waiting for Halloween

Things have settled into a fall routine at our house. Isobel and I are busy baking, playing with her babies and shuttling kiddies back and forth to school. Wesley seems to have settled in to school and shares some small bits of his day when he's in the mood ;) The weather has been great but this week took a turn and we've had the fireplace going all weekend...reading our library books, drawing pictures and making starwars lego ships.
The Halloween costumes are ready to go and the kids are starting to get the pre Halloween crazed look. Wesley is a ninja Turtle and Isobel is "NOT A PRINCESS! I'm a Dog for Halloween". So be warned if you meet her in the grocery store or chat with her on the phone don't sugjest a princess costume, you will get a death look :)

Summer ...we miss you already!

   We've had a lovely summer and I'm finally feeling like I can come up for air after a very busy September :) so much to catch up on...but I'll post some few pictures of our summer filled with lots of biking, exploring, science experiments, nature watching and swimming.  Enjoy!

we grew some sunflowers...

found some black swallowtail chrysalis in the garden

about an hour after hatch :)

We also found a monarch caterpillar!



making a J



magical!

getting ready to emerge

voila...a beautiful butterfly

We did lots of relaxing

Wesley turned 5 and wanted a "science experiment" party...tons of messy fun for all!

Isobel learnt to drive her tricycle!

butterfly magic

   We've been lucky enough over the past few years to see some amazing butterfly transformations and this year has been no exception :) We found two Black Swallowtail caterpillars in our yard a month back munching on the dill in the back yard.

 

 

Then we found two chrysalis  and after doing some reading about their hatch times (about 10 days early in the summer) we decided to bring them inside to keep watch. We did a monarch last year, but found tons of information on line about others doing them. The swallowtails made me a little more nervous because later in the summer they 'overwinter' and that kind of sounds technical :)

 

 

 

so we waited and watched...

 

First hatch in the kitchen

 

We carried him outside and watched him fly after a few hours

 

second hatch the next day just a few seconds after he came out of the chrysalis
 

two hours later he was still working on pumping up his wings



We're now watching a tinny swallowtail caterpillar that hatched from a pin sizes egg on some dill we have on the kitchen counter. The egg was so small I had a hard time getting a photo of it, but we were lucky to catch that hatch too for the first time. That caterpillar will overwinter so we'll keep him inside for a while, and then let him find some digs to overwinter in...from what I've read a sturdy stick under some cover. Nature sure is fascinating!

 

smaller then a grain of rice!

 

HOLD ON A SECOND!

Before 

Wesley has been working on his bottom front tooth for a few weeks now. A few nights ago while brushing his teeth got a horrified look on his face, put his finger in his mouth and pulled out a tooth. The only words he could muster were "Hold on a second, that's my tooth!" There was no way he was putting it under his pillow for the tooth fairy, he has in a silver box on his bureau :)

After

visit from ganny!

     Granny came for a visit for a few weeks and we were all excited to see her! The kids had a great time and Isobel was pretty mad she didn't get to go back with her on the plane! We were busy picking strawberries, hitting the beach, the park, Lemoine point and swimming! Here's a few pictures, mom and I took turns taking them so my camera only had half :(   Hope every ones summer got off to a great start!

 

 

 

Rainy Day fun

Isobel has been big into the sensory bin stuff lately. She loves playdough, waterplay and paint. We have had lots of rain so I've had to get creative in order to keep her busy ( Wesley would be just as happy to draw and play Lego all day :)

Corn starch and water

Add in some paint :)

Art odds and ends

Milk Box Monsters

I've been meaning to post some art we've been doing so here's a few.  Wesley mostly wants to draw, anything to do with nature or patterns seem to be the favourites. Isobel likes to glue...just glue...sometimes she sticks a sparkle on there and goes "THERE! that ones for Gramma!!"I don't

have any pics of hers because all they are are white pieces of paper with hard white glue crust on them ;) But she has been loving the blocks and they are beautiful too...

mothers day art from school :)

some patterns

 

 

I like to think of blocks as art, the kids have been loving the mirror

warm weather is here, hurray!

 

 

We went from winter jackets to sandals over night here in Kingston. We've been loving the warm weather and have had so many fun birds and bugs around already. The garden in looking great, bulbs are blooming and the perennials are all popping up. Wesley has planted his own 'garden' and I'll be sure to post some pics as things start coming up. We've got some veggies in and I'm hoping to get some more in by the weekend. hope the warm weather is finding you all...happy spring! 

we found a Robin on her nest in Lemoine point...soo sweet!

working on the dirt

"don't forget to take a picture of the dump truck!!"

lego lego everywhere :)

Last week we got an amazing gift from the best mail lady EVER. It arrived in our front porch one afternoon...i thought Wesley was going to have a heart attack! Two big boxes of Star Wars Lego that belonged to her son and he was ready to give up. We were very grateful, it made every ones week.

There are so many neat parts that hinge and connect, Wesley is in LOVE!

Isobel says this is "the green owl"

birds, birds, birds

My Favourite visitor, we're hoping they'll make a nest in the backyard again this year!

The last few months we've had lots of birds in the front yard, some everyday, some just stopping in for a peek.  We have between 10 and 20 morning doves everyday, a little group of 5 chickadees and a white breasted nuthatch, and in the past few weeks the migrating birds have been stopping by! I've been using the birds to keep the kids busy. They could them and make Tally's, they look them up in the books, and they even try and spell them out. The Cornell lab of ornithology  has been amazing for resources, the kids love to listen to the bird calls and guess who they are and they're pretty good at it too! We joined Nest Watch and we're hoping to find a nest to observe.

A red tailed Hawk came a few times, trying to catch snack



Dave tail :)



Nut hatch

 

Grackles and Red winged black birds arrive hungry one afternoon a few weeks ago

 

 

Walking the water fowl

The last few months we've been trying to keep busy in the last of the snow and cold weather. March is always a hard month, everyone is done with the cold, putting on snow pants and mittens. But we seem to have made it and there are signs of spring everywhere :) We've been busy...

 building snow forts...




watching the birds



 

 

..

 walking the water fowl.

 

 

 We even hit the sugar bush...

 



 

I sure hope that April is warmer then March, Wesley has big plans for the garden and says he will be building a pond in the back yard. We're also on the look out for some birds nests as we plan on doing a bird nest reporting program online. So i'll keep you posted on our spring fun :)