The kids have set up camp on this rainy day and are hunting middle ages style with homemade spears and bows and arrows.  They make a point to use every part of their animals.

Our egg comparison:  on the left, a cheap, store-bought egg;  in the middle, an Egglands best organic store-bought egg;  and, on the right, an egg from our backyard chickens.  Unfortunately, Jason ate the guinea fowl egg yesterday.  That one had as even darker yolk.  It's hard to see in the picture, but the left and middle egg's whites are also substantially more cloudy.

Painting pottery at MERGE studio.  The kids love it there!

 

Open skate at the Berkley ice rink with our cousins.  Aunt Nicole and Jason, above.  Below, Sophie and Benny were skating by them selves, and Jack following with Aunt Nicole close behind!

The Sanborn family skating.

We went to Gleaners for their Empty Bowls project.  The kids and their friends and cousins all got to make two bowls.  One the kids get to keep and the other isauctioned off for the Empty Bowls fundraiser.

The kids had lots of fun working with the clay and painting their bowls.

Here's their finished products.

Where jack-o-lanterns go to die.

Jason decided to make a family tree.  It turned out so nice, I framed it.  Then I decorated around it with Thanksgiving decor.

Our Thankful Tree!

 

The kids painting the thankful tree's leaves.

Ready for the game today!

My Ladybug Fairy and Sparrow with a friendly witch and a car.

Superdog is ready for Halloween!

 

Our Halloween Party with friends was today.

Here's Sophie, the ladybug fairy, and her spider web craft.

And Jason, the sparrow, playing a halloween game with a friendly ghost.

Our new barn/garage is coming along.  You can see the color of the siding now!

The kids love carving pumpkins.  They each picked out their own pumpkin.  Then, they draw the features on paper.  We tape the features to the pumpkin and daddy helps with the carving.

Sophie loved getting all the seeds and goop out of the pumpkin, and played with it during the whole carving process.

 

Here's Jason's pumpkin with the features taped on.

 

Daddy carving Sophie's pumpkin, per her drawing.

 

 Jason's pumpkin post carving.

 

 Our jack-o-lanterns!

The kids and I found a hubbard squash at the local roadside market stand while picking out pumpkins.  The sign said the best way to crack it open was to place it in a pillowcase and throw it on cement.  How could we refuse such a project?

I've had a few requests (Dad) to post more pictures to the blog, especially for those not on facebook.  Things are calming down around here slightly, so I might try to start blogging again.  We had a crazy busy spring, summer, and fall.  We now have chickens that are old enough for egg laying.  We have a new pole barn that is pretty close to being finished.  And the kids are still growing and into every activity they can come up with from violin to ballet to soccer to bee keeping to drama and the upcoming local play! 

We've had a BUSY spring and blogging got away from me.  I'll try to recap.  We celebrated the equinox and Easter, had a lovely day for Sophie's birthday party, took a few trips to the zoo, various museums, nature centers, etc.  We also got chickens and started building a pole barn.  I'll try to post some pictures sooner, rather than later.  Hope everyone else is enjoying spring, too!

Sophie's animated video (made with Daddy's help)

Jason's animated short

The gold dragon is sitting on it's gold.  The silver dragon enters.  They fight.  The gold dragon whacks the silver dragon with it's tail and it retreats.

My video.  Jason calls it, "The Life Cycle of a Flower."