Easter, Chickens, General Conference

Did you know it takes roughly 21days for chicken eggs to hatch? I didn't either until my mother let me bring home two hens and six eggs, that my mother-in-law let me take... mothers are awesome. 

Sadly only 'Mama Hen' sat on her eggs, so we returned the un-named hen, and lost three eggs in the process. 

Meet Mama Hen

She was down right spoiled for the 21days we waited. Not only did she have everything within reach, the boys would bring her worms and feed her directly. But she was the BEST mama hen.

While Mama Hen sat on her eggs, we celebrated Easter! by dying eggs

...attending the Ward party, and having dinner with the in-laws the day before. The boys enjoyed hunting for eggs, and I was supper impressed by them {bragging moment, go ahead and roll your eyes}. As we were waiting for the hunt to start I overheard one father tell his children to basically 'go for it, get all the eggs you can', the competitive nature of it for children at Easter time disturbed me slightly- yes I'm odd. So I knelt down with my boys and explained that it would be fun to get eggs and candy but to remember there were LOTS of other children and we really didn't need that many {yes, partly a disguised trick to avoid 'the candy struggle' later on... but still, I thought it was good}.

Owen got VERY caught up in the toddler hunt because there were SOO many eggs; he was grabbing them two or three at a time! but he did offer one to a little girl. Levi gathered three or four eggs before he just enjoyed finding eggs and pointing them out to other children. 

Then it was off to the in-laws for a letter/number egg hunt, tin foil dinners, and S'MORES!!!!!

Easter morning the boys woke up to some pretty cool sunglasses! and matching bow ties that I made, which conveniently matched the vests from Mark&Danielle's wedding... and these are the only pictures I have of them! ah! 

The next weekend we celebrated General Conference by reviewing King Benjamin and letting the boys sleep in a tent (I can't find the picture, sad day), and between Conferences we anxiously awaited our chickies to hatch; the boys decided to pass the time by puddle jumping. 

 Our chickies hatched sometime during the night, or early morning.

We named them Dash, Fynch, and Ferdinand. 

 Sadly by the time we found Ferdinand he had past on.

As the chicks grew Mama Hen continued to be the BEST mama. She protected her chicks, showed them around, and let them ride on her back (which made us all laugh). As the chicks got older we let them out to roam the fields, and that's when we realized the true measure of this mama. We don't know when or exactly how but Devin went to put the chickens away and could only find a frightened Fynch. After about an hour of searching we found Dash hiding in the bushes by the creek, and Mama Hen dead by the road. We assume they were attacked by the neighbors dog and she sacrificed herself to keep her babies safe. 

Poor Mama Hen.