Emily's Graduation

This weekend our lovely niece, Emily, graduated from Bismarck High School. Emily, is the sweetest, goofiest girl around. She's heading to Black Hills State in Spearfish, SD to study Mass Comm. and photography, which is her passion. However, my prediction is that she becomes a teacher, because, well, she's just so good working with little kids that I can't imagine her doing anything else.

Of course I hardly got any pictures of the graduate, but I managed to take pictures so let's just be happy about that!

I think this is a miraculous picture because Sadie is posing with two people who really dislike having their picture taken: her Cousin Elizabeth and her Aunt Paula.

Gabe and Eli (with Grace in the background)Grandpa with Jake:

This is Jack, not to be confused with Jake, but we do it all the time anyways. Actually, we don't confuse them we know who is who, but we just call out the wrong name...

Sadie's Last Day of School

I realized this week that I hadn't posted any pictures of Sadie at her pre-school. Like Eli, she attended Enchanted Garden, a Waldorf inspired school at Frances' house. She very much so loved going to Frances' and it is a wonderful place for kids to grow and explore our world in a natural and peaceful setting. At Frances', Sadie :
Plays musical insturments, like drums, sticks, bells, violins, harps and cellos.

Made soup each week as well as pizza, bread, hot cross buns, muffins, and porridge.

Had many tea parties,


Did numerous crafty things like sewing and finger knitting,
and candle making.


They (Aaron, Elizabeth, Leanna, Luis, and Sadie) planted flowers,

played outside everyday (even when it was 10 and 15 below!),
Celebrated holidays, the seasons and the passing of time,

She colored and painted and designed silk scarves.
They played with scarves with so many ways, here they used them for blankies, but they dance with them, and hop on them and use them for wings and do all sorts of imaginative things with them. Scarves are more awesome than I thought.
What a wonderful year!!

Art Show and the Ry-Guy

Eli's school had an art show/bookfair/claymation/math and reading night. It was a fun family night. Eli's class made zoo pictures from wooden icecream spoons. There's a giraffe, bird and some other animals that I can't remember!Eli and his BFF, Ryan, aka "Ry-Guy" have to do everything the same. They call each other in the morning to see what each other is wearing to school. They check out the same books from the library. They're pretty cute together. Ryan also has a sister, Abby, who is a year younger than Sadie so playing works out great! They also happen to live very close to us and Ryan will be at the Kindergarten center with Eli next year and both families have requested the same teacher. So, we're hoping they're together next year too. (They're wearing the same outfit because they just finished soccer.)

Bubble Gum

I don't know what's wrong with me. It seems at important family events I always neglect to take pictures and those are always the events that I should be taking pictures of. Take my niece's first communion/confirmation that was last weekend in which I was asked to be her sponsor, for example. I didn't take a single picture and it was, of course, picture worthy. Maybe my BIL will send me some photos from the event so I can show you how cute my niece is. And show you pictures of all the cousins, because really, it just doesn't get any better than cousins!

Instead, I'll show you a not-so-major-but-still-important event in our life: blowing bubbles. Have I mentioned before that I love this age? Well, how could I not love spending an afternoon in front of the bathroom mirror with a wad of bubble gum in my mouth with my favorite 4 year old teaching her how to blow bubbles?

As with everything with Sadie, what she lacks in natural ability she makes up for with determination. And the girl is determined. Here she is in all her bubble blowing glory:

Soccer

This year, spring soccer is being held after school at the schools. Eli and Sadie decided to join and what a difference a year makes. Last year, it was torture getting either of them to participate and I had some not-so-proud-of mommy moments. Sadie didn't want to play the first day, but as soon as she got to know her coach, she has been unstoppable on the field. I have discovered that it is better for the kids if I stay and watch from a distance. I was worried that Eli wouldn't want to play after discovering that Zoe and Ryan, his two best buds, weren't on his team. It didn't matter. He is out there running around and having a great time. His confidence and independence has come a long way in the past year!

The kids are grouped according to age. The 4 year olds do more drills and silly games than actually play soccer but they're learning lots of gross motor skills and following directions types of things. The coach is totally awesome and is age appropriate with them. Sadie happily participates! She's actually turning into more of an athlete than I thought she would be.

Eli Gets A Fauxhawk

Chicks Get A New Home

The chicks moved into the coop this weekend. Here's the official tour.

When we were thinking about where in the world we were going to build the chicken coop we sort of thought that we would build on an existing structure which meant either the boat house or the kids' playhouse. Then, we had to think about how we were going to get electricity to the chicks if it was too cold for the chicks, which it just might be in Northern Minnesota. In the end, we decided to build the coop in the corner of our shop because a) there were already walls in place and b) the shop is actually pretty warm in the winter. We're hoping that it's relatively easy to clean because the garage door opens so we could either spray it out or just sweep into that general direction. You can see the nesting boxes that open from the outside so we don't need to go in to collect eggs and the fake window that will allow some natural light.

The kids were pretty excited to show the chicks their new home.
The chicks didn't really know what to think. It was a lot cooler and bigger than their cardboard box, but it seems like they're already enjoying their space and are starting to venture outside a little bit.Mabel (and Sadie) trying out the nesting box.

