Baby robins

   The baby robins are finally old enough to leave the nest. This will be the 2nd nest of robin babies that have hatched this summer on our front porch from their little nest nestled among the climbing roses that climb up the side of our porch. Watching them daily from the living room picture window has been such a joy. I will miss them.

Berry Picking

                                       
 Today I was happy to discover that our raspberries are finally ripe. :) I noticed when I saw our resident Mama robin happily carrying a juicy ripe red raspberry in her beak to take back to her little feathered babies (pictured below) that currently reside on our front porch hidden among the climbing roses.

 Excited to go and check out the berries we grabbed our bowls and headed out to the berry bushes to go picking. We filled 3 bowls and then headed across the street to my MIL's to pick back raspberries, where we filled 2 more bowls. Then we headed home to make black raspberry cobbler.

   I tried out a new dairy free cobbler recipe since our daughter Gwen is now completely dairy free due to allergies. Unfortunately it didn't turn out too well though (ok, just not great :P), although Gwen absolutely loved it, so I guess it wasn't a total failure. ;) Ella about ate her weight in fresh berries, but I still have enough left to make some raspberry jelly and there are plenty more that should ripen later in the week.                                                

Sun tea & memories

  Today Miss Ella made herbal sun tea using some of the fresh herbs from our garden- chamomile, mint, pineapple mint, & chocolate mint. Not sure how great it will taste but she had so much fun making it who cares. :)

   I love that even at only 5 years old Ella has such a love of plants and gardening. She loves to walk around the yard and identify herbs and flowers in the garden. It reminds me of the time I spent with my Grandmother in her garden as I would follow her around and she would point out various flowers and tell me their names. I am very thankful for that experience and for such a caring, beautiful soul in my life growing up. Every time I smell the sweet scent of lily of the valley or see a happy, little blue bachelor button blooming I am reminded of her and of her love for God and nature. :)

The first cherry from our cherry tree!

  We finally got our first cherry from our dwarf cherry tree that we planted 3 years ago. Usually the squirrels beat us to them. So this year we finally bought some bird netting. I'm hoping this year we may actually get to taste a peach from our peach tree too for the first time. ;)

My "new" kitchen chairs

Before & after photos of our curbside finds last week:

                                                                        BEFORE:
                                                 
                                                                       

                                                                         AFTER:
                                     

  It's amazing what you can do with some sandpaper, some spray paint, some time, & some good ventilation. lol

The baby robins

Our little robin is a Mama :)

Hello Mrs. Robin

A robin has decided to make her nest right outside our living room window in the climbing roses that grow up the side of our front porch. We now have the perfect view of her little nest that she is busy building. It brings me so much joy watching her fly to and fro, carrying little bits of dried grass in her beak to build her nest. Sometimes it's the simple things in life that can bring the most joy.

Our Family Valentine's Day Dinner

With four kids it's not always easy to slip away to a restaurant for a romantic Valentine's Day dinner for two, so we've come up with the next best thing....a family friendly Valentine's Day dinner in with everyone included. :) We set up the kitchen table in the livingroom, decorated, lit candles, turned on relaxing music, made a yummy dinner, and even invited my mother in law and sister in law over to celebrate. The kids loved it and we had so much fun. :)

Meet our sweet 4th little daisy, Miss Meadow

Meet our beautiful little blessing named Meadow, born in November 2011. Her birth was not an easy one, but I am so grateful she is finally here. I am so much in love.

Doll hats

Today Raven wanted to try out the knitting loom. She got the hang of it pretty quickly and made some winter hats for her dolls. So cute! :)

Hats for Miss Meadow

Today I decided to break out the little knitting loom and make some tiny hats for Miss Meadow since she is due in December and she will needs lots of little warm hats for her sweet baby head. :) I haven't used my knitting looms in over a year (maybe two) and apparently I couldn't remember quite all the steps involved. So my first attempt at a baby hat resulted in what looked like a tiny pink fuzzy nest too small for a head...not quite what I was going for. lol Luckily hats number 2 and 3 turned out fine after I got the hang of it again.

Blackberry, our new kitten, helped assist. ;)

Fairy Gardens

Inspired by an adorable fairy garden that Karen, a friend of mine, made for her daughter I decided to make one for the girls to play with. Karen graciously gave us a wee fairy house to paint to get started with our fairy garden. :) Here are the finished results.

After seeing the Fairy Garden I made Raven decided she wanted to make one too. Here's hers. :)

While Googling ideas for Fairy Gardens for inspiration I saw that one of my favorite blogs The Magic Onions was hosting a Fairy Garden competition. Talk about perfect timing! :)

Baby Bantam

One of our bantam hens went broody recently, so just for fun we asked my Dad if he could maybe get us a few fertilized eggs for her to sit on so the girls could see our little bantam hens become Mamas. :D He got us a mix of 6 fertilized hamburg and seabright bantam eggs from my cousin Jim.

Yesterday one of the eggs hatched. :) We're hoping at least a few of the others will hatch too since both our hens are both intent to be a Mama to the one lone chick. They both cram their butts into one nestbox to protect their baby. LOL

Gwen's Platypus

Miss Gwen has been taking a pottery class and has been having a lot of fun learning about sculpting clay, using the pottery wheel and glazing pieces. This week she brought home one of her first creations a clay platypus. :)

Say hello to Sunshine and Buttercup

My Dad brought us two new bantam hens this weekend from a swap meet he attended recently. The girls named them Sunshine and Buttercup (Buttercup is the blackish one in case you were wondering LOL). So now we once again have fresh (although tiny) eggs! Yay! :)

Big News...

:)

More Sock Animals

The girls have been having so much fun digging through their sock drawers and turning all the mismatched odd socks that no longer have mates into stuffed sock animals. Raven made Ella a sock octopus which Ella decided she needed hair, a hat, and a scarf and set out to make the octopus a bright orange wig made out of pipe cleaners. lol Raven made a brown puppy and Ella also made a purple cat (also with a wig). lmbo

Soap Making

Raven's best friend spent the night and today they wanted a craft to do. So we decided to make soap using melt and pour glycerin. It's super easy to do. Just lightly oil the soap molds with a little bit of vegetable oil. Then melt the blocks of clear glycerin in a microwave safe glass bowl covered loosely with plastic wrap for about a minute or until all the soap is melted but not boiling. Add color and fragrance drops if desired. Stir and then pour the glycerin into the greased soap molds. Let them cool and harden for about 2 hours or until set and then remove from the molds and voila you have soap! :)

They made sunflower, sun, and bee shaped soaps.We only had a few molds and more glycerin than we had molds, so we used a few silicone muffin cups to make "Reese" cup shaped soaps as well. They turned out really cute. :)

Sock Bunnies

Today we made sock bunnies at our friend Karen's house. She found the idea online at Family Fun. (You can click the Family Fun link for complete "how to" directions). We used stuffing in our bunnies rather than the dried lentils it suggested to make our bunnies softer and cuddlier. The girls had so much fun making their Easter sock bunnies and they turned out really cute. :)