earth day

Have you hugged the Earth lately?  We talk a great deal about being kind to the Earth and taking care of our surroundings.  Kinsley likes to tell us that when she grows up she is going to be an "Earth destroyer watcher" so she can find all the people that are doing bad things and make them clean up.  An admirable idea for sure and her conservation desires have inspired us all to start making some changes towards a more eco friendly lifestyle.  We've moved away from disposable products, removing toxins in our cleaning supplies and really taking a hard look at where our food is coming from and where our money is going to name a few.  With each new change we've made I've felt a sense of peace and found surprising hidden benefits that we weren't expecting.  We still have a lot more that we can do but we're headed in the right direction at least. 

The girls were excited to check out the local Earth Day festival this weekend.  We weren't sure what we'd find when we arrived but they had a great deal of interactive activities for the kids.  It was also a great opportunity to connect with some great people and gain some insight into what the local community has to offer.  We met lots of like-minded families and I can't wait to get to know some of them better. 

















And Hooping!  Have you ever seen these girls in action?  Ever since I discovered Sara at Walk Slowly Live Wildly I've been mildly obsessed with the idea of hooping and now Kinsley has the hooping bug as well.  Check out all her hooping goodness over at The Happy Hoop so you can see what we're talking about.  I definitely see some hoops in our future!

ready or not...

Here she comes!!  We're entering the time of year where the greatest majority of our day is spent outdoors.  Each day I notice we are staying out a bit longer and a bit later, soaking up as much Spring as we possibly can.  Daddy often comes home from work to find us playing outside and barely has time to change before we pull him into whatever game we happen to be playing.  Last night it happened to be hide and go tag.  Kinsley invented this game to make it just a bit more challenging you don't have to just find someone, you have to be able to catch them too.  It's harder than you might think.  While she isn't a great hider, often making animal noises and calling out to help you find her, she is quite fast. 









Another regular part of living outside, for my girls anyway, is getting scraped up.  My girls seem to constantly be running into of falling off of something.  A perfectly natural part of an adventurous childhood.



This injury came from running a bit faster than her legs could go, poor kiddo.    We always try to follow their lead about injuries and don't ever want to stifle their feelings.  You won't hear us telling her to "be tough" or "stop crying", it's important that she knows that it's okay to feel whatever she might be feeling and that she doens't have to put on a brave face for anyone.  This time she needed a bit to snuggle up and this mama was ready to hold her until she felt okay again.  She took about 5 minutes to cry it out with mama and then was right back in the game.

run free

On one of our last trips down to visit my grandparents we had a spur of the moment cookout, as in we grabbed hot dogs and marshmallows on the way out to the farm. The girls were mostly excited to have marshmallows and that they got to do the cooking themselves. It truly is the small things in life that bring the most excitement to children it seems.

Why is it that something as simple as a hotdog tastes so much better when you're cooking and eating outside? I think the combination of the fire and the fresh air really make all the difference. Being out there with all that space to roam made me long for more space of our own. I dream of having enough land to really spread out on. Expanding our garden by at least double, having space enough to add chickens and maybe even some sheep to our family, and just having the space for the girls to run free. Someday. The girls loved just running around in the open space and Kinsley kept telling me "look how far I can run!" and laughing. These girls of mine certainly belong in the country.

bunny faces

I waited to introduce the newest members of our family until after the Easter holiday. I know that a lot of people get things like chicks and rabbits as Easter gifts for their children without a plan and unfortunately a lot of those animals don't make it. I was actually surprised at the number of photographers that have done the same thing, I always just assumed that they borrowed them for photo shoots. Anyway, our quest for bunnies began more than a year ago and Kinsley has not let us forget that she was going to get a bunny after she turned four. That girl doesn't forget anything, ever. We put a lot of emphasis on what a big responsibility having a pet is and that she would be the one doing the primary care of her animals. We felt she was ready and we found someone that had the perfect bunnies for us. The day we drove out to pick them up Kinsley could hardly contain her excitement. She just kept squealing "This is my best day!" over and over. We're proud to annouce Juliet and Marley, who both happen to be boys by the way.

Here they are in their temporary and traveling home which was purchased about 10 minutes after we picked up the bunnies. We had to get the cage after the bunnies because Kinsley refused to get a cage until after she had the bunnies, which was perfectly logical in her mind.

  

Do you see how exhausting being a mommy to bunnies really is? Poor girl was worn out from running around and fretting over those tiny bunnies. But she was ready to jump in and make sure they had a nice big home to live in.





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Aside from the obvious need to do some serious painting in the very near future, don't they look like they love their new home? I think they do. We're still trying to decide on a color scheme for their house. Any suggestions? They didn't stay in their new house long because Kinsley was insistent on taking them to meet everyone over Easter. She was so proud to show everyone how much she had learned about caring for bunnies.














Kait still prefers her bunnies to be of the wooden variety, which is probably best for the safety of the bunnies at this point anyway. Either way we are all happy with the newest additions to our family.

We've had mixed responses about both of our bunnies being male and in the same cage.  Some say that since they have always been together and are brothers they will be fine while others are telling us that they will likely start fighting at some point.  Do you have any experience with brother bunnies?

Easter weekend

We had a terrific weekend filled with lots of fun and family.  This was the first year for all the kids to be big enough to participate some so we knew we would be in for some trouble when we pulled the egg dye out, but it was so worth it. 

Fairy discovery

Spring has brought about some terrific surprises for our nature loving girls this year.  We were outside exploring for some things to add to our Spring nature table when we came upon what we determined to be a terrific little fairy house at the base of a tree.  It has the most adorable front porch but it looked like it needed a bit of sprucing up before any Spring fairies could move it so we set to work cleaning up around it.  We even discovered a tiny fairy treasure buried in the dirt so we knew it was meant to be.  After it was cleaned up we waited, hoping a tiny fairy would appreciate our work and want to make this lovely house her new home. 







At first nothing seemed to have changed and we wondered if maybe our little house would go undiscovered but one day when we checked in we made a marvelous discovery.  It appeared as if a fairy had finally come and made herself at home.  We were so excited!



   

We spotted a tiny planter crafted from an acorn cap and even a tiny little broom.  It looks like our fairy friend was cleaning up and making herself right at home.  She had also moved in a nice wooden chair she crafted out of a piece of cedar, likely from a nearby tree.  Those fairies are pretty amazing because crafting a tiny chair by hand is no easy task.  I can just imagine her sitting here in her chair sipping on a tiny cup of tea.  Doesn't that just sound lovely?