We got to meet Annika's Kindergarten teacher yesterday and she is the sweetest, nicest person I've met. I think she and Annika will get along great (she said her favorite color is pink...I KNOW they'll get along!).
Yesterday was a productive day. In the morning the girls and I painted sticks and in the afternoon I made felt owls.
Three frogs in view & one hiding behind the trim.
I'm not sure how she captured it but Annika found this teeny tiny baby snake in my flower garden last Sunday. We're not sure what kind of snake it is (certainly not poisonous or dangerous) and it really seemed to be relaxed. Annika REALLY HATED letting it go!
See how tiny it is? 
Afterwards we did have a little talk with Annika about not catching snakes without adult supervision. I just think it's too cool that my little girl is relaxed about handling snakes and frogs. 
The older girls loved playing with Henry. Unfortunately, I think Annika treated him more like a giant doll than a human...she needed supervision!
Olympic swinging competition. Notice Ava looking at the baby swing? She really wanted to be the one in the baby swing. Sharing is so hard!
Sandbox and Sand Tossing competition on my deck. Rub a dub, dub...four kids in the sand tub!
Trampoline jumping competition. Not to worry...we have very strict rules regarding jumping on the trampoline.
We also picked queen anne's lace and tried dying the white flowers with red and blue food coloring. The kids also played in caterpillar sprinkler...but Beth and I weren't here for that...we managed to sneak out of the house and go to a scrapbooking session. Sans kids! Yippee!!!!
Oh, and the tomato hornworm competition? Beth found- I think- about a dozen of the nasty hornworms on my tomatoes! I'll be lucky if my tomatoes survive.
We had some Olympic Swinging sessions happening this weekend at our house. I think I'd have to give the Gold Medal to Gregory (my nephew) for his incredible, non-stop swinging whilst humming the Olympic anthem non-stop. I think Lily and Annika tied for Silver with Ava following behind with the Bronze...although Henry loved the baby swing just as much as Ava.
So...do you think Gregory loves the Olympics?
On a whim I decided to make butter with the girls. I poured a little heavy whipping cream into a sealable container and shook it. I let the girls shake it too. Annika did a little dancing and jumping when it was her turn. Minimal whining from the girls is required!
Little bit-o-cream in sealable container. It'd better seal properly otherwise you're in for a nasty surprise!
Ava doing the Butter Boogie.
Annika's turn to do the Butter Boogie. That jar really boogied!
AHHhhhhh! Fresh butter in less than 25 minutes! I drained the butter and rinsed it with cold water. It wasn't very firm. We ate ours with zucchini bread and no-knead bread hot out of the oven (Thanks Amy!). 
Mark thinks that we shook the jar too hard and that we ended up with whipped butter instead of regular butter. I think that if cream were ever to go on sale (yeah right!) I'd make a big batch of butter. I think it'd be fun to mix-in different things into the butter - like make a batch of honey butter or herbed butter. For next time!
It's funny to think back when we first bought our land- knowing the fact that we'd heat our home with a wood-burning stove.
In a nutshell:
1. Cut, chop and stack wood all by HAND. Make sure that your wood piles are far away from where you'll actually need them.
2. Purchase a wheelbarrow to help haul hand chopped wood. Still stack it far away.
3. Get a cool wagon as a Christmas gift from In-Laws (thank you Mom & Dad!). Chop wood by hand. Get smart and stack wood closer to house so you don't have to spend hours trudging through snow and cold to get wood!
4. Buy riding mower and use it to pull wagon. Still chop wood by hand (boy, our triceps are lean & mean!).
5. Trade small riding mower for bigger riding mower with detachable front bucket & detachable rear wagon (much larger than previous wagon). Chop wood by hand but move large quantities of wood.
6. Have husband build a log splitter that uses the tractor's hydraulic power to split wood. Instead of spending hours trying to smash one giant log...the splitter does it in minutes! We're still splitting wood by hand but the log splitter makes it possible to actually split the logs (elm is notorious for being super difficult to split). We managed to double our wood supply in a few hours...that would have taken us a good month to do previously!
7. Who knows? Build a wind mill and change to geothermal heating and cooling? Dream on!
Read more...
Mark finished building his log splitter on Saturday morning and by that afternoon he was splitting logs with it! It was fun watching it work...and hear the logs go Snap! Crackle! Pop! I'll post photos of it and perhaps a video later.
I think it's too cool! On Sunday we doubled our supply of firewood. (we still do hand chopping...but the splitter makes it sooo much easier to get the work done).
Mark - Job Well Done!
This is my first year growing large dahlias. I wanted to grow some for cut flowers and here they are just for YOU!
