Thursday, March 22, 2012

The joy of spring

Today we found a pair of Bruce's old sandles to fit Ollie, he was thrilled!

not ready to give up the cordroy Mario overalls yet though

trying to identify the few birds that we can coax into our yard, while doing math outside

we're wrestling! look mom...wrestling ha ha ha

Eliot REALLY LIKES wrestling

math with beans and egg cartons

enjoying the sunshine!

Eliot's view of the world, he really needed to take a picture

Spring planting

While we were buying bird seed we decided to buy some flowers to plant in containers as well. In honor of spring, and while we waited for the bird seed feeders to harden, we planted some flowers in containers!


Ollie chose nasturtiums

The spade helps....

Lily picked something pink, which said something like Heavenly goddess plants on them. Oh my. 


Bruce choose marigolds

They need full sunlight. Check.
I hope they need alot of water......

We haven't mastered sprinkling verses pouring it on yet
We'll see how long we remember to bring them in at night in case our weather starts acting like rel spring in New England and we get frost.

Vernal Equinox activities!

In honor of the first day of Spring, (which, unusually for these parts,was in the upper 70's!!) we decided to make bird seed feeders. There was this cute tutorial I found online, and since I noticed that we do hardly any crafty type things I decided that the Vernal Equinox was cause for something craft-like. Craft-like that would end up mostly outside is my favorite...

 Behold:
We bought bird seed the day before...
Here is Lily modeling our gelatin being, um, gelatinous

Bruce's written directions, and a cookie cutter lined with foil, both oiled and ready for the bird seed mixture

Bird seed and gelatin in more water to get all mixed up and ready to roll

quite a bit later, it seemed to be combined enough to put into the cookie cutters. We stuck those straws in there to make a hole for some twine. Then we stuck these (and the leftovers, of which there was a bunch in not as cute form) into the freezer.

Post dance class, we popped the seed out of the cutters, and put twine in where the straws had made a hole!
Here's Bruce's heart shaped feeder

a bird shape bird seed feeder by Lily

hanging up waiting for birds. or, in reality, it  turns out to be waiting to melt and fall on the ground.....

Ollie's heart shaped feeder

Ollie's had a perfect spot with a built in perch for birdies. In theory....

Eliot models his feeder

our nature binder with pictures of birds which we anxiously awaited
The downside to these mostly easy and adorable feeders is that Spring was acting like summer so they were getting melty fast. We moved them around a few times to try to make them as bird friendly as possible and to keep them in the shade. Alas, no birds fed off them before they hit the ground. Later when I was out getting the laundry I spotted some robins feasting on our seed laden ground. Bruce and Lily were able to come see for a moment.
Today we upped the anty and put the bird seed in one of those mesh onion bags and tied some colorful felt around it and tried to make it mor visible. We are happy to report we got some birds in the yard, but they still prefer to peck at the seed that fell on the ground. We're trying not to be discouraged that we can hear birds EVERYWHERE but only a few are coming into our yard. We're blaming the squirrels...Also, we might need to make a more traditional feeder.

Friday, March 16, 2012

SNOW! (in NH)

While we visited Grammie and Gramps it dumped about a foot of snow on us. Big Fun for kids deprived of snow this year!
playin around!

brothers!

posing for mama

goofy girl

do they taste good?

hey, um, it's snowing on my face mom!

Grampie said to shovel....

good thing it was light

trying to throw for the hyper pup

pom pom anyone?

still working

catching snow flakes...

back to entertaining the dog...

just hanging around

Visiting Grammie

We visited Grammie at the end of February

 Cutie baby
Tiger lounging
Izzy models her grammie hat, and wonders what Auntie is doing snapping pictures
Being cute with her mama
Time to brush our teeth!

Thursday, March 15, 2012

Around the house

Some time around the house...
building an Ancient Assyrian battle weapon for school

looking cute

building a wall to lay siege to

lego head

ha ha


yeah, it works just about like that