SPRING HAS SPROUTED!

Sorry things are coming up so late--I've been wicked busy getting ready to leave to Utah. Now that I'm here I have (somewhat unfortunately) more free time than expected, so I have some time to put these up!

The end of March we decided the greenhouse was clear of snow enough to start planting some cool-weather plants. 

Madie decked herself out in this outfit, but it was about 65 or so in the greenhouse. I could not convince her to take anything off until she started sweating.

Finn was waiting his turn for the spade.

She's breaking the soil up while I was filling the pot.

We were all excited to start on the garden, but Finn and Elvis are so absolutely enamored with being outside that it took them both a while to calm down enough for me to get anything done.

Here she's finally stripped down. We planted peas, poppies, delphiniums, spinach, and arugula. By the time we left, the spinach and arugula had sprouted. The day before we left, we planted a couple of different corns. I'm really excited to try these--they are heirloom breeds from New England. I've heard they are brightly colored and creamy--and that they make excellent polenta.

I Survived the Winter of 2013-2014

 Well, we made it. It was the most intense winter weather I have ever experienced. Way worse than anything Rexburg threw my way. Of course, I never went through a 'bad' winter in Rexburg. While we were there, all the locals told us that we were experiencing mild winters. This year in Maine, however, was one of the worst that most old-timers could remember. Here are a few leftover photos from winter events that we forgot to post over the last few months. 

Valentines Day dinner featured balsamic vinaigrette chicken, salad, brie, and an awesome strawberry cake. Yum!

Close-up on the cake. It was as good as it looks, my friends.

We actually didn't do as much XC skiing as we wanted, but we did go on walks in the woods behind our house quite a bit. The Atlantic is only 10 minutes away on foot, so we would head down quite a bit for some cool views.

Mr. Finn loves doing most anything outside. As long as he has his cold gear on, he is game for being outside as long as possible.

Walking on ice has been problematic for him, but after taking more than his fair share of digs, he is getting the hang of it.

Madie used to beg me to go outside with her last year, but this year has been a struggle to get her out. She always enjoys being outside after you force her to get out, but has often preferred being inside. She prefers walking in the woods much more than going on 'walks' along the road.

Madie has become obsessed with the movie Frozen, since our date a couple of months ago. She has been particularly taken with two movies this season: Kung Fu Panda, and Frozen. When we play Kung Fu Panda, she insists on being Tylon while Finn is Master Shifu, Mumma is Tigress, Elvis is Monkey, and I'm Poe. When we play Frozen, she is Elsa, Finn is Kristoff, Elvis is Sven, and I don't believe Mumma or I have set roles.

This is looking into the front yard from our porch after a few consecutive storms. Elvis is blazing trails.

Ever interested in ice climbing? New England is probably the place to go. So many cornices of ice. I plan on giving it a shot one day.

FreeRice

I've got to share this BRILLIANT idea with you. A friend told me a while ago about this site, freerice.com. Basically it takes advantage of people like me who love to answer questions and companies, like Huggies, who love to advertise. For every correct answer you get in a given subject, ranging from foreign languages to math and science, FreeRice, with the money from it's advertisers, donates 10 grains of rice to the United Nations World Food Programme. I played with English and then French vocabulary (on easy for both, just to try it out) for about 15 minutes and had about 1000 grains of rice. When Madie got up from her quiet time, I played with her. I said the vocabulary word and gave her two of the options. She said which one she thought it was and I clicked on it. If you get it wrong it tells you the right answer and will ask you again later, so you actually are learning the information.

If anyone else joins, we can get a group going. Let me know in the comments! I just think it's such a genius idea!

Wait...I Have A Bucket List??

I saw a link to a slideshow of the wild horses on Assateague Island today. I remember reading Misty of Chincoteague by Marguerite Henry as a kid--maybe 8--and ever since then I've always dreamed of visiting Chincoteague and Assateague islands. This slideshow reminded me of it, though I think of it every few years, in completely non-sequitur thought strings.

Now I really want to go again, and we're so much closer than we've ever been before. And we even have some friends living in Virginia--they could go with us! It would be a blast.

This is the first time it's dawned on me that this is a life-long dream. Something that I will almost assuredly do someday--even if it's far in the future. (Hello, I've been thinking about it for 20 years already, so I think I can hold on another 20 if I need to.) This is the first time I've ever really recognized something as being on my bucket list. So, I have a bucket list. Only I guess it's more of a shallow dish list, since there's only one thing in it. I mean, I have other things I've always wanted to do, but they're things I don't know will ever be possible, so I don't want to think of them as things that need to be done before I pop off. That would just be disappointing. 

The Past Few Weeks

Wow, it has been a busy couple of weeks here. And with Mike leaving next week on a business trip, it's going to keep being busy! But I have been snapping shots of what we've been up to. There are more on the real camera, but we'll get to those another day. Pardon some of the fuzzy photos--with how much they move around, it's almost impossible to take a clear picture of my kids.

Finn loves balls, and has decided that (most of the time) it can't be any ball, it has to be a basketball. He loves to try shooting it at the hoop. He is not content to play with it in the hallway while the men who work in town play during their lunch breaks--but I make him anyway since they usually use both smaller courts in the gym. But when he gets the chance, he could spend all day shooting around. Or trying to anyway.

