Nesting

These are the cliff swallows nesting above one of the pillars on our porch. There are 5 little birdies. They won't be here much longer, I think. There were also finches on another pillar. But they flew the nest last week. They were the second set of birds hatched there this season. So far we've had three sets a birdies, with the occasional cow bird thrown in (cow birds lay their eggs in other birds' nests). It is quite loud out there during feeding time and the adult birds are always swooping around when we walk by. But it has been fun to watch the birds build nests, set eggs and grow little birdies!

Welcome to the Kennel Club

Hazel finally had her birthday party. Her friends came over for our Puppy Party. Everyone got ears, their face painted and went around pretending to be a puppy for an hour. Here is Hazel, or otherwise known as Tootsie Roll the puppy.

The kids fetched,

jumped through hoops,

rolled over,

and barked.

Each puppy got their own food dish complete with dog food. (One little boy wouldn't eat it though, he thought it was really dog food:) Others really got into role.

I was able to find some pretty good pretend dog food. I couldn't pass up the dog biscuit bones. The cereal fit our theme "purrfectly".

Copper performed all of her tricks while the kids cheered. Copper doesn't get treats very often. So she did all of her tricks in a row until I gave her some. The kids thought that the dog jumping through the hoop was super exciting. Three year olds are easy to please!

And of course there were cupcakes. (The adults were definitely more impressed than the kids.)

Present time is a happy sad thing for little party goers.

It was a fun party. Thanks to all the helpers: Aspen and friends for decorating the dog bowls and helping at the party; Amanda for taking pictures; and all the other moms for helping out with crowd control. The cupcake directions came from a recent issue of Family Circle.

NYC

Isaac drew this in art class at school. I really like it. We're going to NYC next month and Isaac is very excited!

Honor Roll

Today is the last day of school for us. Only Aspen went to school though. She wanted to be with her friends. Toby saw no reason to go to school (and I agreed; the teachers have been just giving puzzles and games for the last 4 or 5 school days). Isaac wanted to stay home to play with Toby. Today they handed out awards and report cards.

Aspen got an award for having a piece in the district art show.

And Isaac got on the all A Honor Roll for the entire year!

(There is also a Mostly A - with only one B - Honor Roll.)

We are very excited for them!

I am also very glad that school is over. We can now go to our summer schedule of sleeping in to match our spring schedule of staying up later. Everyone will be much happier. After two days of 3 of my children home, however, I realize that I will need to keep them occupied so they don't drive each other, or me, up the wall. Still, I would rather have them home and a more relaxed schedule than the craziness of the school year.

Nate's Marbles

Nate started collecting marbles about 8 or 9 years ago. Marbles are really cool; and when you look at them more closely you can see how much talent and skill these people have with little pieces of glass. He's created quite a nice collection since then. He also made the display case out of a moveable type set drawer. If you click on the picture you should be able to see more detail.

sleeping beauty

Alfresco Dining

Even though the temperatures here are pushing 100 degrees during the day, the evenings have been pretty pleasant. We don't have a picnic table. Sometimes we bring out our kitchen table onto the patio and eat. But today we picnicked on the lawn. We have to take advantage of all the opportunites to be outdoors when it is actually enjoyable. We had some tasty cajun sausage and shrimp and corn and black bean salsa rice and spinach salad. Check my food blog for the recipes here and here

Birthday tradition

One of our family's birthday traditions is to have relighting candles on your birthday cake. So this is me trying to keep up with the relighting candles. I think that Nate didn't even start filming until half way through blowing them out.

Also, Nate bought me the best birthday cake. It was a yellow cake with very chocolatey frosting from a bakery downtown called "The Sweetish Bakery". Very yummy!!!

Go West!

Aspen's 5th grade presented a musical called "Go West". It is the story of the westward expansion of America. Aspen was a pioneer woman and had 2 speaking parts. I know it looks like she isn't having fun, but she was just hot under the lights I think. She talked about this for 3 weeks. She did a great job.

Missing the beach

Fun with Legos

Was showing Isaac some Escher drawings online, and ran across this. Totally awesome.

http://www.gravestmor.com/wp/archives/2005/12/12/lego-escher/