May Pole Celebration at the Kickapoo Homeschool Cooperative

On May 4th we celebrated Spring with a May Pole Dance and Flower Crowns.
We made willow crowns with fresh flowers.

It was a beautiful, but slightly breezy, May day. The 12' May Pole was stunning with fresh flowers.

We marched around the May pole singing songs to celebrate Spring.

Me and Stella on the way to the parade

Stella enjoyed watching and participating

Her favorite thing to do lately is to play with rocks...

Spelunking Trip

On Friday, April 30th, (Stella's 1st Birthday) we went on a Spelunking (exploring caves) Field Trip with our Homeschool Cooperative. It was a beautiful day and we enjoyed a nice hike up to the cave located near Boaz, WI (about a 50 mile drive for us).

The above picture was taken on the edge of the cave.
Kyle and his good friend Ben before they go deep beneath the earth.

Pop's Cave (aka Big Bear Cave) is located in Richland County, WI and it is HUGE! I did not venture down into the cave because I had Stella on my back and we didn't have a helmet for her :) (That's my story and I'm sticking to it!).

The cave is 645 feet in length! The group was underground for almost 1.5 hours. After you climb down the rocky ledge, down the breakdown slope you enter into the 1st cavern that has an amazing height of 16'. Reeve and Kyle LOVED it underground. There were huge caverns of 23 feet in height to narrow passages (one was called the birth canal) of 1' in height.

Reeve took the camera down, but we're having trouble with our new camera not liking the old camera's memory card. I just got a new memory card, so hopefully we won't have this problem where when we go to take a picture it says it doesn't like the memory card. Then we have to turn the camera off and on, off and on, off and on, until it decides to like the memory card and let us take a picture. Ugh! So Reeve was only able to take a couple (2) of pictures underground.
Ahhh...here come the brave adventurers returning to the surface...

Stella and I enjoyed our time above ground...walking barefoot in the pine needles...

No longer a baby...now a toddler...on her 1st Birthday!!!

Stella & Some Guacamole and Baby Mary

Stella does not like avocados. We've tried to feed them to her (Reeve & Kyle both loved them as babies), but each time she takes the yummy green avocado out of her mouth, holds it out for us to see (while wearing her most serious expression), and then dramatically throws it onto the ground, which then elicits roaring laughter from her two favorite fans, Reeve & Kyle.
Well we LOVE our guacamole and Stella could not stand the fact that we were all enjoying dipping our carrots and gobbling up the guacamole. Tommy decided to give her a carrot stick and some guacamole...

Could you tell she LOVED it? I am happy to report that there have been no detrimental side effects from feeding her guacamole, and it's now one of her favorites. It ranks right up there with her most favorite food so far....Quinoa & Kidney beans. She also loves olives, oatmeal, brown rice, banana chips, apples, and carrot sticks...oh and she had fusilli pasta w/tomato sauce on her birthday which was a huge hit with her.

Speaking of her birthday I have more pictures to post from that fun day, but I'm having more troubles with my new camera. Now when we go to look at the pictures or take new pictures it says it can't read the memory card...UGH!
Anyway, for Stella's first birthday I made her a baby doll from scratch. It was a ton of fun for me to make and took me about 15-20 hours for this first one...I know I will get faster now that I've got one under my belt. Reeve named her Baby Mary, and I'm happy to report that Stella absolutely LOVES her Baby Mary.
Meet Baby Mary

I ran out of time to make her clothes, so we borrowed Baby Oza's clothes.

Spring Snow Hag Play

Drawing by Reeve, age 10

The boys were in a play a couple of weeks ago. It was called the Spring Snow Hag. The hag always comes at the very beginning of Spring to "wreak havoc upon the land, in one last attempt to delay Spring."

Above is part of the set...The King & Queen's Castle.
Before the show Stella decided to tackle a sweet little lady :)

Reeve opened the show with a pentatonic flute solo "Spring Has Come"

Reeve was the narrator. He found the suit in our closest, given to us by some friends, and well...um...the pants were a little short. He loved it though! He thought it was perfect for the play and he was a very confident narrator. Kyle was a farmer in the beginning.

Here comes the Spring Snow Hag...pulled by her hound and guided by a Snow Fairy and an Ice Fairy.

Kyle's big part: "Where is the King? Where is the Queen? What will they do! Is what I mean!"

The King & Queen in their Castle

The archer

The Spring Snow Hag hiding in a cloud

In the second part of the play Kyle was an animal. In the dress rehearsal he was cracking us up because he was pretending the rope that divides the mama animals from the baby animals was an electric fence. He would put his nose on the fence and then pretend to get shocked...that's Kyle!

Lady Spring comes to save the day

Bravo! Bravo!

Stella after the show

Stella's on the move...Reeve's 10th Bday...recent pics

Stella has been walking for about 2 months now! She loves the freedom (with many watchful eyes) to roam around the house and discover new things.
Like a convenient open box of organic banana chips on the ground...

Look at the joy of discovery on her face :)

In preparation for her 1st Birthday (tomorrow!!!) Reeve has been knitting her a toy ball with a jingle rattle inside.

She LOVES it!!

For Reeve's 10th Birthday we hung out with our homeschooling group in Viroqua. First we set up an obstacle course for the 4th hour class on Tuesdays.

Kyle's turn...

Then we went to the park and ate some of my home-made granola and drank Reeve's favorite drink, HoneyDew = water + apple cider vinegar + honey, and the kids raced around the place with their friends. It was CHILLY that day, but Reeve said it was perfect.

Stella and Reeve hanging out in the grass while I hang laundry:

Stella and Reeve walking around the dentist's office in La Crosse (right in the University Health Sciences Bldg) while I had a dentist appointment.