Look at that form! He actually shoots with one hand!

We said goodbye to one of Madie's teachers last month. Her boyfriend found a job in Portland and they are moving down there. Miss T. was great! We'll miss her a lot. When we met her new assistant teacher, Miss Bree, Madie said she wouldn't talk or play with her. (She said the same thing about the now head teacher when she was new.) But it looks like she's adjusting fine. 

Again, ultra fuzzy. Miss T. was trying very hard to get Madie to smile, but she wouldn't even look at the camera, so it was a tickle fight. 

Madie has learned a lot in the past few months. I've been letting her read a few of the one- and two-letter words in our books together--just the same few over and over--and I think more than anything else she's getting the hang of sounding things out. She has a friend named Zoe and during quiet time one day, she was drawing her a picture. She brought it out to show me and said, "I wrote Zoe's name on it. I just sat there and said, 'Z-Z-Z, OH-OH-OH, EE-EE-EE until I could spell it." And she did! Correctly! Here's a shout out to all the people in the world with phonetic names: I LOVE YOU! 

Last week a friend of mine returned after being away for a few months. She fell ill right after getting home, so I watched her younger child a couple of days. Both Madie and Finn loved it. Madie liked helping to babysit, and Finn decided he would watch his own baby. He ran to get him, put him in Viv's carseat, and gave him some toys. Then he simply stood next to the carseat looking down at his baby, and would gently reach down and pat him on the head and say, "Baby." It was so cute.

I also watched Killian last week. Man, I'm gonna miss this little guy. I love when he and Finn get together.

Finn stuffing his face with oyster crackers while they wait for the soup to cool at the cafe. Killian had some too, but he mostly just wanted to get them wet in his mouth, then squish them in his hand. You see his right fist? Yeah...

"Finn, Killian! Look at me! Look over here boys!"

And this is after the oil truck finally turned the corner down the street.

I love this picture of Killi so much, I actually cropped my own son out of it.

When I told Finn he couldn't have another scone, and that we had to leave. 

And this is where Killian starts getting teary-eyed. Oh my word.

Today had a wicked morning. After dropping Mike off and going to the transfer station, I worked out at the gym for 20 minutes before I had to be downstairs to sub for the AM Abs class, which got over in time for me to be 10 minutes late to subbing for toddler story time at the library, which got over just in time for me to be 5 minutes late (but really right on time 'cause they were 5 minutes behind) to getting the oil changed in my car. While that was going on, Madie, Finn, and I got lunch across the street which was really special for Madie since I usually do it when I'm grocery shopping while she's at school. (The morning just gets away from us, so we frequent that cafe weekly now. Thankfully they have a kind of rewards program, so I get a certain percent off when my receipts add up to a certain amount.) After that we had about 15 more minutes before the car was ready, so we went to the hardware store to get a flea collar (as a precaution) for Elvis. And guess what we found...

Finn, meet Amigo. Amigo, meet Finn.

Finn was absolutely in love. And Amigo, much like Elvis, is a wicked sweet dog. He and Finn chased each other around the store until Amigo finally got a little too rambunctious and knocked Finn down. Finn was fine, but the owner was upset by it so she took him home. Madie was relieved. She likes animals, but is uncomfortable around ones she doesn't know very, very well. She was okay with Amigo--happy with him even--as long as I was around, but on one of my many trips down an isle to get Finn, Amigo went up to her and sniffed her hair and she kind of freaked out. I explained he was just sniffing her like Elvis does, but I get it--his head is above her own. She did say he had "sad eyes like Elvis" and she liked that. She thinks it's cute.

Speaking of dogs, here's the quote of the day from this household: 

Madie to Elvis: "Come here poopy--" then, catching herself: "Come here gas. Mom! I know Elvis' second name! Gas! 'Cause he's stinky!" Spot on.

Troop 287 Winter Klondike

 We just had another successful outing with the troop, heading to Blackwoods campground in Acadia. We got a late start, but made it to the parking lot around 5:45 pm, and hiked in about 0.25 miles to the campground. We had to haul in a lot of stuff like wood, gear, food, etc. First thing we did was light the lantern, second thing we did was get the fire ready, third was build shelters and eat. The food, you may ask? Bacon-wrapped hot dogs, chips, brownies (thank you, Dinah!), s'mores, dutch oven apple crisp, and jambalaya (thank you, Matt!). The feast was epic. I almost couldn't fall asleep I was so full. I put away 5 hot dogs myself...along with half a huge bag of chips, and all of the other stuff above. I think we were all feeling pretty good after dinner. 

It got below zero that night, but my bag kept me sweltering. At about midnight, one of the boys started crying out. I thought he may have been talking in his sleep, which seems to be a common theme with our troop. Levi went to check on him and apparently he was pretty scared. He had never really slept under the stars, and was used to RV camping. He ended up going home shortly after. Other than that, the trip was a success. We got up in the morning and hiked to the ocean for a great morning view. Special thanks to all who came and participated.

Is it spring yet??

This has been a rough winter for a California boy. I've only recently brought it up to some Mainers, and they agree that it's been really bad. Some have even commented that it's one of the worst ones in recent years. But, this is what the farmers almanac called for. So, we might as well make the most of it.

Great facial hair.

Check out those lips!

Just reading.