My Sunday

This is how my day starts on a lot of days... I finally had to capture it on film. Air instrument playing is a highly respected talent around here. Almost all instruments have been mastered, but the guitar and harmonica are definitely the favorites.







The concert was followed by a trip to the pool where we spent the rest of the morning swimming.















I ended my day by planting 62 tomatoes and crossing my fingers for better luck then I had with the onions (1 for 36).

When It's Still Winter...

Make your own Spring indoors.

Weekend Highlights

~ 50 degrees and sunny
~ Watching Grace set up her "house" in the tepee
~ Spending all afternoon outside
~ Getting Jackson's "new" room painted
~ A visit from Katie and Kris



~ Coming in the house to the yummy smell of cookies that Katie made with Grace and Jackson
~ Setting up our "sugar shack" and collecting 14 gallons of sap
~ Making monkey oatmeal for breakfast (although I think I'm the one that liked it the best)
~ Watching Jackson proudly show daddy his new room
~ The return of Franky and Frida

Signs of Spring

Under dressed children


Green


Muddy children


Puddles


An overabundance of wet outdoor clothes


Yes, spring must be close now...

My Little Helpers

Cleaning the stairs (they actually got them clean too!).

A Week In Review

My family left me again last weekend. This time for four days. I spent two days painting blissfully in my kitchen... working very hard on a project I hope to finish soon.



The other two days I spent at this conference... which was amazing. I learned so much about bee keeping (and bees!) and feel very excited to be beginning my new endeavor next month. I was also reminded how much I love science and have a sudden desire to get my hands on a microscope.



I made this painting in class last week with tempera paints and now I can't stop thinking about them. I'm not sure that it counts as "art" when you use an art medium that is made for 5 year olds, but I've never had so much fun painting. Must get some.



Ryan has been working really hard to chop firewood for next year. Our first winter trying to heat our house with wood was a good eye opener as to how much we really need. A lot.



Ryan also decided he wanted to tap our Maple Trees this year which I was ecstatic about. I'm not sure my vision of tapping trees was quite as grand as his though as we now have 30 tapped trees. I have to admit that "making the rounds" is much more fun then I thought. And should everything go well we could have a year's worth of maple syrup (and we do love syrup).



Spring is still not here... yet. I have a little more spring fever then I did last year and looking back on my blog (and last year's March 15th) isn't helping. But I can feel that it's getting close. Falling rain has replaced falling snow... and instead of sliding on ice we are stomping through mud. Yes very soon.

I have been spending more time away from here these days to try and make some space in my life for some other things I want to get done before summer. While I do love posting here on a regular basis, it has also been freeing in a way to let it go just a bit. I think that's how it's probably going to be for the next few months or so. But I'm also looking forward to June when I have a lot less on my plate (and no work) and can be back here every day to record our summer adventures.

Off To Bed

Phew. That was a long week. Five days of work, one night of school, and one full day of homework. Today was my first day off since last weekend. I'm not use to that I guess. But we made up for it today with a full family day of playing and cleaning and cooking and a lot of outside time. And there's just enough time left in the night to squeeze in some more garden planning and watching a good comedian with Ryan before going off to bed... and then starting it all again tomorrow.