Mark has taken on a new project - building a log splitter out of salvaged and new parts. This log splitter will use our tractor's power to work. Genius! He's nearing completion and I'm keeping my fingers crossed & knocking on wood that it will work! (just fyi- we try to heat our home with a wood stove in the winter- hence the need for a log splitter. Oh, we do chop wood with a maul but some of the wood here is nearly impossible to split by hand. Elm being one of the worst. If you're in the area and would like to have a full-body work-out just stop in and chop some wood with the maul! Then you'll need a whole bottle of Ibuprofen the next day to keep the pain away! Just kidding.)
Do you see that yellow cylinder? That's a hydraulic cylinder that was salvaged from a crawler (that's a Bulldozer for all you non-construction machinery people). I just think it's really neat to recycle old parts and turn them into something new and useful. Mark also made that upside-down U shaped bracket that holds the cylinder in place (he used FIRE to bend the metal). ETA - Mark has made everything on this log splitter, not just the U bracket. 
If you'd been here Wednesday for dinner you would have had filled your tummy with this lovely & very yummy tomato tart. It's layers of Filo dough with thinly sliced onions from garden topped with cheeses and slices of beautiful tomatoes (sadly not from my garden; they're from my CSA box) and then finally sprinkled with chopped purple basil and thyme from my garden. Let me know if you're interested in the actual recipe.
It was truly scrumptious!
In other news we FINALLY picked our first tomato (that wasn't a cherry tomato). They are several weeks late this year. I wish I had taken a photo of it- it was a Mortgage Lifter and it was oh-so-good! I know I have some Black Krim that I can pick now too. We've been waiting for months and months to eat fresh, home-grown tomatoes with goat cheese and crackers.
I should also mention the yummy blueberry dumplings we made with the blueberries we picked on Monday. Sadly I didn't take a photo of them...I was so proud of them too! Not a single one of them fell apart while cooking in the water. The recipe is a hand-me-down recipe from Mark's Grandma or Great Aunt that has been modified by clever Beth to make them outstanding.
Read more...Before we headed home we had one last & very necessary stop to make...
BLUEBERRY PICKING!!!
Ava- the not-yet berry picking pro...she mostly stuffed her mouth full of berries. I'm not complaining though!
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Annika asked Grandpa for ribs for her birthday dinner. YUMMY! Grandpa makes the best ribs ever! Grandma very kindly made baked beans and an awesome potato salad. Oh! How could I forget the sweet corn??? Annika is the next Corn Girl (her Daddy was Corn Boy while growing up). Boy, does she ever love corn!
The Birthday Dinner Gang - 
Mark holding the littlest fairy (Ava)
Ava enjoying the Michigan breeze.
Littlest Elf Henry digs into his Mom's cup of decaf coffee. It was hilarious watching Henry. Beth gave him a sip of her decaf coffee and he WANTED MORE NOW! He wanted more and more and more of her drink! We all laughed so hard watching him and his gaping wide open mouth (begging for more). Guess you just had to be there.
And now it's BIRTHDAY CAKE TIME!
Hooray! Although I thought I'd bought candles that were supposed to shimmer (whatever that means) and they certainly didn't shimmer. Can you guess what Annika's favorite part about the cake was? The My Little Pony fairy that was sitting on top of the fondant toadstool. 
After cake (and naturally ice cream too!) came The Birthday Loot. Annika was soooo excited! She got several beading kits. I can tell you all that since we've been home EVERY MORNING the first thing after she gets up is to ask if she can bead. She doesn't ask what's for breakfast...she asks if she can bead! She loves it!
Heartfelt thank yous go out to Grandma, Grandpa, Aunt Beth, Uncle Ray, Aunt Margaret, Uncle Jon, Oma, Tante Kirstin, and cousins Lily, Gregory and Henry. You all helped make Annika's fifth birthday a very special birthday celebration.
Oh, and I'm SOOO GLAD that it's over and done with! I've been planning on making the toadstool cakes for weeks and I was so nervous that they would fall apart and the logistics of getting them to Michigan.
Read more...Drum roll please..........................................................................................................................
THE cake plus practice cake and fun decorations.
Cute decorations. Aunt Beth made the oh-so-cute frog for Aunt Margaret's baby shower cake. I thought it was too cute to not use again (so I did!). She also made the cattails and reeds out of fondant. I made the toadstool and the white fish out of fondant. The blue pond is made of ...Starburst candies!
We had decided a few weeks ago that for Annika's birthday the family would do a fun beach outing to the North Shore Beach (I think that's what it was called). Great idea!
Annika shows off her beach treasures- feathers and shells as I'd predicted.
Cousin Lily demonstrates how to be an ostrich. Just kidding! I'm not sure what she's doing. The girls had lots of fun at the beach. Lily and Annika tried to roll down the beach. Ava played Mommy to me. Henry tried to eat lots of sand- he really did have a SANDwich. Gregory had running and playing too.
Lily and Ava on the slide. Ava just LOVED going down the slides! She wanted to do it again and again and again and again...and ...well you get the picture! 
Cute & snuggly couple- a very pregnant Aunt Margaret cozying up to Uncle Jon. I'm so glad they both came to Michigan. 
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