Brendan's 4th birthday party!!!!!!!

Well we went to Brendan's AWESOME 4th birthday party and it was so cute. It had a dinosaur theme and Stacy made some really cool stuff. Here are the kids opening up their dino eggs after an egg hunt!

Ring the Triceratops.

A volcano too!! Brendan, when asked what a volcano did to the dinosaurs and why their was one at his party replied, "because it extincted them".

Dino egg relay race. Ava was really cheering on Margie!

What did the boys do....watch football of course.

Pin the tail on the T-Rex. This was Grandma Giffords turn!

AWESOME cake!!

Blow out the volcano Brendan!

Sam loved his piece.

Instead of hot potato it was hot dino egg.

We love you Brendan. Thanks for the great party Stacy!! xoxo

Eggs have arrived!

Well we have a few egg layers now. The hens have provided us with a few laughs as shown above. The one on the right is smaller than a ping pong ball and the one on the left was bigger that the large store-bought eggs I had in the fridge!

Minna Anthony Common Nature Center Autumn Festival

What a nice time the kids had at the Autumn Festival on Wellesley Island this year. It was almost 80 degrees in the afternoon and we beat most of the crowd by getting there early. One of the attractions that the kids enjoy are the games.

Scarecrow making contest. They provide the posts, straw and clothes. We didn't make this pair but we will make one next year.

Apple cider press. Turn the wheel Georgia and mash those apples. Margie is putting an apple in and Georgia is mashing it.

"Bones" got pretty tired!

Angora rabbit.

I love the Alpacas.

Taking a hike.

Emeline had a stick when we started the hike. After a while she chucked it aside. I kind of wondered why and it all made sense when we came across one of these trail markers. She said "mom, this means no running with sticks". Too cute!

rascal

The animal show. The darn animals were moving WAY too fast so I didn't hardly get any pictures. A lemur. I didn't even get his beautiful tail :(

a lynx

Margie LOVES to drum.

Rock on little Marge!

Mary Cassatt coloring page

Well this was a hit for art class. We have been learning about Mary Cassatt, the painter of mothers and children, and I found a coloring page of one of her works.
The girls used oil pastels to color it in based on a picture I found online of the original.

These photos don't do them justice. They spent a lot of time on getting the shading and highlighting just right. I think this was their favorite "art class" ever!!

Little Bub

We have been working the pony quite a bit lately. He is doing REALLY well.
Josie is my cowgirl!!

A Model Eardrum

Josie has been learning about the senses so we made an eardrum.
First she put plastic wrap over a shallow dish really tightly.

Then, the littles put on a little uncooked rice.

Georgia got a noisemake for us in the form of a cookiesheet.

Finally, she bashed it so we could watch the rice dance. What did Josie learn: sound waves travel through the air and vibrate on your eardrum. Very cool!!

Russell is 15!

There he is. Russell is now 15!

Josie made him some paper dolls and Russell and Grandma are checking them out.

These two little ones kept to themselves and kept themselves busy!!!

Chaumont Barrens

out of order...sorry

We made a trip to the Chaumont Barrens recently. "Chaumont Barrens Preserve is one of the last and finest examples of alvar grasslands in the world, and is a link in the chain of North American alvars forming and arc from Jefferson County through Ontario, and all the way to northern Michigan. Alvar barrens are highly unique, prairie-like landscapes that rest atop a foundation of limestone bedrock." Info found here!

Here we are eating a lunch before we hit the trail.

The trail head.

AAAHHHHHHHHhhh!

Right now we have all the gumption in the world!!

Margie and her walking stick. That walking stick was so she "could bop a bear on the head". Emmy kept very close while Margie had that stick!

Fossils

My girls on what was left from a glacier!!

Beautiful old forest.

Look, a fissure!

LOTS of rock holes!!! Yes some enough in which you could lose a child...not forever....just until you pulled them out again.

Don't know???

She finally did get tired of that big walking stick and we were thankful because after she handed it over our pace picked up quite a bit. Someone had to mention a fox! As soon as she heard that she searched for a stick. This is the one she found and with this she was going to "smack a fox with it". :)

Getting tired. Almost done.