Peacock Flock Take II: Just Some Mother Rambling

We've done a little hiking in our quarantine time; much to the disappointment of our middle child. Evie is NOT a fan of hiking.  We have decided to start exploring The Lone Star Hiking Trail. It is park of the Sam Houston National Forest. Some areas are just a quick drive from where we live, but others will take longer to get to. The entire trail system is 129 miles; from Cleveland to Richards, TX. Even if we need to be physically distant for quite a while there should be plenty of trails to keep us busy!  Our first time out we tackled a trail that is just over 6 miles. To say it's beautiful would be an understatement!  The tree cover gave us plenty of shade so the day was mostly pleasant. In Texas we know this doesn't last long - it will be blazing hot before you know it! There were several bridges ~ this was the longest one. The dogs couldn't quite figure out if they were supposed to walk ON the bridge or UNDER it.  There were dewberries (that still weren't ripe) ...

Today our oldest turns 19! Oh how different from what we expected this day has looked for us! We thought we would go to CO for Easter to visit her. We thought this might be the first birthday we had to celebrate apart. We had a physically distanced "birthday party". Really, it was the grandparents driving in to drop off a gift. They stayed outside & 6ft away from everyone. It was wonderful to see them, but still super hard to stay apart.  Evie & I worked on some yummy cakes for Sloan! We thought they turned out pretty good! Guess the dog thought they turned out pretty good too.... Ugh! Yes, he got to them BEFORE we were able to try them ourselves or even light the candles.  I am going to try to focus on the positive & pray the cake doesn't make the dog sick all night. My silver lining is definitely that she is HOME for her birthday this year. I do know that will not always be the case. She will grow up, have a family of her own,...

Our home has been in full quarantine since 3/22 officially now. Almost a month. We were kind of on a partial quarantine starting on 3/13 when our public schools started to close & we started to prepare to be at home for a while. But we still had to find a way to get our oldest home from school and then get back up there to move her out officially.  We worked on a home project and painted the water closet in the master bath to match the rest of our bathroom. We went from a "chocolate brown" in the entire bath to a more peaceful grey.  We also had haircuts this week. THAT was stressful. I believe that the shorter the hair the less forgiving it is. I do not think that using clippers is in my skill set. Will wanted to keep the "length" on the top. Pretty sure he's working on a "man bun" here. And yes, his hair is kind of a greenish - blue hue. Who knows what color it will be next week. I am seriously not sweating some of the...

Happy Easter! Well, Easter in our house seemed to span a few days (maybe it felt like a few weeks). I know the Easter holiday usually does span a few days and as Christians we celebrate for almost a week with Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday & then Easter Sunday. But this year the week did seem to go a bit slower, maybe it was supposed to. We had plenty of rain on Maundy Thursday - plenty of rain. Some of us enjoyed the rain more than others. Sig playing in the rain Deuce hiding from the rain I made homemade hummus. You can find the recipe I used here . I will probably be making this one again very soon! We also started some green onions. They've done a bit of growing over the past week... On Good Friday I made an Easter cake. The cake did NOT make it until Easter though - the girls enjoyed it right after I got the pictures of it. We had part of a cake mix leftover from some other project one of the...