the grass has riz...

Our winter was long.  We had a lot of snow and it took forever to be gone, but when it finally did, we were outside.  (I really shouldn't complain, as friends and relatives in the NoDak had it much worse).

 Here are some shots from a few early spring outdoor adventures:

Fairy house in garden.  We even did a little landscaping.

Fairy house under apple tree.  A bit sturdier in a three-little-pigs sense of the word, but no landscaping.

Cal and fairy house.

Some digging in the herb bed produced some earthworms.  Cal is not eating it. (someone asked)

Willa's worm vacation condo.

Kite flying. 

Happiness is the sun on your face after a long winter.

Catching up, again: Crazy Kids and Sugar Shacks

Well, it has been a long time.  I keep having ideas about what to post, and then I don't seem to find the time.  I'll be brief in order to catch up (again).


One post I was collecting pictures for was something like:
The Wacky Things My Kids Do!

I'm sure all kids do lots of weird things, like make alien hats for themselves and their bird, or impromptu art exhibits in the dining room, but it makes me happy to see these little endeavors.  Currently Willa is the main engineer of these physical products, whereas Cal is great at telling stories.  According to him, he's got another family in California with 2 brothers (both named Callahan) and a baby.  They have 2 black dogs.  He's always telling us what happened in this other family, like fights with his brothers or that their grandparents came over.  He easily comes up with lots of ideas for stories with a few prompts, a game we often play when trying to distract him at a restaurant or doctor's office.  You can't take pictures of the stories, but here's just a few interesting projects they've undertaken in the last few months.

Alien hats mentioned above.

Willa cut up a mylar balloon and taped (lots of tape) it on the rocking giraffe for a night cap.

Willa discovered MLPs have a magnet in their feet (I'm not sure why?) long ago.  Every now and then I come across them defying gravity somewhere.

I think this is a pig necklace.

She attached lots of scraps to this crab, just for fun.

This isn't crazy, but they made it themselves.

Collage art?

Glitter glue splotches as dining room exhibition. 

One Sure Sign of Spring

Willa checks out syrup

Cal's turn

Greta and her dad. 

Silly boy.

Our annual trip to the sugar shacks around the area is always fun and looked forward to, but this year it was especially good because it heralded the end of a long and extra snowy winter.  Sugar shacks (otherwise known as a sugar house, sugar cabin or sap house) are essentially where maple syrup is made.  In this day and age, people have added dining rooms where you can eat yummy pancakes, etc. and watch the syrup being made.  It's a lot of fun! (Can you tell I like breakfast?)  These places are kind of rustic, but always warm and inviting, full of people and good smells.  This year we went to Pomeroy's one weekend and the Nick and the kids went to Steve's on a weekend I was away.  Above are pictures from Steve's last year and below from Pomeroy's this year.  I guess we were too busy eating to take pictures of the syrup in use.

An infamous Aieta artsy shot.

 Bonus pic:

From Earth Hour (an hour on a March night when you turn off the lights for the environment).  We made it Earth Night and lit the fireplace for the last time of the year.

Yoga and Yunicorns: W's Birthday

When Willa and I talked about her party this year, her first word was "Unicorn!"  I had already had sort of planned to do a yoga party at a nearby studio.  W loves yoga since she took it in preschool.  When I mentioned yoga, she said "Yeah, yoga AND unicorns!".  So that is what we went with.

While planning and looking for supplies I could not find a single unicorn in all of Michaels!  The kind-of-punk check-out woman said "I'm not surprised." with a smirk.  I'm not sure what that meant.   Then I had to go on a bit of a safari (maybe not such an appropriate term to use here) to find a unicorn balloon.  I was kind of shocked by all this lack of unicorn love.  I thought they were quite popular, though perhaps they are "so last year" or something.

Finding the cake- or cupcakes in this case- to make was actually easy!  I thought I would just put a printed cupcake topper on them, but then I found this.  These were really easy.  I frosted them and Willa put the faces on.  I should admit I had made the snouts in advance, so all she had to do was stick them on.  They are pretty "snouty" looking, as one of you said, but they were a hit.

"Aren't I cute and delicious?"

 

The party was really fun.  There were nine kids, which was a good sized group for yoga and it seemed they all enjoyed themselves.  They did yoga first and snacks and gifts after.

Willa looks like she's having fun.

Cousin Fiona performs one-legged pigeon pose.

I believe they are "growing plants" in the "yoga garden".

Cousin Evie pretending to be a fish.

Downward facing dog. Well, most of them, anyway.

Now they are a huge sunflower in the garden.

 

Camryn using her snout in new ways.