Here is the view from outside. There is a run with bird netting over it. Part of the run is under the overhang so part of the run will stay dry during the winter.

Checking out the door and ramp. There are doors that latch on the inside and outside of the chicken door in hopes to keep all sorts of critters out at night.
We will put the chicks in their coop at night and let them run during the day. There are way to many predators in the woods and a curious kitty named Belle.

The chicks are still working on their chick-skills. They scratch and peck, but they don't know what to do with themselves otherwise. I have noticed that when one is inside and the others are outside that they start looking for the missing chick. I guess they're already become a little family.

Our entrance:
Dennis did an awesome job building the coop. He really wanted to make sure that the chicks had all of their needs met. We used backyardchickens.com as our lone resource. They were able to answer every question from "what can a chicken eat?" to "how big of holes should the chicken wire have? to "how high should a roost be?" to "how many square feet does a chicken need?" and about a gazillion other questions we came across as we built our coop. It's a great resource.
Come July we should have fabulous eggs to eat and enjoy. We can't wait.

Hoppy Easter!

I was so excited when I found out that Easter was late this year. I had high hopes for a picnic this Easter and my wish *sort of* came true!
The day started early. Very early. Santa Claus early, because the Easter Bunny came and brought lots of candy, money and presents. Sadie got a lovely pink soccer ball, Eli some Legos and they both got an ELO CD. (Somehow the Easter Bunny must have got wind of our dance parties and decided that we needed to step it up.)
I wish we would have got photos outside but it was only 30 degrees at 8am when these pictures were taken. Anyways, a rare family photo:
After Church, Grandma and Grandpa Z. organized a little family egg hunt. Eli found one on top of the snow that just won't seem to go away.
Reid was a little distracted by balls and swings and slides to be too interested in finding eggs, but he did manage to find a few. I think Anissa slept through the whole thing.
Well, my wish sort of came true. After a cold start, it actually made it up to 62 today. We spent all afternoon outside doing yardwork. I really wouldn't choose to do yardwork on Easter and hope that it doesn't become a family tradition, but I really want to just get on with spring and have a clean yard and be done with this long dragged out winter already! Flower beds were readied, seeds started, garden prepped, pine needles raked (at least in the parts of the yard that doesn't have snow) and garage cleaned. Just in time for a picnic of Easter leftovers around the campfire. Ahhh, now that it what I call a good Easter tradition.

(If you look really closely in the foreground, you can see my spring onions. They are up and ready to be picked!)

A Hard Question for You

Question: In Northern Minnesota which season follows spring? If you guessed summer, you would be wrong.

I have to admit though, that the sun is pretty intense. By the end of the day, the snowmen had all lost their heads. It's still quite white out though and more is coming. **sigh**

Chicks Like Worms

Sunday brought rain, which means that most of the snow melted (yea!) and the first worms of the year made their appearance. The kids took the opportuntity to dig some holes and feed the chicks their first treat.I really should stop posting disclaimers about my pictures, but really, these are bad. Chicks are fast, not to mention that they are living in a small cardboard box with only a heat lamp for light. It just makes for bad pictures. Sorry. Mabel just happens to be the biggest chick and she's also the most fiesty with very strong opinions. She grabbed the worm first. Then, she ran around like crazy while the other chicks chased her trying to grab the worm out of her beak oblivious to the fact that there were 3 other worms laying there.

My how the chicks have grown. Their feathers are filling out and they can actually get a little bit of air now when they flap their wings. They are not loving being held right now, but that doesn't stop us from sneaking in a snuggle every now and then! Penelope having her taste. Yumm-o!

Project Chicken Coop is almost complete. Actually, the coop is complete, but the chicken run is not. The trench for the fence is tug and supplies have been purchased. Soon.

Sadie Swims.

Spring seems to be finally peeking it's head around the corner which means our seasonal swimming at Ruttger's is coming to an end very soon (in the summer we just go to the beach). I can't believe how much the kids have improved in their swimming abilities, Sadie especially. For the life of me, I couldn't get Sadie to be brave enough to attempt swimming. Then, one day, Sadie was wearing her water wings and jumping in and swimming to the edge. She did this for about an hour, then she took her water wings off and warmed up in the hot tub. Totally forgetting that she didn't have her water wings on, she made a run for the pool and jumped in. She came up for air and started to tread water saying, "Mom, I don't have my water wings on and I can't swim." I said, "Sadie, you're swimming right now." From that moment on she's been swimming. When we were on our Arizona trip, both kids seemed to improve drastically, but it helped that they could touch. At Ruttger's both kids are still too short to touch unless they're right at the side so it makes swimming across the pool a little more scary, but now Eli can swim across and back!

I couldn't leave Eli out:

A Bike Ride

The kids have been waiting to ride their new bikes since Santa delivered them. It warmed up enough (and by enough, I mean above freezing) and all of the snow and ice finally melted from the driveway (notice there is still plenty on the ground) for them to ride their bikes safely. Eli has been riding without his training wheels for awhile, but he has problems getting himself started. This morning before school he was outside practicing how to start by himself. I was watching through the window and it was so cute. He would attempt and it wouldn't work then he would get off and you could see him shaking his hands and giving himself a little pep talk. But, he did it! He was so proud of himself.