Love that dirty water...

I am from Massachusetts.  Not Boston proper mind you, but the suburbs.  I grew up thinking Boston was the be all end all of cities.  That it was the place to go to do anything super fun.  My folks were good about bringing me in to do things like First Night on New Years, free concerts in government center, Faneuil Hall, Red Sox games, Franklin Park Zoo, North End treats, tall ship tours, and coolest of all we got to ride in on the T.

One of my fondest childhood memories is watching the Boston Marathon.  "Marathon Monday" takes place on Patriots Day which is a state holiday in Massachusetts so we always had the day off from school and there were loads of people out and celebrating all over Eastern Mass.  We would usually watch from Newton Lower Falls which is a town just outside the city.  Now that we live in Minnesota I have often thought about taking the girls for a vacation and cheering on the tremendous athletes.  There is an energy on the day of the marathon unlike any other- everyone feels a camaraderie and similar to the Olympics all are rooting for human spirit and athleticism.  The fact that this tragedy struck on this day of all days feels especially painful.  The fact that a child was killed hits my gut and makes me furious and sad at the same time.

My tendency when these things happen is to end up in a dark place in my mind and being pregnant made me jump to that place even more quickly.  It might sound cheesy but the little messages of hope that people have put up on social media have been helpful.  Remembering to see the good.  To focus on the good in people.  To be hopeful.  These are important messages and that is what I want my children to remember in times of crisis.  Here are a couple of my favorites.

So this morning when we woke up and the girls were going to stay home again with a case of conjunctivitis I decided we needed to do something positive so I didn't make myself crazy.  I was happy to have a day with them even in their cranky eye-drop-needing condition.  I showed Ada an image of the "B" on my computer and she knew it was for "Red Sox".  I told her it was a symbol for Boston and that the people who live in Boston had a bad day yesterday and needed extra love. We decided to do a big painting project for our front window and I sketched out the "B" then Ada and I painted it while Emma had her own "B" to paint since she's not one to stay in the lines- really on any level.

So this was our art project today.

Emma mostly painted herself...then later her sister leading us directly into the shower after this activity.

I folded and drew half a heart and Ada cut the hearts out beautifully.

All while Emma coated herself in applesauce.

Then Ada and I hung our work on the front window.  Jim watched.

Many, many people have already written about this tragic day.  I couldn't just carry on with posts about stuff without recognizing this event.  It should also be said that all the athletes who competed yesterday are amazing individuals and my hope is that runners will still want to compete in Boston and we don't let this taint the spirit of the event.  I would still like to bring the girls to watch and cheer, and maybe they will even want to run it someday.

In honor of "Spring"

I'm a big fan of winter but I'm ready to look forward...just need Mother Nature to get on board.  We've still got snow on the ground and in the forecast but to celebrate the actual vernal equinox we talked about all the wonderful things that will happen around us so we'll know Spring is here and decorated eggs to celebrate new life.

I've been saving Zebra's eggs for a week since she lays a very pale brown egg that I thought would be easier to dye.  We only boiled and dyed 6 eggs since there are only 2 family members who like hard boiled eggs.  It was a quick after nap activity and the girls had fun with it.

They each picked a color and I picked blue (Ada purple, Emma red) then I set up some bowls and Ada helped me pour water vinegar and food coloring while Emma ate her snack.  Perhaps my favorite part of this activity was watching the interaction as Emma tried to get her apron on then asked Ada for help and then Ada tied it for her.  So darn cute- these girls just love each other!

Emma was a bit more aggressive putting her egg into the bowl and one of the eggs was partially cracked before we were done, but oh well!

And the finished eggs are beautiful!  Ada added a drop of blue coloring to one when it was done and she decided it was a "beautiful tree".

