Blogiversary

Today is the year anniversary of my blog. Here is the original post: Salamander City. Read up on what we were doing a year ago.


Nothing much new going on -

I've been working out on the chicken coop (burying wire for the base of the run) and John and I have been planning the house part. It's going to be another week or so until we can put them outside, even for the day. It's time for the chicks to move out ;-p
Here is the first side of the run, with wire buried 12" deep and 6" out.
Completely forgot about roots.


Here are the girls all roosting on the edge of their box in the bathroom.



Elise had her kindergarten concert at school. It was nice, but I wrote down the wrong time, and we got there late. AH well, we were so far back that I got no good pictures or videos.

Owen started up his gymnastics class again, this time he is in an intermediate class. They are expected to walk across the gym on their hands by the end of the class term. Hmmm.

Elise has her ballet recital this coming weekend, I'm sure I'll get some pictures of THAT.
It seems as though lately I have gotten more pictures of the chickens than of kids. I'll work on changing :-)

Happy Blogiversary to us.

Author Night 2009

Owen read two chapters from his book to an audience in the library
Elise read to the family from her book.

And then we saw a beautiful sunset afterwards!

Earth Day

Earth Day was yesterday. At school, the hat project continues. I know I have talked about it - the "All-School Project" where each class made their own hats out of recycleable materials - I was involved with both kindergarten and 3rd Grade in the manufacture of said hats - well, today the kids (and some teachers) displayed their hats in a parade, in honor of Earth Day. After the parade, we hung all the hats in the hallways, in preparation for Author's Night. (That is tonight, I'll post more aboutthatin another post, I'm sure ;-)
Elise in her hat (her class didn't participate in the parade, since she is morning-only and the parade was in the afternoon):A bunch of kids and Mr Hill:Owen's masterpiece:

3rd Graders:

The whole school in lower field:


Owen and Elise walking across lower field:

Here's a really grainy video of the festivities:

As you well know, I have a lot of thoughts about the earth, and what we as a people are doing or not doing to our planet. But this blog states nicely a lot of the same feelings I have about the earth and how we treat it and living creatures on it. I don't like to be preachy, so read if you like. There's a lot of information there.

The rest of my week has been very nice. Monday night some friends honored Misty, who is about to have a baby. What an amazing evening that was. Check out Misty's blog for a description of our evening. (I post this here to show off my henna work - one of my favorite things to do!)

Just had to throw in this cute pic of Ollie enjoying the sun:

My creative super-hero children ever at work saving the world:

Last weekend we got to spend some time with John and Ruth, and new baby B.

Elise with baby B:

Other than this, I plan on spending a lot of quality time in my garden (those dang weeds - already!) and on the chicken coop/run. No end of work to be done there. That's my little tribute to the earth day.

Chicks Galore.....

The kids did a few videos of the chicks. They are pretty funny in places if you have the energy to watch them through - at one point a chick pecks at the camera. Beware if you get motion sickness, though!!!!!

Sweet kids, snow, easter and chicks

Today was a busy, fun day. The week has been busy as well.
I taught Nia on Monday, and found out they are cancelling the Monday class for now. The Friday class will go on, so Denise and I will alternate teaching that day. I taught as a substitute on Tuesday to my "home" class, a group of women who are super supportive, and it went very well. I was encouraged and motivated by teaching that class. Wednesday I taught an Art Start in kindergarten where we made hats from recycled materials. This will be our "All-School" Project, so every student in school will make one, we will have a parade on Earth Day, then display all the hats Thursday night at Author's Night, when each child's published book will be debuted. Thursday I helped out with hat-making in the other kindergarten class. Today the 3rd graders worked on their hats. What organized chaos there was!!!!!

Pictures from the week:

Snuggling on the couch before school today.....

The snow..... started this morning off and on, now coming down full force..... 5 to 20 inches predicted.....

Video from our easter egg hunt...

John's amazing egg.....

Picking up an old video here - the second day the chicks were at our house, the kids took a video:

And then we took a video of the chicks a few days ago:

More on the Constitution

Go ahead, enlarge and read.

Really, we don't put him up to these things. He comes up with them all on his own.........

Spring!!!!

We got a few packages to open........

Fun gifts.....

Opening....

Clothes!

Candy!

Peeps!

Coloring eggs.....

Decorating eggs....

Eggbert!


Dad decorating......

Searching for eggs...

High and low....

Look how many!

Big basket full!

We went to Great Grandma's house, too.

Princess.....

Pink mums for grandma:

I took this fun series of pictures of the kids - they were looking in the mirror, not at me, so it is more interesting. They are quite the posers....

Just playing around.... (right before Owen dumped his sister in the ground - aren't they cute?)

Elise and Grandma

3 generations

The kids and grandma

Of course, here is our weekly chicken update........ The weather was so nice today, we took the girls outside to play in the garden a bit. They all loved it!

Chipmunk digging and pecking:

Fluff!

Both chicks interested in a piece of chive offered by Owen:

Fluff in a strange pose:

DO you know how hard it is to get a good picture of two brown chicks against a brown dirt background?

Pecky and Brownie enjoying the day:

Pecky:

Speaking of spring, here is an update on my garden:

The peas are here!

I've got lettuce seedlings:

And spinach seedlings:

Those onions seeds I put out a LONG time ago? They survived - and here they are:

Indoors, my next batch of basil - for the garden - is germinated:

Eggplants are up:

Tomatoes are getting bigger!

Peppers are about ready for transplant:

Did I mention the "giant" cabbage Owen brought home from school? I have no idea where we will put it:

And I splurged for myself, and bought this sweet little jasmine plant at King Soopers: