Bubbles
Just a few decent photos of the kids making bubbles in the driveway. The weather has been a lot nicer lately, so it's been good to get outside.
Silliness
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Just a pair of goofy faces from Carter's last bath. I don't know that we've seen a real smile in a photo for a while now - she flips her silliness switch every time the camera comes out these days. :) |
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Swingset
These pics have been sitting on the camera for a while, but better late than never. We finally got rid of our old steel-pipe style swingset in favor of something that is a little less of a death-trap. The kids helped put it together, as you can see, and them were quick to enjoy the fruits of their labors. Now if only it would stop raining, so we could use it again...
First Day of Preschool
This past Monday was Carter's first day of preschool. She's been excited to go for a while. Lori says that when she dropped her off and went to leave, Carter didn't even notice - she was having that much fun, even on her first day.
Future X-Games Superstar
Sean has really been into doing 'tricks' on his bicycle lately. I just can't believe that Lori let him try this stuff without having her usual Mommy-freak-out. He was really into it, too. I'm half-tempted to put some pegs on that bike, and see what he uses them for.
Indoor Camp-Out
A couple of weeks ago, it got super-windy and we lost power for about three days. The first night, Lori and Carter slept at a friend's who still had power, while Sean and I opted to stay at the house for an indoor camp-out. It was pretty awesome. We read books by the light of a fire in the fireplace and we toasted mini-marshmallows on toothpicks over a candle. Sean kept lighting his marshmallows on fire, blowing them out, and declaring their burnt outer shells "delicious". He must take after his Grammy on that one. I don't think I've ever seen her actually "toast" a marshmallow - hers always go front the bag right to full-out flame. Right before bed, we played a solid hour of hide-and-go-seek with flashlights, which was ridiculously fun. It is so much easier to find a decent hiding spot when the house is pitch-black. That night he slept in my with me and the two dogs, all huddled together in a huge pile of blankets so we could keep warm. It was awesome - he hasn't had that much uninterrupted and unshared "daddy time" for a long time.
Snowmen
Last week the kids made snowmen in the yard. I think that this might be the first time they've ever made a proper snowman that was more than a foot tall. They had a really good time - there was plenty of sticky snow, but the air temperature was actually pretty balmy. The downside is that those snowmen melted in record time. I love the pinecone mouth on Sean's snowman - and the carrot hair on Carter's cracks me up too!
Snowy Night
We got dumped on with snow one night last week. When I went outside to shovel it, I invited the kids to join me. They've never played outside, at night, while it was snowing before, and they jumped at the chance. None of the pictures really came out, but here's one anyway.
Maple Syrup – Boil Down
I don't have any pictures yet of the finished syrup, but the past two Sundays in a row I've boiled down that week's sap into some delicious maple syrup. It's nice and sweet and maple-y, and it's got a background flavor that I would swear tastes just like vanilla. It turns out that the boiling down takes a long time. But all told we've managed to produce about 3 pints of syrup to date. If the weather keeps doing what it's doing, I'll probably get another 1.5 - 2 pints this weekend. If we end up with more that we can use, I think I might try making some maple sugar candy sometime soon.
Maple Syrup – Tapping
Last fall, I decided that I would try to tap some of maple trees this year, and see if we can make some homemade maple syrup. Last week, I tapped the trees. Instead of the traditional splies-and-bucket approach, I'm trying something I saw others in the area do last year - covered 5-gallon buckets with polyethylene tubing. I tapped the trees on Wednesday and Thursday night, and when I checked yesterday afternoon there was already sap in a some of the buckets. Not a ton yet, but it's a start. And it's still pretty early in the season. If there is enough sap in the buckets when I check today, our first syrup-production experiment may take place this afternoon. The sap has to be boiled down into syrup within 7 days of collection, so I can't just let it accumulate all season. And the sap-to-finished-syrup ratio is about 40-to-1, so we may end up with about a thimble-full of syrup, but it will be fun anyway.
