Happy Easter!

Happy Easter!

We hope you had a great holiday. I am so happy Easter finally came because for the past 3 weeks, Avery has been talking about the Easter bunny. She was very excited to wake up on Sunday to eggs hidden all over and her Easter basket.

We had a busy weekend. Saturday morning, we went to an Easter egg hunt at Tim’s parents development. They had food and games and hid some Easter eggs filled with candy. There was also a raffle and Avery won a stuffed duck. Of course when they said her name, she hid her head immediately. She gave the duck to Reagan and Reagan loves it. Tim and I went to a comedy show Saturday night (Alan Cox Show Comedy Tour) and my sister watched the kids. Sunday morning the kids found eggs and looked through their baskets. I spent most of the morning trying to prevent the dogs from eating candy. Every time I turned around, one of them had a Reese’s cup in their mouth, wrapper included. The girls got candy, some small toys and fairy wings, a wand and skirt. They dressed up and were dancing around the house in their wings. It was really cute.

Next my parents came over and brought the girls their baskets. We went to Tim’s parents for dinner and hung out with his family. They received bags with Easter candy in it there as well. Avery is in heaven because she LOVES candy.

Tim has been working on building a small deck/set of stairs so the dogs will be able to be let out the back of our house into the backyard. Soon we are going to be remodeling our house and the dogs won’t be able to go through the kitchen/garage to get outside. I am not looking forward to the construction but I cannot wait to see the final result. We are taking down the wall between our living room and kitchen to have an open concept. We are also making the kitchen bigger by taking up part of our garage. We will eventually be building a new garage down the road. I won’t necessarily miss parking in the garage since I haven’t parked in there in a year because we always have so much stuff in it.

Our new chicks are one week old and they are getting so big already! (Fingers crossed that they aren't all roosters!)

Click HERE to support March of Dimes March for Babies!!


Easter Egg hunt at Mommy's friend Sara's house. We look forward to going every year!!

My kids are only fans of the Easter Bunny when he is far away



Easter egg hunt/ Party and Grandma and Grandpa Svitaks.

See, we still aren't fans of the Easter Bunny.


Holding the new chickens. Reagan likes to hold them a lot









Its FINALLY Easter! I have only been asking Mommy about it for weeks

I LOVE CANDY!

Our new Fairy outfits....

... and Buddy

March for Babies!

Its that time of year again. The March of Dimes March for Babies. I am sooooo happy they made it in May this year. I never knew why they would do it in April when 90% of the kids who have something to do with March of Dimes were born prematurely and have compromised immune systems. So far in the past 6 years that I have participated in the walk, I have never brought my kids because it has always been cold, rainy or cold and rainy. Hoping I can take them this year. If anyone wants to walk with us, please register for the Hillcrest Hospital team. If you raise $25, you will get a Hillcrest Hospital/Cleveland Clinic team shirt.

Last year I got really cute shirts made for the kids with their statistics on the back. It still amazes me how great Avery is doing. Yes she has some setbacks, but I know it could have been a lot worse. If you would have seen her the day she was born, you would never believe she would be where she is at today. And that is why I walk every year. Its the least I can do.

Even though we had some issues with the nurse manager at the hospital (who is no longer employed there by the way), that cannot take away from the fact that everyone else there was awesome and our kids are alive today because of them.

March for Babies - Susan Svitak page

It’s definitely spring time!

We had some chicks hatch the other day! One hatched early Saturday morning and two more hatched early Sunday morning. We think we have one more that is still going to hatch. I looked at the remaining six eggs and picked one up and it started peeping!

It was definitely a cool thing to experience. I woke up early Sunday morning (at two am) and walked into the kitchen and I saw one of the chicks had hatched and it couldn’t walk. I thought it had splayed legs. I went back to bed and woke up a few hours later and another chick had hatched and they were both walking around ok. I must have seen that other one right when it came out of the egg. I was relieved to see it walking around normally in the incubator.

