Christmas!

We had a great Christmas full of presents, snow and games.
Vic's mom made these capes for the kids:

This is Erik making duct tape crafts in his new well loved star wars pajamas-we might never get him to wear anything else.

One of Taryn's favorite gifts was a cootie-catcher book from her great Aunt Diana. She made almost half the book today.

This is Vic not relaxing on Christmas morning.

We had to drive a lot further this year to find snow. We didn't find enough to sled on, so the kids just played in it for a while. It was just as fun for them.

Just to prove I was there.

Solstice gifts

It has become tradition now for the kids to open their big Christmas gift on Winter Solstice. We had pizza and rootbeer on the living room floor, read a story about winter, and opened presents. Erik got a make your own light saber kit, which was a big hit. And Taryn got a new horse for her doll Alice, which she seemed to like as well. It was a nice night together. Happy Solstice!

Happy Winter Solstice!

Give thanks to the sun today, it's on it's way back to us!

Making zuchinni bread

Erik and Maxy boy

Christmas has arrived at our house!

Reptile Man

The state of our lawn these days

Late Halloween pics

Wildlife

This is a little door I've been bugging Vic to make ever since we moved here. I wanted to be able to get back to the trail behind our house without having to walk all the way around. This summer while we were in Utah and he had some spare time, he got it done.

A few days ago we saw a mom deer and two babies. Vic and Erik walked back there and were able to get pretty close to them before they ran off.

Today the kids and I are eating lunch and see what we think is a large deer. We're pretty familiar with the family that lives back there and this did not look like one of them.

So we put on our shoes and walked through our handy-dandy door.

As we came upon the trail, what we were looking at walked into the trees and behind it came a huge elk with a huge set of horns on it's head.

It was a pretty awesome sight.

Gordin

Erik asked me to put this up on my blog. This is his friend/robot Gordin. Erik built him out of construx pieces. Gordin goes everywhere with Erik and has a brother named George who lives on the moon (or mars, Erik isn't sure where the astronauts took him).

Day in the city

Missing

We went for a walk this evening and as we went down a little path, we realized Erik was not behind us. We went back and thought that he must have not seen us turn and went a different way. So we went home and this is what we found on our front door:

Butterfly update

All five of our crysalis' hatched. We kept them for a few days and decided to let them go today.


It turned into a really awesome experience for everyone. Erik had a knack for getting the butterflies to climb on his finger. We had one that was born deformed. It's wings didn't develop so we're going to keep it and feed it through it's life cycle.

If you're wondering about the popcorn rock experiment, it was sabatoged. Someone in our household thought they knew better how to do it and it didn't grow.

Science Experiments

Here are a couple of things we're working on. Results to come later.
This one is a jar of caterpillars that we got, this is the stage where they are attaching themselves to the top and making crysalli (?). The stuff on the bottom was their food when they were crawling around.



Now we've hung them to turn into butterflies!

This is a really awesome project that the kids have loved. If you want to do it, go to insectlore.com.

This is a popcorn rock we got at the scottish festival in Utah. You cover this rock with vinegar and as it evaporates, it makes "popcorn" crystals.