Flock Block

I had purchased a flock block from the feed store in town a while back for the chickens and it was great.  It's basically a hard block of seeds that the chickens have to peck at to get the food off.  I liked it because it covers me if their food runs out before I notice or just keeps them doing something other than going nutty.  There are loads of recipes out there so I decided it would be a fun thing for us to make now that we know the chickens like it and it's way cheaper to make your own.  The comercial ones are nice though because they last a long time and I know of folks who use them when they go out of town.

I looked at a few recipes and very loosely followed one from The Chicken Chick.  She uses marigold petals which I don't keep on hand (might look for them at the co-op though).  Here's what we used in no particular order:

Feed (what they normally eat out of their feeder)
Scratch (basically just seeds)
Oyster shells
Oats
Polenta
Cinnamon
Maple syrup
3 eggs with shells crushed and added in too
shredded apple
shredded carrots (yellow baby carrots that no one really liked)

No measuring just dumped and stirred and pressed into oiled pans that weren't holding baking soda in the basement.  It was very fun to make and the girls were very excited to make a treat for the chickens.

They also enjoyed giving them their treat and the hens LOVED it! Glad we have two.  This was also a great way to utilize a surplus of eggs that we have right now:)

Zebra, Goldie, and Red enjoying their treat.  

Then Ada checked for eggs and Emma helped me fill up their food.

Thanks for the help girls!!

The good the bad and the musical

The Good
We've been having some fun around here.  Ada and Tony built an awesome snow fort in the back yard.

Ada's using one of my old snow boarding mittens as a cast cover- works PERFECTLY!

The chickens are doing just fine.  We get 2-3 eggs a day and have had extras to share with friends which is nice.  I'm looking forward to spring to make a few adjustments to the coop that will make it easier for the girls to help with chores and maybe to add pavers or some sort of walkway out to and around the coop since it gets pretty trashed.

The girls are playing more and more together which I simply love.  Since Emma is more verbal and they seem to really like each other at this stage in their lives they entertain each other which is very helpful and sweet to watch.  But if you watch to the end of the video you'll see that's not without it's issues sometimes;)  I believe they were making a "store" here but it's hard to tell and sometimes I don't ask, I just let them do whatever.  These little foam puzzle things are the current most played with item.

They ended up working it out: with a little prompting Ada asked again nicely and Emma agreed not to flip the pieces on the floor and they carried the book together.

They pretended to be cats.

I was able to visit Ada at school and she showed me a few things she's been doing.  Pretty cool to see her working with her left hand.

Transferring marbles

Math work

Sensory bin with split peas.  She just filled all the little cups with a mini scoop all left handed.

Checking out a shark jaw and teeth with a magnifying glass.

The Bad
It will not quit precipitating around here.  Seriously every day it feels like we get snow or rain or freezing rain and even though I hate to be one of those people who complains about the weather it really is getting ridiculous.  It's made more annoying by the water coming into our basement window.  I feel badly that I didn't notice it sooner because it must have been happening for a while (through the guest room window where we hardly ever go- yes I'm sure this post will elicit many requests to come visit us) and could have been much less bad if I had- oh well, live and learn I guess.  Luckily Tony was home and he did lots of work bailing out the window well, wet vac-ing, pulling up the carpet, setting up fans, and moving the very heavy dehumidifier.  It seems to be MUCH better now but the basement is still torn apart.  My positive spin is that I'm telling myself I will use this as an opportunity to purge.

The Musical

Ada had her first viola concert and it was great!  Her school had a combined band and orchestra concert with the middle school band and the pre-K- middle school strings.  I had to use the bow for her since she can't hold it right now but she handled herself on stage like a pro!  And we got frozen yogurt after which was also pretty fun.

Sweetness of Emma

It's been a doozy of a week.

1. Ada broke her thumb on Monday and she has been a trooper through it all even though her right had is casted and she has to ask for help to do simple things.  I'm sure there will be photos in the coming posts with her in her cast.  It's rad- purple with sparkles.
2. Snow day home from school with a kid who couldn't play outside = crazy cooped up ladies.
3. Emma home 2 days from school with a stomach something that has not been fun for either of us.

