The Muench Bunch

Titus seemed close to walking at his birthday in November.  He is now almost 17 months and still prefers crawling. He stands well, but gets back down and right to crawling. He has too be close. At home, even in the winter Ali doesn't put shoes on Titus and he wears only a diaper when he is at home. It makes me cold to see. We always say, he is going to be one tough kid. 

 Making minor changes and renovations take so long. We recently had a carpenter repair our ceilings in the back bathroom. We had a leak from an older chimney, and it caused some slow leaking. We had someone lined up before 2020 to repair the ceiling. Finally, we got it patched up, which meant it was time to repaint. Out with the old bold teal color, in with the light bluish grey. The teal was part of a 4H project when Jayden was around 11. She got to pick the paint and decor for the whole room. It was time for a change. I do like the greyish blue color.

 Over the weekend I got to have some girl time. On Friday my close childhood friends Paula and Jess met up with me in Kamrar. They chose Pickles as the spot to meet and eat. This was a hang out for Jess in the younger days. I have only been there maybe 3 times. We had a great time chatting and eating a good lunch. From there we all agreed it was a nice enough day to go to Brigg's Woods and take a walk. We had walked together there in 2020 during COVID as a chance to be together. It is so nice having these girls to talk about funny times, the past, people we all know, and of course motherhood advice. These are my gals. We also talked about our class reunion. We realized that if the three of us don't get something planned, nobody will. Our reunion is this year and no plans haven even been mentioned. I asked the girls for ideas. They liked the idea of football tailgating. However, they wanted to meet during the CY/Hawk game in Ames. After much time and talk, we agreed we needed a

 Jayden and Noah left for their honeymoon right after Easter. They flew to Sarasota Florida. Jayden wanted to go someplace that she was familiar with and see and enjoy some beach and ocean time. Our good friends also live in Sarasota, which was neat because they could give them suggestions and be there if they needed anything. And, they were excited to take them out to dinner for a night. Abigail was super excited about that also. 

 Many farmers around us started planting last week when it was 80. Mark knew there was colder weather coming in with possible rains and freezing, so we waited. Patience was worth the wait. It did all those things and dropped below freezing and rained. This week, we started in the field Monday the 25th. Luke is a big help on the farm. The first week of field work, Luke put in 42 hours from Friday to Friday. He would get home from school and go straight to the field. Many nights I had to insist he come home by 10PM.  

  Sat April 15 we had the second gym clean day. This time we had a small turnout. Marva Jean, Linda and I cleaned gym the floors. Marva Jean was on hands and knees scraping off little crusty spots. I went over the entire floor with a wet push mop. The guys did a lot of outdoor work with old trees, leaves, etc. Karen makes lots of snacks and goodies. OD eats the snacks and greets people.   April 20, Mark received his first grant for $6000. This was specific to cover the doors and locks. We are hopeful for many more in the future. This is a massive project that needs so much support!

March 31 I woke to stormy weather predictions. When I went to Boone with a cat the sky was really blue eerie, windy, and stormy.  When I got back home I heard Ames got lots of hail some areas tornado. I was thankful to make it home without any action. On April 3, the "feels like" temperature was only a single digit. We had a few days that stayed below freezing. April 4 was another day of tornado and severe weather warnings. Moving from March into April has been weathery. Now here we are April 11,12 and we are in the 80's. Iowa weather is always so variable. I just wish we had slow and steady changes, not so drastic and unpredictable. We are also getting strong winds that  come with the warmer spring weather, 20+mph. The winds have been howling all day and all night.

 Mark and I hauled a Salford 19' wide to Sioux City. The average semi is 8' wide and the average road from center line to white line is 12'. He asked if I would like to ride along and I agreed. He has been hauling Salford's on occasion and it is always a stressful time. We had to spend the night to meet the buyer at 8 Am the next morning.  Mark always has to be watching for oncoming traffic and narrow roads because he hangs over so far. At one point driving through a small town, they had the school crossing stop sign in the middle of the road and I had to jump out and pull it out of the way so Mark could fit. We took a route that went along some very narrow county roads. The problem was they were also hilly with little room to over. Cars would come up and over a hill and there wasn't a lot of time for either to get moved over. Luckily we didn't meet too many people out on the road. The drive would normally take around 3 hours and it took a good 6. We would trave

 Easter morning the boys struggled to get up on time as every Sunday goes. We attended our church service and had a photo taken at the photo spot they had set up.  After, we went to Karen's for Easter lunch with family.  All the family came to be together and celebrate. It is always fun to see all the little babies together. Jossie has been very cautious with Kit and still isn't ready to take her out.  Titus has had a cough or runny nose every time I see him. Ali  has a hard time identifying when he is sick, thinking it is always his teeth or allergies. Titus fell asleep and Blake laid him on the floor of the living room. I set him in Uncle Jake's lap for awhile. When he woke up after a good nap, he rolled on the floor, didn't want to get up, and his cheeks were flush. I could tell he didn't feel good, but Ali said he was fine. Later that evening she told me he had a fever 103. Poor guy has been sick every holiday, Christmas, Thanksgiving, Halloween, Easter and agai

The G kids had the day off from school, so they came and spent the day with me. I planned out the day with things Easter related. I picked them up from Ali's work at 7:45 in the morning. Both kids jumped in the car excited with a bag of mini chocolate donuts. I looked in horror and Ali happily explained that was breakfast and she got two bags for the price of one. They are the gross super unhealthy pre packaged Little Debbie style. I calmly asked the kids if I could get them a better breakfast choice and I took them through the McDonalds drive thru and got them breakfast burritos. Still not ideal, but at least it wasn't all sugar. Back at the house we started in on egg decorating. Without Jayden here this Easter, I knew there would be no other egg decorating going on. When she is back, the boys will reminisce and do fun things they did as kids, including egg decorating. Bridget and Andrew had fun and colored lots of my farm eggs.  I found that if Andrew wasn't constantly en

  My parents have been so fortunate to have a great circle of friends through the years. The Elm's Williams's, Wibholm's, and Keane's are a close bunch. This group in this photos has stood the test of time. They have been friends for so many years. I have many childhood memories that include these families. I am not sure when or how it started, but these couples have remained good friends for many years. They have gone on vacations together, attend church and still enjoy going out to eat, going to the movies, and garage sale shopping. All of them belong and attend the same church, all live within 20 minutes of one another, are farm families and great genuine people. They have many other groups of friends, but this crew here is a close bunch. What I recall from my childhood are many pizza nights out. We would get together on various weekends to meet at Pizza Hut or Godfather's with our families. We would meet in our large group and sit at tables connected, the kids s

 Our little kitty Darla had her girl surgery so she will not have kittens. I believe spaying/neutering and vaccinating is so important in the longevity of happy healthy pets. I hate visiting farms and homes with neglected animals that look scroungy and sickly. Darla decided sleeping in the sink was nice and cool on her belly. She also required extra cuddles. Coco is still top cat and allows her to snuggle up.