4/26/2010

The latest

Last week we were blessed to have Jory's brother Jason visit for a few days. He had some errands to do in our neck of the woods, so he and Levi made the long haul from Montana. Highlights from the visit include Alex and Levi running continuous laps around the house for about 6 hours, burning the last few tent caterpillar nests out of my apple trees, dinner with my parents, and an outing to the Airforce museum in Dayton.

Our kids had yet to experience the museum, so we were excited to see what they thought. The girls and Levi were properly impressed. Alex was enthralled. He needed me to take a photo of every. single. airplane. Not just a simple photo, no... he had specific instructions on how each photo needed to be composed (huh, wonder where he learned that from). Mental note, next time, take two cameras. In other news, we managed to reclaim our apple trees from the tent caterpillars. At the end of the day I think we destroyed about 30 nests total. I was able to cut out and burn most of them by myself, while Jason managed to rig up a torch on a stick to get the last few nests that I was unable to get. The children got a kick out of watching the caterpillars attempt to escape the flames, I had to remind myself that it's not considered murder if they're pests.

4/15/2010

This week

My oh my has this been an interesting week. It started with a bored Mama who needed a field trip. So to the botanical gardens we went, to see what was blooming. (Well I was interested in what was blooming, the children just wanted to run through all the little garden rooms playing tag.) We did learn to recognize tulips though, so it wasn't a total loss. But there were many things blooming - tulips, daffodils, hyacinths and so much more. I was as happy as a kid in a candy store (or perhaps a Mama in a garden) peaking in each little bed to see what treasures it held (while the children ran wild of course).

The other interesting occurance happened yesterday, after lunch I was walking around in my yard pondering life, when a rather large snake warned me not to step any closer. Eek. He flattened his head the way a cobra does - which was rather terrifying. I am fairly certain that there are no cobras in this area, so I called the resident snake expert (aka my father) to identify the critter. Popular opinion says it's a Black Rat snake, which may or may not be harmless. We're taking precautions anyway.
So now the immediate drama is over, I can only thank God for minimizing the drama involved in the situation. I was alone when I found the snake, so the children were spared the trauma of witnessing a scared Mama. He showed up early in the day - before I would have sent the children out to play. Which is such a blessing as I found him in a high traffic area of the yard. If it had been an hour later and I had sent them out, it would have only been a matter of time before the first unsuspecting pair of bare feet ran past him. Shudder.

All I can say is I would never make it in Africa where they have really dangerous snakes.

4/08/2010

Pickle juice paint


I have had a few inquiries about my special pickle juice paint. It's basically uh... pickle juice and food coloring. And we use it as paint because there's never enough to completely submerge the eggs. So I pour the juice from the pickle jar through a strainer into small containers, add a little food coloring, hand the kids paint brushes, and poof - happy colorful easter eggs. Alex and Louisa kept adding layers of "paint" to their eggs, so theirs were more colorful. Annie wanted hers to be more muted, so she stopped after 1 layer.

4/06/2010

April upon us

Spring has come to these parts, not a moment too soon. The daffodils are blooming, the grass is turning green, and much to my great joy - the children are spending a good part of their free time outside. ahhhhhhhhh.
As the weather warms up, our desire to do school work is quickly deteriorating. Who wants to add and subtract when you can dig? Not us. We have 26 days of school left, and as we gleefully cross off each day we hear that sweet song of freedom calling a little bit louder.
Easter has come and gone. My attempt at Easter last year was remarkably pitiful, so I had to redeem myself this year. Last week we had an egg hunt with our friend Emily (well several egg hunts as the children wanted to keep hiding the eggs from each other). On Saturday we painted hard boiled eggs with my famous pickle juice paint, and on Sunday we had a family Easter basket. In the past I've stayed away from the whole secular side of Easter - the baskets with too much candy and lame-o toys and such, but one (large) basket full of goodies for the whole family to share was just about right.
Our church is creating a new brochure this year, so the brochure committee asked me to submit a handful of photos to the cause. Well after I submitted "a few" they were thrilled and gave me a list of specific topics they wanted to illustrate better. So on Easter Sunday (which was possibly the worst time to take photos because the church was PACKED) I showed up, camera in hand, and managed to get a handful of decent shots. So those have all been submitted and I'm excited to hear back about what they thought.

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