It was really fun and relaxing.  How many kids' parties does everyone get to lay down and close their eyes for several minutes?  That was W's favorite part, "the nap" as she called it.   We had a great time, but of course, we wish you could have been there. 

G visits and W turns 6!

Willa had a big day last week.  On Thursday she had both her 100th day of school celebration and her 6th birthday.  She'd been asking to bring cupcakes to school on her birthday, then we learned that she needed to bring 100 somethings to school that day.   I had to put my foot down and say, "I am not making 100 cupcakes!".   Well, she didn't really ask, but I think both our minds went there right away.

As I was looking around and brainstorming, the second thing I thought of was wine corks (I have a quite few hoarded).  Probably not a great idea.... but at least it wasn't tampons like my friend sadistically wanted to send.

Anyway, I decided it would be cool to cut 100 different samples from my paper stash, and perhaps make a collage I could give to the class or... something.  I thought this despite the fact that the note said "bring to share" and Willa's warning that she thought it was supposed to be food, or at least something to give to everyone to enjoy.  So, I happily cut 100 one inch pieces from scraps of paper.  It took an afternoon.  Not too bad, and I was having fun as I was playing with my stash and getting to hang out with my good friend, Greta, who was visiting.  I decided not to put it together into a collage just yet, because of the "sharing" suggestion.  

We had a great weekend with G!  It was like she'd never left.  We didn't do much but hang around the house.  W had a fever Friday night and it was kind of cold and snowy.  G and the kids made a snowman on Sunday.

Post snow-play cocoa.  That's Uni in bottom right enjoying her cup.

On Monday Willa brought home another note from teacher stating that, indeed, she would prefer the 100 things to be edible, or at least shareable.  Sigh.  It took me a minute to let go of my idea.  Tuesday was an inservice day and W did not have school, so off we went to the grocery store.  We got stuff for birthday cupcakes and W got to pick out what she wanted for her 100 things.  She chose licorice chunks.  Then I (always having to make things more complicated), decided they would be kind of sticky, so I bought mini paper baking cups to put them in.

It was fun, counting out the cups (except for Cal's continual quest to mess them up) and putting the chunks in, less fun stapling the cups shut.

 On Thursday, Willa was sent to school loaded with 15 cupcakes and 100 pieces of licorice.  I took some time that day to make this (dammit, I will not be thwarted):

100 pieces for 100 days. I gave it W for 100 days and her birthday.  Now we just need to find a place to put it.


Willa had a good day at school and we went to Friendly's (her fave) for supper.  She got a few presents (Thank you notes will be done soon!).  Her big party, though, was held on Sunday.  I'll tell you about that next time, as now I have to go get the boy from preschool.

We miss you!

Pictorial catch up

 More snow days this week!  Two, due to the "Colossal Storm".  We did get lots of snow (as you'll see at end of blog) and it's getting ridiculous out there.   But there weren't "Frigid Temperatures" unless you think 20° is frigid.  I guess I'm the wrong person to assess that.  I'm sure we didn't get the worst of it (Chicago), though many a shoveling joke has been going around Facebook among those who live in New England referencing the ice planet, Hoth and regrets over resolutions to get in shape. 

I've decided to do a quick photo catch up as I'm way behind and all you guys care about are the photos anyway.  So here goes:

Painting weekend with Heather.  The kids loved it!  They stressed me out! Yes, Cal is in his underwear again.

Heather, the master painter, at work. We painted the dining room and the entryway/staircase.

Valentine construction.

Here are some of Willa's.  We covered matchboxes with paper, a la Inchmark.  Ours aren't as perfect.

I made W's birthday party invitations the same day.  Obviously these are for a yoga unicorn party.

Cal's valentines.  We put erasers in Willa's and tatoos in Cal's.

The finished product. We attached a sticker with ribbon.

Our ice banner celebrating the coldest day of the year (so far).

It doesn't look like this anymore!  I think it has one green ice cube hanging on for dear life!

Cal at his preschool's music show.  He was supposed to be singing with them, but melted down and sat on my lap the whole time.

Here is a blurry image of the other kids.  Cal seemed to enjoy their performance though.

At the Model Railroad Show.  Three large fairgrounds building full!  Whew!

The kids' area at the show.  There was a lot of Thomas stuff.

This was my favorite model.  It was in the kids' area and full of crazy things.

Dad and kids ride the "train".

Snow day! The kids play with their "computers".

Our deck on 2/3/11. 

Nick spent 6 hours shoveling one day and 4 the next. Ugh!

There it is. You are all up to date.  As you know, we miss you.