he's in the grey shirt.

It's hard to see but the kids decorated their instruments with glow sticks and bracelets for the "lighted" parade at Tulip Time. 

Look who else is participating in a Tulip Time parade! Congrats to Emily for getting Kurt to join you! I'm lucky to just get Mark to watch a parade with me. :)  

I let the kids plant the seeds. I gave them a short lesson on spacing but I think they pretty much ended up doing what they wanted. :) In this picture they're planting green beans. Since this was taken a few weeks ago the beans have come up, or at least part of them. For some reason the row they are planting here never grew. I thought maybe we forgot to plant it and I just covered up the trench with no seeds in it. But I guess we had bad seed or something. We're waiting on round 2 to pop through the ground.

Hard working kids!

Hard working Daddy! 

Ethan and I are having a little competition for growing strawberries. This is the planter box he built last year with grandpa. So far his are doing very well. 

We've added several trees to the yard this spring. Ethan helped me with the second group as part of a Cadet badge he's working on for next year. 

Happy Mothers Day!

Mark, Ethan and Elijah had a good start racing motocross this year. All three got first place in Cedar Rapids!

Elijah's trophy was huge, he's so proud of it. :)

I enjoyed going with Elijah's preschool class on a field trip to Russell Wildlife. As you can see Elijah is sooo excited to get his picture taken by a beaver. 

They are doing an activity acting like caterpillars if I remember correctly.

The pond was the best part. The kids loved looking for little creatures that were pulled up from the pond with a big net.

The chickens are no longer homeless! We still have to paint the shed but they are loving their new home. 

Those are some pretty big chickens roosting way up high!

Truck full of Van Den Broek's off to mushroom hunt.

Prairie burn at my parents house. 

Spring

Spring is finally showing up! Over the last few weeks we've started our spring activities even if the weather hasn't been ideal.  

Spring is the start of garage sale season! I love going to garage sales and with 5 kids it's a great way to save money on clothes, toys or whatever other treasures we can't do without. The picture above is part of the stuff I put on my own sale earlier this month. Several gals from church, that live in the country, decided to rent a building in town for a sale and clean house! I'll admit is was a little hard seeing all my baby stuff go. :( 

Speaking of babies we have lots! 18 total. In the end of February we saved several of our eggs and added a few more from my sister then had Ethan's friend incubate them for us. My hope was for 5 chicks. We ended up with 18! We also have six adult chickens running around. However you do the math, that's way to many chickens! :)  The picture above is of them hatching in the incubator. One chick still has a little egg on him.

They've lived in a Rubbermaid in our sun room for the past couple weeks. (They moved into their bigger box in the shop today)

Amelia picked the smallest little chick of the bunch, as her own. She's enjoyed cuddling it that past couple weeks.

Yikes! We need to teach Allison how to hold a chick nicely! 

That's better Allison!

Ethan and I are working on our strawberry competition for 4-H yet. I've planted 20 plants from Wal-Mart which haven't liked the cold weather. (I may be replanting if no sign of life happens in the next week or two.) Here Ethan is amending the soil in his bed with a little peat, sand and manure to keep it from turning into a brick this summer. 

  

Ang and I were super-pumped to break out our Christmas presents for the first time!

Amelia and Ethan canoed while Ang and I kayaked. I was hilarious listening to Ethan bark orders to Amelia. She's got some learning to do. :) 

After a fun evening kayaking we made it home around 9:00pm to find this! I sent Ethan to shut the chicken shed door and he ran back to tell me the chicken shed burned down. :(  It appears sparks from the burn barrel must have started it on fire. All was lost, except the chickens who were safe in another barn when we came home.

 We are putting them in pet carriers to keep them from being eaten by coons and opossums at night. :( We should have a nice new shed for them by the end of next week. 

Picking out 4-H projects is another spring activity around here. We decided to go with sheep for Ethan again this year. He snapped a picture with my phone on the way home. (Looking a little redneck, aren't we) :)

Amelia is doing a good job trying to make them feel welcome. 

I was our turn to lead a church service for the nursing home this month. Mark gave the message and Amelia did special music, playing a song she learned during piano lessons. 

After the visiting the nursing home we had some time to kill before church. So we feed the ducks at the cemetery across from church. Allison especially loved this and didn't want to leave. 

Ethan being brave and feeding the swans.

Mark and I celebrated our 15th anniversary! 

This was Ethan's first year to participate in the District V track meet. It's a track meet for the area Christian schools to compete in. I remember it as a kid, although I remember it being a lot warmer. :) Ethan was in 5 events, the running long jump, sack race, 100 meter dash, the 800 and 4 x 400. He did well and enjoyed everything except the 800, which I don't blame him. :)

Ethan and his cousin Gideon were on a team for the sack race. 

Racing the 100 meter dash. Ethan literally came up to the elbows of the kid next to him. :)

We have a problem with opossums and raccoon's. This morning as I reached into the garbage can that holds our cat food I found this nasty thing! It's the second time we've had this, Anton found the first one. :) Listen this little song which fits our situation well. :)

I ordered a few trees which came in the mail this week. As you can see I had some amazing help with this project. :)

When the hard part of digging the holes and planting  the trees was done, the helpers came around  to pound in the fertilizer sticks for me. :)

March

Happy 11th Birthday Ethan!

Anton has had issues with sensitive skin and up swelled up a couple times when around farm dust. So we thought it would be best to see what was causing his reactions. Apparently, everything. He had a reaction to everything they tested for, the only place that didn't swell or turn red was the neutral spot. His worst allergies are dust mites and cats. 

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We put new flooring in the kitchen. I hope to paint and do a couple other small changes. I will post the "after "picture when we get that far. :)

Ethan participated in the Cadet-O-Rama last weekend. He enjoys Cadets and seeing his friends projects and cars.

This was one of the projects Ethan did for badge this year. 

"I shoot mommy butt" :) We ended up with several Nerf guns this Christmas and enjoy having "war" with the kids. I guess Allison thought I was an easy target. :)

Ethan showing his brothers how his catapult works. Then next day I found Elijah attempting to launch marbles in the house while Ethan was at school. The catapult will be in hiding for awhile. :)  

Ethan showing his cadet car for this year. He took 2nd place in the turtle race at church. That means he had the second slowest car of the group. Pinewood Derby cars aren't really our thing. :)

I needed a little taste of spring so I picked up a couple packs of strawberries and the kids helped me pot them up. Hopefully we can do a better job of keeping the alive than Wal-Mart. :)