Through it all I have to give these girls credit.  They rock.  I am so proud of each of them for being able to roll with it and for the most part not completely loose it.  Even with an overly emotional mama.

This morning I overheard Emma talking to her dollies.  She was being the mama and they are her babies.  She was trying to put one of them to bed and I heard her say, "No dillydally.  C'mon."  I have to say she hears those words A LOT and while I'm sure there is a way I could talk differently to her and encourage her in a more positive way it was precious to hear her little self say that to her dollies.

Love this kid.

More Dinosaur Stuff

We made some "dinosaur fossils" inspired by a pin from Love, Play, Learn.  It was a great bribery tool for me when trying to get the girls to pick up the living room.  On Saturday mornings we create what I call "Saturday Morning Disaster".  We ignored it until after nap when I gave them snack then said we would do a project as soon as the living room was tidy.  That got them working!!

We made a simple salt dough and grabbed the tray of dino toys to press into the dough.  This was the PERFECT activity.  Not very messy but very tactile.  Everyone had fun- the 4 year old, the 2 year old, and the 34 year old.

Measuring and mixing...

They took turns mixing until it got too tough...

Kneading the dough...

Then I baked them in a 200 degree oven for about 2 hours.  Then turned off the oven and left them there/ forgot about them.  The next morning the thick ones were still a little moist on the bottom so I flipped them and put them back in for about an hour then put them on top of the oven to cool.

While the girls ate morning snack I prepped the dig.  We watched a few videos of paleontologists working in the field and while Ada and I thought it was super cool when they found big bones it wasn't exactly relatable since they were mostly using jackhammers and drills and dynamite to expose the fossils.  We used sand toys and paint brushes.  Oh well.  The girls LOVED this activity.

Again this idea came from a pin from Love, Play, Learn on dinosaur fossil excavation.  She uses edible ingredients in the bin and I used similar things.  What I did differently was to make layers instead of stripes in the bin so we could talk about the layes of the Earth a little.  Ada faned interest in this aspect I think mostly she was just humoring me so I would stop and she could get to work digging.  I made 2 bins to avoid conflict...

In the bottom I put most of the fossils they made then some oats (these have been used and reused many times in sensory bins for Emma) and a bag of semolina flour I found in my cupbord that was woefully out of date, then some crushed chocolate cookies that were also past due.  This would be a fun thing to do to clear out old stuff in your baking cupboard.  You could really throw about anything dry in there and it would be fun- ours smelled like chocolate but I was thinking it would be neat to do a bin sometime with flour and spices (for another sensory experience) and do and archeology dig with pyramids, etc. from one of those Safari tubes...

Then some chocolate cake mix (this was a great addition because we pretended the clumps were rocks and when we found one as we were digging/ playing we would crush it between our fingers and it was awesome).  On top of the mix went more fossils.

Next comes flour (she used whole wheat, I used white because it's cheaper and I don't think the girls will hold it against me although the whole wheat would certainly be more Earthen looking).  Then a little more cake mix and crushed Oreos.  **A quick side note of disclosure: I love Oreos.  Love them.  They are my junkiest food love and while they were nice to have in this project, also completely unnecessary.  I didn't need to get them and this would have been a fine and fun project- the girls wouldn't have missed them.  But I love them and this was all the justification I needed to buy them and proceed in eating massive amounts of Oreos later in the day.

The layers from the side of the bin looked like this.

Next came the fun.  I don't have tons of pictures of the whole thing because I was playing with them and very messy, but you can see by the last pics how fun it was.  Also, they were actively playing with this for 45 minutes.  We ended up adding our dinosaur figures into the mix and burying them and finding them.  Then we spent some time burying our hands and digging them out.  It felt really cool.  And they both asked to play with it later in the day- I did save the bins and we will likely do it again tomorrow.  Glad I made them in bins with covers:)

As expected, Ada took it very seriously and worked diligently on each piece.

This one is fuzzy, but I love it anyway :)