For Sophie's actual birthday, we decided to do a birthday breakfast.  

Homemade waffles with chocolate whipped cream and fresh raspberries!

We lit our holiday ring, too.

Sophie loved playing with her new toys, too.

And Jason had his first soccer game of the spring season!

He's in the middle, in red, with the ball!

Sophie requested a wormy birthday party this year!  

Instead of cake, I made dirt pudding.  A large one for the adults and the kids each got their own.  Everything was free of refined sugar and homemade from scratch, including the worms!

Sophie ate with Aunt Evey.  

She told me after the party she LOVE-LOVE-LOVE-LOVES Aunt Evey!

The kids all painted with fishing bait worms.

Here's Sophie making her worm-sterpiece.

And a friend showing off his messy hand when he's done.

Next, the kids hunted for real worms outside.  

First, they filled their containers with dirt.

Next, they turned over logs and rocks in the yard to find worms.

Everyone got to take worms home with them.  That was the party favor!

And, finally, here's our big birthday girl with her cake.

Yum!

After the party, she stripped off her dress and tried on her new hat!

Happy Birthday Sophie!

We made game bags to go along with the story we read about nomads.  

The kids sewed their own bags.

The sand was finally delivered for Sophie's new sandbox!  

Of course, she had to feed some to her dragon.

 

The kids enjoyed the pile before it was shoveled into the box.

A little extra...  but lots of fun!

I finally cut down that tree branch, hooked it up to the car, and dragged it out in the yard for the kids to play on.

Here's an update for our postcard project!

 

We only need three states!!  Virginia, Mississippi, and Kansas!

We lost a tree branch on one of our apple trees in the wind storm.

Our neighborhood has a cute Easter egg hunt with LOTS of kids.

Here's Jason finding eggs with Daddy.

  

And Sophie, too!

And they had to splash in the puddles, too!

We tried to get some cute pictures taken with all the LaRoy grandchildren in matching colorful outfits.  It failed miserably.  Sophie was NOT up for pictures at the picture place.  Here she is at the mall play place though.

We finally were able to have our Easter egg hunt with our nephews.

Jason wanted to make a handprint fish.

 

And a monster that eats things!

Sophie was feeling well enough to eat her chocolate bunny!

Sophie finally was well enough to find her basket the next day!

And Jason discovered how the window crayons work!

Our neighbor made Jason a bottle of sunshine when he was sick. Just a bottle filled with gold glitter and water, but Jason loved it!

Jason was just barley well enough on Easter to find his basket and the eggs. Sophie slept the whole day and didn't even find her basket.

You can see how sick he looks here. Poor kid!

We made immunity soup for dinner since we couldn't attend our family gatherings this weekend. It's turkey noodle soup with homemade turkey/veggie broth and lots of veggies ground up in the broth, too. Just about everything from kale to brussel sprouts to garlic made it in the soup!

Yes, please do play on the dirt pile!

Daddy's little helper. She doesn't even know she's making her own birthday present!

This is our third year dyeing eggs with natural dyes. I love knowing that if an egg cracks in the process, the worst thing that is getting on the egg is a little beet or cabbage juice. Usually the kids are all about making the dyes with me, but this year Jason is a little under the weather on dyeing day. I decided to only make four dyes: red cabbage, beets, tumeric, and spirulina. I haven't tried spirulina for dyeing before, but it turns smoothies such a bright green, I figured I'd see what it does to eggs.

The tumeric (yellow), beets (pink, and cabbage (blue), turned out well, but the spirulina (green, well, eggs that are still brown and white really) did not take. We'll have to try a different green next year.

This is the first year the kids are getting chocolate bunnies. They saw them in the store a couple of weeks ago, so I knew it was a must. I used grain-sweetened chocolate, and a mold I found online. Jason wanted one holding a carrot! It was much easier than I thought it would be, considering I've never molded chocolates before. Just melt the chocolate, put it in the mold, stick in the freezer, and pop it out when it's hard!

I think it turned out well! I didn't get a good pic of it in the package I put it in as I was trying to keep them hidden from the kids, while making them in the middle of the day.

The best guinea pig ever award goes to Kitty the guinea pig. She lets Sophie do everything to her, within reason. Sophie is feeling Kitty's hair between her fingers here.

"Buckle in. I'll be right back..."

A few weeks ago, the kids and I picked out seeds for this year's garden, and ordered them. I had yet to plant them due to lack of space to plant them in. And I was not looking forward to putting up grow lights in my basement and using all the electricity on them. After cleaning out a few bins of hand-me-down clothes for my kids, I had an idea...

...turn this storage bin into a greenhouse!

I happened to have two 96 quart storage containers empty in my basement, so I used those. Turn them upside down, so the lid is the bottom of the greenhouse.

And I had been saving paper egg cartons, for a while, to plant in. First, I broke my cartons apart.

Then, I enlisted some help filling the bottom half of the egg cartons with dirt.

And I had pterosaurs flying by to protect me from predators.

Next, we planted the seeds and labeled the cartons appropriately.

My little helper watered them.

Then, snap the lids on and I have two greenhouses!

We ran out of egg cartons for the second greenhouse and improvised with some leftover dixie cups from making crafts. If it's getting down below freezing at night, I plan on throwing a picnic blanket on them or bring them inside temporarily.