When the first chick hatched, Avery was soooo excited. She couldn’t stop watching it. We asked what she wanted to name it and she said cheeseburger! So on Sunday when the other two hatched, I asked Reagan what she wanted to name one of them and she said she didn’t know. I told her Avery named hers after a food she liked and I asked Reagan what food she likes..so now we have Bacon. Lol. I decided to go with the food theme and named the third chicken Tater. Not sure what we will name the 4th if it hatches. I looked in the incubator and picked up all the eggs to see if any had cracks. One had a crack and I picked it up and it started peeping! Fingers crossed it hatches.

We were worried they weren’t going to hatch because at first, we had issues verifying the humidity of the incubator. We decided to buy a cheap $9 hygrometer (humidity monitor) from Amazon and it has helped tremendously.

I am still amazed we hatched three chicks! So far all the chicks are black and one of them has feathers on their legs/feet (cheeseburger).

****I wrote the draft of this blog on Sunday and woke up Monday to a new little chick peeping loudly. This one looks much different than the others. She (hopefully she’s a she) is much lighter and almost a grayish color. Yet to be named ***

Our first chick that hatched. The peeping was so loud!

Cheeseburger when she first hatched. You let them sit in the incubator until they dry off and fluff up

Here she is all dry and in the plastic tote. She has a black beak with a little orange.

This is Tater. She has an orange beak.

Here are Cheeseburger's feathered legs/feet

This is the newest chick that has grey feathers.

Eggs, Eggs and more Eggs

Our new chickens are finally laying. We get about 18 eggs/day. Also, we noticed most of are eggs are fertilized. You can tell because there is a "bullseye" spot on the egg. We bought an incubator and we are hoping to hatch some chickens. Its not that we need more chickens but I think it would be really cool to experience. It takes 21 days for the chickens to hatch. You have to keep the temp at 99.5 degrees and the humidity at 40-50% for the first 18 days and then the last 3 days you change the humidity to 65-70%. We starting incubating and  itss amazing that chickens can hatch by hens sitting on the eggs. Its crazy that they keep the eggs warm and humid enough. We dont have any chickens that are broody (sitting on eggs) so that is why we bought an incubator. 

Avery is so excited for the Easter Bunny. Everyday she says Easter Bunny and everyday we have to tell her she still has to wait a few weeks. We decided to color some eggs. We bought something called "Egg Mazing". It spins the egg and you hold a marker there and it makes a design. It is actually really cool. Avery and Reagan also wanted to hand draw on some of them. 

Avery walked up to Tim one day and handed him the ear tube that fell out of her ear..lol. She had an infection. Not sure if it was infected because it fell out of her ear or not. I have never seen one before. They are so small (see pic below). Reagan also had her first ear infection. We have an appointment with ENT next month to determine if she will need to have surgery to have another round of tubes put in.

We just got a denial for Avery's new hearing aid. I originally signed a form saying that Cleveland Clinic insurance will pay $3000 towards it and we would have to pay the remaining $3000 if her secondary didnt cover it. Normally if her primary pays anything, her secondary will cover the balance. We are going to send in an appeal but I emailed her two audiologists for help. It sucks because if she finally does end up getting her new hearing aid, it will be after school lets out for the summer. 

Reagan has been doing so well with potty training. She wears underwear all day (except for when she is napping and also wears a pull up at night). She moved up to a new class at daycare because she is doing so well. 

Here is the bullseye of an egg that is fertilized.

Here is Frank the Tank. He is the black one with the curved tail.

This is the tube that fell out of Avery's ear

Party in Momma's bed

Decorating eggs

Reagan's hair is awesome when she wakes up from a nap

Here are the eggs we are incubating. We candled them and it looks like 4 of them have something growing inside.

I told Reagan we were going to the mall and this is how she dressed

Everytime we drop Avery off at the Play place at the mall, she plays dress up. Last time she was a chef. This time a princess/fairy. 

I came home from work the other day and thought one of our chickens got out. Nope, just a wild turkey

Trying on their new nightgowns

Me and Aves