Welcome Spring

Spring is most welcome here, and to celebrate the warming of the Earth, we had a little family celebration. Saturday night we dyed 3 dozen eggs!! We used red kool aid and Turmeric powder for yellow. I tried painting a few blue eggs with our watercolor paints. They came out ok. But the reds,yellows and oranges were beautiful!

Ryan wrote the spring fairies a note and then we left our eggs for the fairies to hide and waited till morning to see what goodies they would leave for us to celebrate spring.

Ryan woke us up in the morning with "Spring is coming, spring is coming - the fairies left us presents"...

Adeline caught on quick to finding eggs and putting them in her little basket. Does'nt she look cute in her new spring outfit (daddy fairy picked it out for his little girl)



Aparently I did not get any pics of the boys that morning (boys ?what boys -oops) That's alright we have many,many of them to come.

Oh - a little blurb about the desk. Our neighbor was cleaning out their garage and I happened to walk by and mentioned how cute that desk was. She told me to take it - hurray!!! It is too cute and miss Adeline loves to sit there and draw.

We almost caught a Leprechaun...

First we made a decoy.

I found the directions for this cutie: http://weefolkart.com/content/gnome-leprechauns

Ryan set the trap
This is the second part of the trap. The bed closes on the little fellow keeping him trapped so he will tell uswhere the gold is!
My Festive boys. Ryan made his shirt this morning

The trapped work - sort of. The leprechaun got away, but some gold fell out of his pocket and now it is ours: )
These are paintings the boys did while I told a story about a leprechaun.

I thought they both did a great job.

Sage's Bday to Atlanta and a day around Augusta

Well my sweet first born son has gone and turned 15!!!! How in the world did that happen??

The celebration started mid-february when we went down to Florida to say goodbye to my cousin Pam and her family who are moving to Seatle (so far away).

The weekend of his actually birthday we went to Atlanta! My awesome Cousins wife was able to get 2 tickets to the Hawks game as a surprise to Sage. So Tony and Sage hopped aboard the Marta and headed downtown to the big game!

I think he is having a great time :

The next day my Aunt who volunteers at the Atlanta aquarium got us all in and took us around the the aquarium. She was able to give Sage and Tony a behind the scenes tour of the place. Sage really enjoyed that. As a surprise we had the whole Atlanta crew over to my cousins house to celebrate Sage's big day!

Alas my picture taking has been distracted lately by this sweet little girl - so I do not have to many of our Atlanta trip : (

Yesterday we had a great day out and about in Augusta. After the UU services we headed downtown to the New Moon Cafe for brunch.
Then we headed over to the Morris Museum of art for family day. They had a band playing kids songs and some people dressed up like the paintings who were living art and told us about their paintings.

The museum is on the riverwalk so we hung outside for awhile soaking up the nice day.

Here is the Atlanta crew singing Happy Birthday to Sage.

The Olympics are not just in Vancover

Ryan has been inspired by the Olympics as only Ryan can be. Homemade snowboard and skis, his brother's snowboard helmet and a carpet.!

Why do I love homeschooling

Because of mornings like this one! The other day we read the book Around The World in 80 Days for children and it inspired us to start our own journey. Ryan had a great time looking at our map of the world and pointing out where we were to go! Whew we will be busy.

We headed to the library and checked out books on Egypt,Spain,Great Britian and Ireland.

This morning we watched a PBS video called Pyramids hosted by David Macualay. It is very informative and easy to understand for kids. Some of it we learned from our Story of the World cd we have been listening to.

This inspired us to create our own pyramid. The Pharos and his queen

The tomb inside

complete with mummy
and hieroglyphics on the wall
and a sphinx guarding the tomb

We spent the entire morning learning and creating! THat is why I love homeschooling. We can complete a project from start to finish. This also inspired Ryan to head to the computer and create pyramids in photoshop and has a very cool pic started!

Just a side note - we have been working very hard this month on reading and math so this was a great break for us!

A Trip to the Dairy Farm

Yesterday Ryan, Adeline and I went on our first field trip with a group of homeschoolers here in GA. We headed out to a family owned dairy farm in Edgefield, South Carolina. It was great fun to see cows again up close again. I know that may seem like a strange statement - but those who know me understand my craziness : )

The cows seem to have plenty of room to graze.

There were quite a few calves there that day and each one was so cute.
Ryan had fun - can you tell?
This little guy is only 2 days old. He has a red mark on his head because he is boy and will be sold. It is so hard to look at this sweet little guy knowing that when he is older he will be on someone's dinner plate! The animal lover/ mom in me had a hard time with the idea that all these calves are taken away from their mother soon after they are born and are brought to these stalls where they can only see each other by sticking their heads out if tiny openings.

This little boy , only 2 days old, looked so scared - he needed his mommy. I know these animals are treated well and taken care of , and it is the business. I am sure that larger dairy operations are worse. So overall I know seeing a smaller dairy locally owned by a family is better than a mass produced one. But still...

Here is where they milk the cows. It is all computer operated (well except for the guys who put the machines on the utters). It is actually rather neat. They are able to detect any problems with the cows and correct them before the cow becomes sick or is uncomfortable.

Ryan with the other boys in the group.
a tractor ride
check out all the food to feed 200 cows.

Here is where the pasturize the milk. They only produce whole milk and it is non-homogenized. We bought a gallon and are waiting for the cream to separate to the top to make some butter. yumm.
After the tour we ate lunch in their hunting cabin. I love the wood bed. I want one in king size please.
All the kids playing tag after eating - thats Ryan in the orange
My sweet, sweet girl ! Right now she loves her mama milk, but one day she will have a taste..
of the yummy chocolate milk her brother is drinking!!

I tried turning the pic the right way, but it kept turning back. - sorry about that!

A very sick Christmas and New Years

Well our Christmas started off with Adeline having a fever 0f 102 on Christmas Eve and Christmas day! The fever finally broke but she has had a cough runny nose since and has not been feeling well. Then My mom got sick - Ryan got sick - Tony - Sage -Me and my Dad!! The entire 10 days that we have been in Florida for the holidays someone has been sick!!It was a crazy epedemic that I believe is passing except that we leave tomorrow for home. Oh well - if you have to be sick, at least it is with family!

Becasue of our sickness, I did not get any pictures of our Christmas this year. I do have a few to share though.


RYan and his cousin going for a wagon ride.

Ryan and his Grandmom working on his model car.

Tyring out a celery.

playing with cousins

Then there was New Years Eve. It is a tradition that Sage and Grandpa get lots of fireworks to light off . This year we enjoyed them early enough in the evening that the younger kids could enjoy them . Adeline liked to watch the lights.

Sage was designated fireworks lighter.

Happy New Year. I promise in 2010 to get back on track with my picture taking and blog posting!