Dying to Know

I'm sure you are all dying to know how Peacow is doing and that your life will not be complete without this knowledge. Unbelievably he is still alive! He is a very hardy little thing! He is growing like crazy. Today we drove by where his mama and siblings are. Apparently we are feeding him well because he is quite a bit bigger than his siblings. It must be that awesome chick feed that we got him. I have to admit that it has been fascinating to watch this little creature! He now thinks that we are his family. He follows us all over the yard. Yesterday the kids had him outside and every time the kids would come in the house he would start to chirp like crazy and come looking for them. If the door was open he would hop in and run to one of us. It is pretty funny. At night when we all go to bed he will chirp because he is lonely. He is used to all the noise and commotion of our crazy house and doesn't like the quiet. I don't know what we are going to do as he gets bigger. The kennel that we have him is already too small. We still don't know if he is a boy or girl. That made sense right?!
We'll keep you posted on his development. In the mean time here are a few pictures.

Peacow Likes to Perch

We took Peacow outside today. He ran around pecking at the ground eating ants and a worm. He likes to be perched on our shoulders. Jeff put him on my shoulder and he totally relaxed and snuggled his little head on my neck and he kept softly pecking at my cheek which kind of freaked me out at first and then we figured out that he was showing affection. Weird! Who knew?! We have learned to mimic the sound that supposedly the mama makes to it's chicks. We must be doing okay because he responds to the sound. Am I weird? I know, I know that is a rhetorical question!

The Latest Nutty Blum's Escapade

This is by far one of the craziest stories that I have of our nutty little family!
Let me preface this story for you:
The last 2+ years we have lived in West Sacramento when we go to Jeff's parents we take the River Road up on the Sacramento River's levees to Elk Grove. The road goes along the levee, under a super old cement bridge and up onto the levee. Right before the old bridge there is a small shack and an old barn (that they tore down last week) on a small piece of property. On this property are quite a few peacocks. The kids always want to stop and look at them. All last summer we watched all the little pea chicks grow up. This spring we watched the males do their little mating dance which I have to say was enthralling and very interesting. So we have been again watching for the new pea chicks to show up the last couple of weeks.
Now for the story:
This last weekend we went to Jeff's parents to take their truck back that they let us borrow. I had promised Hannah that I would take her summer clothes shopping so I took the girls with me and I took I-99 to Elk Grove. Jeff took Hudson with him on the River Road. Can you see where this is going yet? They stopped to look at the peacocks and saw all the little pea chicks. When they got too close all the peacocks took off except one pea chick that was maybe 7 to 10 days. He got stuck in some chicken wire. It's mommy had left him behind, stuck so Jeff helped the chick get out of the chicken wire. As it started to run away Hudson caught it. Jeff was afraid that now this little pea chick had been touched too much and that the pea chick would be pecked to death by the other birds. So what other option could they possibly have but to bring this pea chick home?! So without further adieu, we are pleased to announce newest member of the Blum family.
This is Peacow the pea chick. Hudson named him after Lightening McQueen from Cars because he is so fast. He has always called Lightening McQueen "Peacow" because Lightening is always saying "Kachow!". I thought a good name for him would be Raptor after the velociraptor dinosaur because of his claws.
He is a very sweet little thing. He is very gentle with the kids. They...We are all very enthralled with him. He likes to eat out of my hand so apparently I am the mommy of a fourth child. The kids love him so much. We"ll accept any helpful ideas that any one has on how to raise a pea chick. We have been feeding him crumbled hard boiled egg yolk and oatmeal. We bought chick food from the feed store for him yesterday. That is supposed to have all the vitamins and nutrients in it that pea chicks need. Jeff and Hudson let him run around the back yard last night where Peacow found either a slug or a worm. Jeff said he whipped it around for a few seconds and then gobbled it down. Hudson thought that was pretty funny.

So if you know of anyone that is getting rid of a large birdcage asap I would be thrilled. We aren't sure how long we will be able to keep Peacow but we want him to be comfortable. We found out that peacocks can live up to 40-50 years . Jeff started laughing and said he'll be gone by then and I'll be known as "The Crazy Peacock Lady"! GREAT! I think that I'm already there!
The moral to this story is if you send the boys off alone, EXPECT THE UNEXPECTED! ;0)

Halle's New Haircut

I have been letting Halle's bangs grow out for the last few months because I couldn't decide what to do with it. She has so much hair and it all grows forward so if I don't put it in a palm tree as Grandpa Kriser calls it or pigtails it hangs in her eyes. The other problem is when I put the in she has them pulled out within the first minute or so. It drives me bonkers. So Grandpa Kriser you will be happy to see that I cut Halle's bangs today. Jeff made me, he said if I didn't he would because she was looking pretty raggedy. Anyway here are a couple pictures of our cutie patootie. She is really starting to jabber and play. She loves people and to play. She says dada, mama, nana, Hudson she jut yells at to get his attention and Buster she has her own call for him and he comes running. He loves Halle. I think he is going to end up being her dog. She is a sweet little thing. She will be turning 1 on June 21. That's just around the corner. It doesn't seem possible. Time goes way too fast.

