Hawk sighting for today

This hawk was out on a low limb in the front yard.  It looks smaller but I don't think it could possibly be one of the babies.  I'm thinking it was the male- I really need to learn more about birds!!

I had spotted him while I was in the front yard watering the gardens and ran in to grab the camera.  The girls decided to come out too.

And, this is the front garden that has produced our dinner...

Eggplant Parm!!!!

It's brutally hot today and I needed to get the chickens outside so I made a makeshift area for them to get some fresh air.  The coop looks awesome and is nearly ready for a coat of paint, and the chicks are nearly big enough for their new home.  For now, this will do during the day.

And Books could not care less about these little ladies.

Go Team USA

I have tried and failed many times this year to do a seasonal/ themed project ahead of time.  Here I will tout a success.  First thing you should know, is that I love the Olympics.  Not sure why, but I have always enjoyed watching the games on television and I am greatly looking forward to watching the opening ceremonies next week.  My hope is that I can convince Ada that they are wicked cool so she is excited enough to watch them with me a bit.

I decided our front window artscape (I don't know how else to say that, but as I wrote that you can rest assured I rolled my own eyes at myself) would be the best place.  Ada and I looked at some images of the Olympic rings, we talked about what the games are, and we watched some footage of gymnastics and of Michael Phelps from Beijing.  She was on board.

While Ada was watching a show "by herself, like a big kid" Emma and I got the rings drawn out on butcher paper with pot lids.

We had lunch and since I was feeling in the spirit, I made as much of a USA themed lunch as I could come up with.

Eggs (Ada request) with star toast, red tomatos from the garden, and a blueberry smoothie

Luckily Ada woke up first and we got right to work on the rings.  We looked at some Google images then she decided to do blue first.  We gathered blue materials from the art supplies and got to work.

Emma woke up and ate snack in the kitchen while we worked on yellow...

Then red...

Ada started on green...

Emma finished her snack and they both worked on the second green ring...

Finally the black ring.  We don't have a ton of different black things, so we used some black duct tape to mix it up...

Let them dry.  Cut them out (Ada cut the outside and I cut the inside).  Glue the pieces together.  Since we wanted a mirror image we glued red to blue and yellow to green.  Cut a slit in each ring and put them together while looking at an image on Google to check our work.  Ada and I taped the rings back together where they had ben cut.  Then taped it in the window.

The finished product is one of my favorite things we've done!

Sorry about the glare, but you get the idea :)

A few Pinterest moments

It's true that Pinterest can be a time suck, but I like it and justify spending time on it by making a point to actually make the things that I pin.  Most of the pics are from my phone, so I apologize about the quality.  Know that not every day around here is filled with exciting new things, but I do use Pinterest for inspiration during those moments when everyone is getting grouchy and needs something new to do.  Or when I need 15 minutes of time to get dinner together without interruption (the ice melting activity was one such time).  Click on the title for a link back to where I pinned the inspiration.

Homemade bubble solution. We used the ones with glycerine because the idea of using sugar or any kind made me think we would be attracting bees and ants.  This recipe makes awesome HUGE bubbles.  I mixed it in our empty bubble jug and I'll just keep reusing it and making more. 

Bubble snakes.  This is one of my favorites!!

Potion making.

Flour, sand, vinegar, baking soda, colors (same day as sidewalk paint), bowls and spoons.

Ice melting with salt and colored water.  Asked Ada what each thing was first and after she had tasted and decided it was salt and water with food coloring she said "let's see what happens!" I didn't get as organized as Chasing Cheerios and freeze toys inside- maybe next time. 

She even got Emma to fetch some water for her from the rain barrel.

Sidewalk paint.

Painting with bubble wrap.

Painting with DIY scraper. 

Color scavenger hunt.  Ada and I had marginal success on a little walk around the block.  I didn't want her to pick other people's flowers.  Next time I'll do this at a park or in the yard or have more limited colors. 

A lucky find on our walk.  We decided this was from the hawk in our yard.  We found it near out neighbor's house where we often see the male bring back food and call to the female to come eat.  

For the 4th of July I made some delicious cheesecake stuffed strawberries that I pinned after a friend made them and I fell in love.  Don't have a photo, but they were super easy to make and incredibly yummy!

Eyas alas

I have a monster post in the making, but for now rest easy knowing the baby hawk has been sighted.  We have only seen one for now, but there might be another in the nest.  Simply an amazing process to watch.

How Jay Z saved my sanity

The girls and I have been visiting family and friends in New England for over a week now.  The girls and I are missing home and Papa more than I had anticipated.  We are all feeling a bit frazzled and I am  definitely stressed and longing to just hang at our own house.

I have learned much on this trip about what not to do when traveling with small children.  In my zeal to try and see as many people as posible I have overbooked us I'm afraid.  The girls have been taken out of their element, away from their dad and their routine, but all things considered are doing very well.  Moments within the day are rough.  Ada can be very intense and when she is tired she is quite a force.  I'm trying to organize the coming week to be less hectic for them and hopefully that will help their collective moods (and mine)!

