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.

A little touch of Montessori

I've been trying to figure out a way to have water accesible to the girls throughout the day just like they do at Ada's school.  I was thinking about buying a nice earthen jug with a spigot and installing a low shelf in the kitchen for them to use.  Well, as life would have it I didn't do that.  I finally decided I couldn't stand the messy tupperware cabinet anymore and I went through, organized and recycled stuff that didn't have a mate.  Once it wasn't such a mess I had room to put their cups and their little silverware caddy.

I know the plastic is not very Montessori.  Sue me.

The girls like to get their own spoon and fork for dinner so this is a natural progression in my mind.  For the time being I just filled up an old gatorade bottle with water and put it in the fridge where Ada can reach it.  She enjoyed pouring some for herself and offering some to Emma- Em of course was thrilled and they shared a little water break.  Over the summer I plan to add a "do it yourself" snack station too.  They do this at school and it works great.  I want to wait for summer when Ada is home and can help show Emma a good example.

I finally made some small size napkins (although I only got half way done before my sewing machine stopped working).  I brought up the finished ones and showed Ada who loved them.  They're made from a cute lemon fabric that was leftover from an awesome party a friend threw years back.  I pulled out some awesome napkin rings a friend gave us and had Ada pick out an animal for each person in our family.
Lion- Emma
Rhino- Papa
Elephant- Ada
Leopard- Mama
Now we can keep our napkins on the table for the day and know which one belongs to each person.  We don't really need to change them after each meal (depending on the meal of course).

The girls seemed to like it at lunch time- Ada's napkin is in her lap:)

Chowing on their kiwi while the noodles cool off.  Please excuse the messy living room!

Teaching the girls about being good to the Earth

When we moved we left our awesome garden, yard, sandbox, amazing perennials (including some beautiful fragrant peonies), and our compost bin.  Until last weekend we have been living a life that feels wrong when it comes to kitchen waste.  We have been throwing scraps in the trash or in the disposal and my hippie conscious has been weighing on me.  No longer.

The girls mostly "supervised" as I installed our first ever rain barrel.  Ada helped me screw the Earth Machine into the ground and put it together.  Both of the girls helped me put some yard waste and kitchen scraps and we brainstormed some things that we'll be saving and putting in.  Ada is excited about saving the little bottom of the banana and putting it in the bin :)

Checking everything out. 

This is the water barrel all set up.  I'm planning on using it to water some plants by hand.  You can attach a hose to it as well although I'm not sure I'll use that feature too often.  Hoping to use this as a teaching tool for the girls to talk about clean water.  Ada can use it on her own, so she will be able to fill up pails to water her plants or use in the mud kitchen.


BTW, the mud kitchen is going well.

This is cow food.  Ada "cooked" some up and has informed me that we should have cows at our house :)

The big silver bin has clumps of sod from where I made a garden bed in the front yard.  I thought it might be fun to play with.  We ended making some "brownies" with it shortly after this picture was taken.  So much fun!!