FISH BOY

These first two pictures are the epitome of how much Hudson loves the water. It's pure and fun joy!





Hudson absolutely LOVES, LOVES, LOVES the water! Does he not look like he is having a ball?! He had a lot of fun at the swim meet yesterday. We raced the Arden Park Dolphins. During his freestyle race he would swim a few yards then grab the lane line and turn around to smile. Then we would tell him to GO, GO, GO! He would take off again swim a few yards, stop and smile again. It cracked us up! He beat both of his times from last week and won 1st place in both.



He was tired after his two races so he went and sat on Grandma Blum's lap. We thought he would fall asleep. No such luck! He just rested for a couple of minutes and then was ready to run around again.

He finally literally dropped about an hour after we got home. He was being very quiet so I went to check on him and this is how I found him.



Both kids are learning so much from swimming like discipline, endurance both physically and mentally, hard work and the results and also just having fun. They both have made some great friends. Our tent has become the fun & popular tent. There are always at least four other kids in our tent at one time. Good times!

We are looking forward to no meet next weekend since it is Memorial weekend. I'm sure that we'll be in the water somewhere.

Hannah Fly

Hannah did great at the swim meet yesterday. We raced the Arden Park Dolphins. She was more competitive than we have ever seen her. She beat her time in the 100IM which is all four strokes from 1:58.33 (last week) to 1:54.73. She was super excited. She had a great dive in the 25 butterfly which took time off from 25.26 (last week) to 24.38. I can't believe how much strength she has gained in this stroke in the last week! She was the anchor in one of the freestyle medleys. Her team was behind when she dove in but she made up time and helped her team come in 6th. Jeff and I have never seen her swim that fast. In her breaststroke she didn't beat her time but she moved from position 7 to 5 in her age bracket on the team. We are so proud of her and how hard she is working! As always we took a plethora of pictures so I picked a few of my favorites.

Really?!

Mommy: (with a big sigh) "Hudson! Why do you have your clothes off AGAIN???!!!"

Hudson: (with puppy dog eyes) "I don't know."

Mommy: "What are you doing with the Wii gun?" "Go put it away!"

Hudson: "But MOOOMMMM, this is where guys put their gun!"

I think Jeff is going to have to talk to Hudson about the Wii gun in his underwear. No pun intended!

About Hannah's Awesomeness!

Hannah did awesome at the swim meet! She shaved times off of all her races except for backstroke (she is always afraid she is going to hit her head). In her 100 IM which is all 4 strokes, freestyle, back, butterfly and breast, she beat her old time by over 2 minutes. AMAZING!!! We are so proud of her! That is a really big deal! Her 25 and 50 freestyle she shaved off almost 3 seconds from her times last year. Her back stayed the same but she took off almost 2 seconds off the butterfly. I can't believe how much she has improved over the last year. She has been working so hard! She swims between 40 and 50 laps a day during practice. She is starting to push herself rather than us push her. Her dives have vastly improved as have her flip turns. She is making a lot more friends this season with this being her second season on the team. We took tons of pictures of her so bear with me. We love you Hannah and are so proud of you! Also a big THANKYOU to Grandma & Grandpa Kriser for being there!

25 Yard Back Stroke

25 Butterfly



Breast Stroke



50 Freestyle

Halle's First Swim Meet Experience

She tried to be content and happy. The nice thing is that we had built in baby sitters. All the girls loved taking care of Halle and Hudson. The only problem was that they were all so helpful that Halle never did take a nap. Halle also learned how to pull herself up on the back of the lawn chair and then shimmy her feet up. Crazy KID!!

All in all she was a very good and patient baby considering she was being tossed around or stuck in the stroller the whole day.

Hudson's 1st Swim Meet

These are pictures of Hannah helping Hudson with his warm ups.



These are pictures of his very 1st race ever. He did great! We are so proud of him. He swam the full 25 yards by himself (his coach was in the water just in case). About half way through Hudson told his coach he couldn't do it and Kurt told him yes you can! So Hudson just kept on keeping on and finished. It was so great all the other kids had been finished for over a minute so the crowd had died down but when Hudson touched the wall every one cheered for him. It was so awesome to see his cute little face beaming. That was a huge accomplishment for a 3 year old. He is the youngest team member. He also had to swim the backstroke which he had never done before so Coach Scott had Hudson pretty much floating on him while helping him. At one point Hudson has his arms going freestyle. It was so funny to watch him. His coaches are great! They are so patient with him. He has learned so much over the last few weeks and is improving daily.



We also discovered this weekend what a little flirt Hudson is. Every time he disappeared I just had to look for a group of girls and there he was right in the middle. He adores Hannah's friends (much to her dismay) and every time he went to race or they went to race he would kiss them all. I hope that he is getting it out of his system now!!!

This is for Lynn Hardesty...Remember when you used to say that Jeff had Fred Flintstone feet? Look at Hudson's. Thought it would make you smile! :0)
Hopefully they will be flippers as he gets older!

The kids have another swim meet next weekend that will be just as eventful.