We were able to get a delightful taste of the White Mountains this weekend.  It was wonderful.  I didn't realize how much I had missed seeing the mountains.  We were able to spend 2 days on Lake Winnipesaukee- boating, swimming, beach, lobster, campfire.  What could be more New England?

The girls on the boat. 

Took the boat to get this ice cream.  Gampa and Ada are "cheers-ing" their matching purple ice cream.

The male bald eagle that we saw on our boat ride.  Couldn't get a good shot of the female in the nest.

Emma ended up going in even though she didn't have a suit on.  It's very difficult to keep this little fish out of the water.

Do you see how tired she is?

Pre-breakfast fishing on the dock.  They had gone digging for worms in the garden and Ada carried the bucket of worms to the water.  They came back and Ada excitedly reported they caught a fish, but when I asked if we could eat it for breakfast she called me "silly" and said Gampa put it back in the water.

Visiting my grandparents- their great grandparents.  Again, look how tired.  It's kind of painful to look at their little sleepy faces.

The only thing better than roasting marshmallows...s'mores.

From there we went directly to the South Shore for another visit and to see the ocean.  I decided it would be best to drive at night after dinner and bath so the girls could sleep in the car and we didn't waste the daytime in the car.  In theory this was a great idea, but since the daylight lasts so long these days they couldn't sleep very easily.  Emma finally was so angry that she couldn't fall asleep (at 8:30) she was just screaming and none of the usual things were helping.  I was tired and couldn't listen to an unsoothable baby crying and I didn't want Em to keep up Ada.  I could feel myself loosing my patience and about to start yelling- although that would have done no good at all- and decided to turn on the radio.    I knew I needed to either listen to the radio loudly or pull over get out of the car and scream.  It's been a long week!  I found a hip hop station that was playing Big Pimpin.  I cranked it to drown out the crying.    It worked- I calmed down and Emma calmed down and actually fell asleep to Jay Z.  I'm certain that there are mommy bloggers out there that would judge me and that's just fine because sometimes we just need to do what we need to do.  Survival baby!


Ultimately we arrived safe and sound in Marshfield and drank in the ocean for 2 days.  It was wonderful.

Sisters at the ocean

Ada walking along the beach with Peg.  

This is my water child.  She was ecstatic.  In fact, we ended up walking in the surf a bit and it was all I could do for her to not run in even though it was splashing on her and quite cold.  She LOVED the ocean!  She learned how to say beach on this trip and her annunciation blows me away- I'll try to get it on film.  

Me with my Ada boo.

A moment with Emma

We've been back in Massachusetts visiting family and friends.  The girls and I are missing Tony already, but are trying to enjoy every moment we are here seeing people as much as possible.

I've been surprised how wild it seems here to me.  At home we are in a fairly urban environment that is relatively flat and surrounded by fields of corn and soy.  Minnesota is a beautiful place that I think of as home these days so it was strange to be in the place that had always been home and feel so familiar but simultaneously out of touch.  I did need to adjust to the vertical space- trees everywhere and rolling hills.  My mom is in a thickly settled part of the state so I also had to adjust to the amount of time spent driving.  Yikes!  I do not miss that part- especially Route 9!

My parent's house is essentially in the woods and surrounded by wildlife.  There is a little marsh way behind their house that attracts all sorts of animals and it's been so nice to just hang outside and see the different birds and plants.  I didn't realize how much I had missed blue jays for example.  Crazy.  Ada has been helping her Grampa in the yard weeding and such.  

This morning Emma woke up a couple hours before Ada (a good thing since Ada went to bed at about 10 last night after a party thrown for our arrival) and we just had a nice quiet time together which felt more like a normal day.  Here are a few shots of our little Emma boo playing with a toy house.

 

I shot a video of Emma making an elephant sound that she learned from her sister who learned from her dear Auntie Julia.  Unfortunately I can't get it to load.  I'll keep trying.

Thanks Hawk family for helping me procrastinate

The girls and I leave in a few days for a trip back to Massachusetts to see loved ones and loved places.  Gramma Deb is here on a visit and happily occupying Ada in her current life as a non-napper and Emma is sleeping.  I have a gazillion things I want to get done before we leave and instead of using this sacred nap time to get things done I am here.  Blogging.  

The hawks have been fairly off my radar for a few days but Mr. Hawk was just calling and caught our attention.  I decided to grab our new camera (SO EXCITED) and give the new and improved zoom a try.  Here are the results.

Mr. Hawk is keeping guard in a nearby birch tree.  We watched him scare away some birds from the maple next to where Mrs. Hawk is sitting in the nest.

Don't make me come down there...I had been taking pictures of the Mrs. just before he started this little display.  

Mrs. Hawk

I zoomed out so you can get the sense of how dense the tree is and how well hidden she is.

She is pretty used to me checking her out but was still not convinced she wanted me there.  I'm hoping there might be a baby any day- I really hope we get to see it/them if so.