Farmington Fair 2015

Homeschool field trip #2 allowed us to enjoy the fair without the crowds in the middle of the day on a weekday:)  The kids spent most of their time in the poultry barn wishing for more chickens.  Gabe and I did feel a little guilty about not preserving Grandpa Joe's life long enough to bring him to the fair since he was a pretty handsome guy.  We also got to have an extensive tour of the ambulance and the kids all had an impressive amount of questions for the paramedics. We ate our fill of fair food and enjoyed another gorgeous fall day.  

Poor Grandpa Joe & Trey's Birthday

Over the past few weeks Grandpa Joe has been growing more and more into an excellent rooster.  As a result, he has been increasingly aggressive towards us.... Audrey can't go outside with out being chased.  Even the big kids can't run around the yard without Grandpa Joe coming after them, to which they run inside in tears.  He won't really let us get near the hens.  So, about a week ago we started talking to the kids about getting rid of Grandpa Joe.  They were mostly against it, so we agreed to wait until he had wronged each of them enough that they wouldn't be opposed to life without him.  Friday night Ben was sitting in the grass and Grandpa Joe came up to him and pecked his face... I am still not sure how his eye was missed... Saturday morning we discussed with the kids that we were going to get rid of Grandpa Joe and they were all in agreement... all except James who was very sad that Grandpa Joe wouldn't get to have a first birthday.  The agreement we settled on was that we would have a birthday party for Grandpa Joe that day and then we could kill him that night... so, that is what we did.  As it turns out, everyone, including the hens seemed relieved that he was gone. The chickens come around more often now that he isn't around.  We are sad that he is not part of our brood anymore, but also happy to be enjoying the hens again:)

Sunday we traveled to Brewer for Trey's 5th birthday party.  The kids had a ball taking part in the gymnastics activities offered!  Trey came up with a cake request that was a bit more challenging this year, but luckily the picture on the invitation saved the day:)  Happy Birthday Trey!!

Bug Mania 2015

Our first field trip of the year was to the Maine State Museum in Augusta for their "Bug Mania" day.  Free admission to the museum and lots of local bug experts set up with cool exhibits and ready to share what they know.  Convincing Noah to hold the tarantula and James the hissing cockroach was the coolest part of the day. Ben was with us, but refused to be in any pictures;) The kids loved being able to search for bugs outside and the large gears and machines inside the museum.

Ben's Big Hero 6 Birthday Party!

Ben got to celebrate his 4th birthday on Saturday with a Big Hero 6 party.  He loved playing games and eating lots of junk food with good friends and family. The weather was just gorgeous... still swimming and wearing shorts in the middle of September:) Thank you to all who were able to come and celebrate with us!  

Animal Crazy

It has been a bit of a "wild animal kingdom" type of week here! First off, one of our chickens aka. BFG (the Big Friendly Giant by Roald Dahl) has started roosting in our pear tree. So, every night we have to go out, remove her from the tree and transfer her to the coop. Grandpa Joe is definitely a rooster and spends most of his day (all day, everyday) crowing, "protecting" the hens from up on the fence and is starting to be a bit aggressive.  He is really cool to look at... I hope our neighbors don't mind the early morning wake up calls;)

Something has been digging up our lawn, so we set out some live traps. Gabe was off for a few days, nothing came and I forgot about them... Until the morning that Gabe went back to work and James came in from letting the chickens out and said, "there is a cat in the trap"... I can't say that I was impressed, but the kids and I took care of it.  The next morning James came in again and said, "there is a skunk in the trap".  To which I replied, "There can't be a skunk in the trap, I didn't set it".  Well, although I didn't re-set the trap, I also hadn't taken the second trap in the day before... This time I was a bit more frustrated than the day before and wishing that it were just a raccoon... Luckily, there are people out there who will come and take the skunk away without it spraying, unluckily they couldn't come until 6 that night.  So, we spent the day away from the backyard and cringing everytime Grandpa Joe crowed or the chickens got to close the skunk, hoping it wouldn't spray.  In the end it worked out as well as we could have hoped for without any skunk spray.  Gabe spent the day oblivious at work, but I did make it clear that he is not to set the traps unless he is going to be home the next day to deal with it;)

In between the critter chaos James lost his first tooth! He has been working hard on it for a while and was so excited when it finally happened:)  We are also having a really productive year from our pear tree... Now to find how to process this volume of pears!  The sunflowers have bloomed and the kids can't wait to pick the seeds.  The last picture is of Noah with Matilda.  She wouldn't get off of his bike so that he could ride.  It was like a circus act when he was trying to move the wheel back and forth;)  

Labor Day Weekend 2015

To say that we took advantage of this bonus summer weather over the long weekend would be an understatement. We spent the whole day Saturday at the beach picking crabs out of tide pools, scaling the rocks and building in the sand.  Sunday we had BBQ, visited and played outside.

Monday we talked some adventurous friends into renting a boat with us on Rangley lake and spending the day tubing and basking in the warm weather on the water... or maybe it would be more accurate to call them trusting friends who didn't know what we were getting them into...  It was all fun and games until  we jumped into the rougher part of the lake and realized that it was a bit too choppy for enjoyable swimming.  We also realized that we had rented a "trick" tube that was lots of fun for the adults, but terrifying and impossible to use for the kids.  All in all it was a very fun day.  No one fell overboard, no one got sea sick and that the end of the day everyone wanted to do it again... maybe next year it will go a little more smoothly and we will be a bit wiser;)  We finished the day at "Height of the Land" which is one of the more breathtaking views in the area and it didn't disappoint!

Ben Turns 4!

This big guys turns 4 today!  He is growing into a very sweet, thoughtful, kind and caring boy.  He certainly keeps us on our toes with his active spirit, but he also continues to show us how to have fun and take life head on. He is almost the same size James and Noah were when they turned 6, but he is still very much their little brother:)  We love you Ben and can't wait to see what the next year brings!!

Family Video

We recently had the wonderfully creative Joni James make a family video for us.  She does some pretty fantastic work and we are thrilled with the end result.  When we first watched this video James started crying because he was so sad that Miss Trunchbull (one of our chickens) had died, she was just a chick in the video and I didn't even notice her;)  To view it in full resolution just follow this link: https://vimeo.com/137045680  Enjoy!