No Christmas tree here yet...

....because 'someone' decided to camp in the middle of the room!!!!  Yup, they put the tent up the day after Thanksgiving and it's still there!!!

Ahoy there...!

We took a ride on a Tall Ship ....with REAL pirates...!  At the dock, we ran into our friends, and it made the ride that much nicer, the kids all had a blast, the ship was gorgeous, and Maura got to help with the sails - ! Remy ran around and got to explore below deck, as a souvenir, he got a GOLD COIN!!!!  Maura got a lovely brick of tea - yum...!

Science Museum

First, they tried the flight simulator...then made magnet constructions.....
...on to the bubbles...
 built a Remy-bot....
  - and a Maura-bot...
   ...they work !!!!!!

Friday morning "lights.....

Remy was barely awake when he ran outside this morning - there were a couple of  wild pheasants  to be seen out in the pasture ... they flew off as soon as he got there but it was still "really cool!"...And since he was out already, time to let the sheep and Bobo the llama out, pet his chicken Sherman in the barn, check for eggs (three so far), check the pheasant coop for eggs, pet his pheasant Blackie, run around the pen, chase the two chickens that somehow escaped during the night and put them back in the 'soon to be dinner' cage...and check to see if the baby bunnies were born yet...

See.....? Scrumptious....!

I used to bake. A lot. We used to own a bakery. That was in one of my other lifetimes. I've been many things...clerk, teacher,  bartender, yogini, baker, event planner, caterer, mom (my fave) These days I knit. A lot. I tend to do that... I have a vast curriculum of things a do fabulously, in bursts...one of these days I will have to really sit down and have a serious conversation with myself, and figure out exactly what it is I want to be when I grow up...In the meantime, I'll just keep growing sideways....Incidentally, that is the why behind "Sassafras...", one tree, three different leaves, you get my drift...(...I hope...)... So lately my passion is handwork. Knitting, felting, sewing and among these, felt food just seems to be a natural...The children love playing with food, back in the café days, they were intensely involved...I want them to have natural playthings, so there you are...works in progress.

Drum-roll, please.....

...uhmmm, I actually mean "egg-roll", yup, the girls are actually producing....big, beautiful brown egss, blue eggs and even turkey eggs...!  Most of our laying hens stay in the hen house, but the other half get to run around. They run around the pasture, the pens, the backyard... all of which is O.K., they run around the front yard, around the driveway.... - NOT.... O.K., I'm trying to get mr. sassafras to build a newer, bigger coop for these renegades - he wants them to hatch baby chicks...cute, but in the meantime, messy. Besides, I don't really think they will be wanting to hatch any eggs until it's springtime again, right....?  Remy has been finding eggs in and out of the laying boxes and some in the barn, from the 'renegades'.  

We have 5 brown hens that we got from our friends, The Penderwicks, that we were never able to catch to put in the chicken coop. We call them 'the twisted sisters'. Well, the sisters are back, after a stint at our neighbors', they wanted to keep them...!  They even offered to trade for some of their ugly ones. No, thank you. They're back, in renegade mode....

To infinity...and Beyond...!

       We went Rock Climbing...O.K., 'we' sounds like a crowd....I took the kids Rock Climbing.  Remy thoroughly enjoyed the challenge, he usually climbs at the gym- where he knows the exact placement of each foothold, and is able to reach the top in 5 seconds flat. Here, not so fast, he worked hard, and it was a bit higher but he reached the top and rang the bell twice ( no bell at the gym!)  The picture here is from a different element, he got two thirds of the way up, then went back to the familiar...

Maura, on the other hand, doesn't particularly enjoy climbing the wall at the gym, she mostly does it "because it's there", and because her brother does it...she hasn't reached the top. Yet. Anyway, when we got there, she was unsure as to whether she should even participate or not, but she found the courage, along with a new little friend and together they tried out two of the elements, the rope one, and courageously, the 'cat walk' !!!!! She did SO GOOD!!!!  She got through half of the rope walking part and then rapelled (?) off....the image is of her going up to 'conquer her fear'.

The Princess & The Frog

I am more than a bit squeamish. My Princess is definitely not. She has been known to play for hours with a bucket of worms she dug up...somewhere in this desktop I might be able to unearth a very cool pic of her 'eating' worms, in the meantime, you will just have to take my word for it...

aaaanyway...... she likes frogs. ahem, she LOVES frogs. Almost every morning, she goes out to see if her frogs are there, she has names for them: squishy, mamafrog and baby...Last week, Remy found yet another frog hideout in the barbecue pit - ribbit!  Maura wants them in the house...I.don't.think.so.  

Quilting

We had the wonderful opportunity to participate in a quilting workshop...little did I know how absolutely Maura would fall in love...! We spent hours at  the museum, with her working on her quilt only to come home and keep working on it, making it just right for her 'raggy Ann'....My grandmother, 'Bobosiña', was a seamstress...apparently her talent just skipped a generation. Maura is loving sewing, she has asked to use my sewing machine, but I think she really prefers to sew by hand...

Remy also did a quilt, he didn't want to put the batting in though, he instead cut his batting into a trillion tiny triangles while Maura sewed away...

And here's the finished product...thank you Ms. Marylin!!!!