The boys love after school science, this month they made volcanos

Kelly had a birthday

We had lunch with some family & friends to celebrate

Cool woodpecker

Andy helped us tap our maple tree, and some of the neighbors got involved too.

It was not a great sugaring season this year, and we got a late start so we didn’t get a lot but we’ll try again next year.

And, Mari had a birthday too, we had a “garden” party

She was very excited to get a whole stack of Trixie Belden books

We even made garden stones

I was pretty proud of the cake!

And, that wraps up March 2014.

We made super cute valentines for the boys, with pencils attached and for the first time, Marian didn’t make any-hmm, not sure if I was relieved or sad about this?

Valentines Day after school snack — sometimes I’m really good;)

Ezra turned 9, I posted the Olympic party right after his party, see Ezra Olympic Party Post

Love these pictures of him, and adore those freckles & very subtle dimples

We went trampoline jumping, well, they did, not me.

I think this was a planned no school day, so we had extra kids over.  Boys being boys . . .

And, I made them do some reading (just for the quietness!)

Mari did a great job entertaining Natalie

And, Trish & Troy came out for a visit (Trish loves to read and Tobin loves to snuggle & be read to!)

No idea what is happening here, some sort of ball chasing I imagine

Well, I’ve decided that rather than just pretending like I just forgot about blogging for 2014, I would spend the next 12 days (or so), attempting to highlight a month from the past year.  I am completely caught up with “work/client” pictures and January is typically really slow so I have no excuse;)

So, here are our January 2014 highlights . . .

So much snow that our driveway snow cleaning could be used as mini sled hills

And, we had days that it was just too cold to go to school, which means it was too cold to stay outside (for very long anyway!)

We had friends visit, nails were painted

Love that our basement can be used to rip-stick, in-line skate & swing

Creating car ramp obstacles, Noah & boys are always up to some sort of creative experimenting!

And, that’s it because apparently I didn’t feel much like picking up my camera after Christmas & our Arizona trip:)

Last year, I had a couple dozen photo shoots in the fall and realized I barely had a picture of my own family;(, decided to force the kids to come to a shoot with me this afternoon–it was at a cool park so it wasn’t a hardship!

And, since I haven’t posted in like 5 months, I thought I’d throw a quick one out there:)

The kids got blanket making kits from Grandma & Grandpa for Christmas, Grandma asked if I wanted to put them together with them, “um, no, that sounds like a great Sunday afternoon with Grandma project!”

They LOVE them, and still 5 months later and sleep with them.