Getting ready for Easter!

March has come and gone, and now it's almost Easter! The kids just started their two week Easter holidays, and school already seems lightyears away. (Well, not literally, as the building is just across the street, but you know what I mean.)

In March both Neil and I turned a year older. We had two nice little birthday celebrations. Finn and Lily gave me these pictures. As you can probably tell, spelling is not their strong point, in German OR English. 

They also wanted to give me socks, because they couldn't take looking at all my hol(e)y socks anymore. So I took them to the sock section of a department store, gave them some money and turned them loose. I lurked behind some clothes racks so nobody would run off with them and tried not to see which colorful pairs they picked. After a while they proudly marched to the cash register with their loot. Finn came and found me because the generous amount of money I had given him wasn't enough, so I gave him some more. They absolutely loved shopping for me, and I will have new, colorful socks to wear for years! :)

Since both Neil and I turned 39 this year we kept our birthdays low key (WAAAIIITTT! I can NOT be turning FORTY next year!!!). One afternoon I took this to the stable to celebrate with my friends there a little. Finn decorated the muffins with cowboy hats (wafers and a soft toffee candy). He loves baking and cooking, just like his mama.

Neil got street hockey sticks and running shoes for his birthday. And imagine, two of the three hockey sticks are child sized! Now they can all play with really good sticks and Neil won't have to use a broom :)

Spring came early this year after a mild winter and we love the warmth and sunshine. Lily helped pull weeds out of the flower bed. Thanks to the bunnies being mosty locked up in their enclosure we actually have some flowers!

Yesterday we decorated the garden for Easter. At some point this week the kids and I will color some eggs and decorate the house. We'll have an Easter party to go to so we will most likely also bake some Easter cupcakes. Gotta keep them busy during their school break!

The bunnies are doing well. They love to escape from their generous enclosure to check out the yard. The kids have been building little cities under the bushes and of course the bunnies love the tunnels Finn and Lily dug for them.

Here is Lily opening up the tunnel for Flöckchen:

Flöckchen happily disappears into it, but it gets pretty narrow down there.

For a moment I could see myself digging a stuck rabbit out of the hole, but she managed to squeeze out the other end and thought it was the funnest game ever!

Again! And again!

Last weekend our stable hosted a big horse show, an annual event with lots of horses/riders competing (a stable tent was ordered and put up), vendors selling tack and clothing, food stands etc. I happily agreed to help with announcing during the classes, doing doorman duties (opening and closing the gate to the arena for the contestants) and baking some cakes. I not so happily agreed to participate myself, but in the end I got talked into riding. Finn and Lily helped me clean my tack before the big event.

Warming up my trusty Mo before one of our classes. Mo was a little excited because of all the commotion, the strange horses and the noise, so he had a little more "go" than usual, but overall he handled it all very, very well. 

Waiting our turn

That's the show photographer taking pictures during one of our rides

The rest of the family was there, too. Finn and Lily had a very important job, they were "Schleifenkinder" (ribbon kids), handing out the prizes after each class. 

They LOVED their job. (Finn with the white hat.)

They gave ribbons and prizes to the little stars (this Shetland Pony and his rider won 4th prize in one class, leaving lots of big horses in the dust - everyone cheered for Rocky)

And they gave prizes to the big stars with their really, really good horses. This horsey here thinks the treats in that basket he just won smell really good.

Lily ALWAYS petted and thanked the horses, too, very sweet.

And three times they even got to give a ribbon to their Mama. Phew. I knew I really had to pull it together or they would be so disappointed if I didn't win anything. Mo got two bags of horse treats for our third places.

A fun weekend for all, smiles all around! By the way, the girl next to me is one of my real life heroes. She's a bone cancer survivor who wasn't given much of a chance at all, and was told that if she survived against all odds she would never walk again because she is missing so much of her hip and leg (bone, tissue, arteries). Not only is she walking again, she also bought this horse from my trainer just a few months ago and pretty much won every class she competed in, winning the overall champion. She can't walk far and she is always in pain - but on her horse she flies. Hats off to you, Raphaela!