A New Chick

Heather has a new chick. She's so tiny, only about the size of a golf ball.

 Heather thinks it's really funny that her chick is so tiny, she can walk right under the other chicks.

RIP Baby Chick

Baby chick update: Heather's chick, the smallest and weakest of the three, died yesterday. Heather cried all afternoon. maybe we can get a replacement from Wayne's teacher who is hatching eggs at school.

So far, the other two chicks are getting bigger and stronger everyday.

Chicks!

Three baby chicks. You wouldn't believe how excited the kids were about these little guys. Or gals, I guess I should say.

Hopefully, if we can somehow get them to survive Spike, someday we'll have fresh eggs.  Maybe we can sell them at the C+W.

Wayne's 3rd grade class is hatching some eggs at school, so we might have one more to add to the flock.

Total cuteness.

Refresh

Here are a few random photos in my attempt to dust off this poor, neglected blog and bring it up to date!

A couple of weeks ago Cole lost one of his front teeth.  And in fact, yesterday, Wayne lost TWO molars - one in the morning and one in the afternoon.

At Gramma's house getting ready to go to the cemetery for Grampa's graveside ceremony.

 Stealing a few moments at the shore before heading over to the cemetery.

 From the pictures I get of Cole, you'd never know how truly handsome he is.

A hint of what's to come later this weekend on the blog: Chicks, compost worms, T-ball, various arts and crafts projects, and aunts, uncles, cousins.

Hoppy Easter!

Most of you know by now that my Dad passed away one week ago today after spending nearly 3 weeks in the hospital fighting pneumonia and its cruel complications.  I think about him a lot and feel sad for my mother who, after 64 years of marriage, is spending her first major holiday without him.  She's feeling very lonely and scared about the challenges and changes she faces now.  My brother, sister, and I are helping her as much as we can.

On a more cheerful note, back here in the NEK of VT life with 3 kids just keeps rolling along.  Yesterday was Glover Recreation's annual Easter Scramble.  Wes is in the bunny costume. Heather was scared, even though she knew it was her daddy in there.  Wayne is too old and embarrassed for such foolishness. I had to bribe, threaten, and coerce both of them to get in the picture. Cole seems to be the only one right now at the perfect age for a photo with the Easter Bunny.

 Then back at home an afternoon of egg decorating.

Today we're just staying home and having our own little Easter Dinner.

Happy Easter!

Paper Heather

The other day Heather kept herself very busy for quite a long time with a project that she came up with all alone.  The project involved lots of paper, and  lots and lots of tape, and lots of time spent cutting with scissors.  In the end, Paper Heather was born.

 And also a Paper Wayne.  Heather told Cole he would have to make a Paper Cole himself.

 Paper Heather had a paper hamburger and paper french fries for supper.

 Paper Wayne sat in the high chair.

Since these pictures were taken, Paper Heather has acquired paper hair and a paper ballet tutu.

We acknowledged Joanie's birthday with a little cake and ice cream. Happy Birthday Joanie.

(Wes is grimacing because he had a bad back.)

Maple Season Begins

After taking the boys to school, Heather and I began our day by checking the sap buckets, even though it was only 27 degrees with no chance of the sap running until it warmed up later on. We had to do it anyway. Heather had to check every single bucket.  Wayne had already been out at 7:30 a.m. to check the buckets before going to school.

Too frozen.

Does this girl know how to have her picture taken or what?

Taking a peek.

Back at the ranch, we made St. Patrick's Day Cookies.

We don't have a shamrock cookie cutter so we used a small heart shape.

It worked great.

When the boys came home, they went straight out to check the buckets and then came in to decorate cookies.

Pretty good.

The Aftermath

A bright sunny day today, but school was called off anyway (for the kids, not Wes) because so many people are still trying to dig their way out from under yesterday's storm.

Don't know who's car this is - someone who ended up walking to Marvin's camp.

Little Miss "I'm always a Princess even in my brother's old snowsuit."

Wayne and Spike being very unhelpful about digging out the Taurus.

Spring cannot come soon enough.

Snow Ice Cream

We are SNOWED IN!

This is what it looks like outside today. Sixteen to 18 inches of snow, windy, blustery, no sign of Spring.  Wes is plowing and the plow has been stuck 3 times. School is cancelled everywhere.

This mound is the Taurus. It's never looked better.

Call of the wild.

Wayne and Cole were on the other side of the house trying to slide. I couldn't make it through the deep snow to get pictures of them, but here's Heather on the picnic table.

Inside the house, we decided to make use of this fresh snow.  I've had this idea in the back of my mind for a while, and since winter (supposedly) is on the downward side, I figured this would be a good time.  Snow Ice Cream. The easiest ice cream you will ever make.  I wish I had thought of it while Estelle was here.  I've seen recipes that call for cream, sugar, vanilla, and snow but our simple recipe called for only three ingredients:

8 cups of fresh clean snow (stay away from Spike's potty area)

1 can of sweetened condensed milk

1 teaspoon of vanilla extract.

Mix thoroughly.  Cole was crazed with anticipation.

Wayne was busy talking to Jacob on the phone about important Star Wars business while we were doing this.

Serve in bowls or scoop onto cones.

Can you just feel Cole's enthusiasm?  He kept saying things like, "This is so, so, so,so good!" and "I've never tasted anything like it!" 

I was a little surprised - it was really good.

Hope you're making the best of your snow day where you are.

Wayne and Jacob

Wayne is spending a couple of days with his cousin Jacob and Aunt Mary and Uncle Danny. Mary just emailed these pictures to me.  Looks like they're having a lot of fun!