On the bright side..

About a month ago, we had some flooding in our part of the woods. Roads were closed, basements flooded, school canceled. Most were pretty down about the damage and hassle. But, the kids really make the best out of things.

Here are some pictures I took during the first week of flooding. About a week later, we got a second record storm that made the water even deeper in our back yard.

On a warm day, the kids even put on their bathing suits and splashed around in our "pond."

We even had ducks visit!

Town Egg Hunt

Our town has a fun egg hunt. Here are a few photos from it.

Shower Preparations

On Easter weekend, the girls spent some time helping their Nana prepare for their Auntie Heather's bridal shower.

They love being at the center of all of the preparations and excitement.

Their Nana gathered the wonderful materials for the favors...yummy chocolates in fancy boxes. It was heaven for the girls.

Aren't the covers so very pretty?

Yum!

Lovely!

Spanish Night

Father- Daughter Dance

Each year, Charlotte's school has a sweet father- daughter dance.

Charlotte and some of her favorite classmates dancing.

Sweet!

Dad and Charlotte

Pillows

One Saturday morning, the girls woke up ready to sew. So, much to my delight, out came the sewing machine, needles, thread, fabric...

Both Charlotte and Lily decided that little pillows would be a good project. They rolled up strips of felt to create fabric roses, and stitched them to fabric.

Lily preferred to use the machine, while Charlotte stitched by hand. Lily has become quite comfortable maneuvering the machine. She confidently presses the peddle with her foot, while feeding the fabric through the machine.

Charlotte really surprised us with her sewing skills. She used a real, albeit, sharp needle and thread. Without knotting the thread, she sewed along the edges of the stem in straight lines, and then proceeded to whip stitch the whole pillow together.

Lovely, aren't they?

Maple Sugaring

This year we are trying our hand at maple sugaring. We received all of the spickets, buckets and instruction from Sam's Dad and Sarah, as a very nice Christmas gift.

As you can see, these photos were taken back in February, as these are our first shots of this adventure. We have been making maple syrup ever since. Here the bucket is hanging on a spicket that has been drilled into the tree. Clear maple sap pours out in the the bucket.

Sam, drilling into one of the trees

While out back, the girls discovered some good stuff to climb on.

Boiling down the maple sugar.

It takes a whole day of boiling to cook it down to the consistency of maple syrup.

The very first batch of syrup. As you can see, it takes ALOT of maple sap to make syrup. You boil off 90% of the water, and the last 10% is a super sweet sugary delight!

Of course we needed to make some waffles to sample with. Delicious!