Summer Crafts

We've made pipe cleaner critters a la Martha before (usually tigers and monkeys and such).
I thought we would make some woodland creatures as an homage to the local wildlife (deer and squirrels and such). Silly Mommy forgot she has boys!

Jamie made an alien:

and his alien had a pet:

And Jeremy made (oh what a surprise) an alien:

Madeline came through with a Lady Bug:

While I made two deer:

We put them in their own little habitat with real moss and a sprig from the prickly bush that needed trimming anyway...

...and presented them to our neighbors (a mother and daughter) along with the bread.

They remind me of our other neighbors who are a little shy:

Summer Cooking

Did you read Emilie's posts about that really easy Artisan Bread? I've been "into" baking bread ever since Mary Wright taught me how back in 1986. Yeast is your friend. The artisan bread recipe is WAY EASY and WAY YUMMY. We made this extra cheesy loaf as a welcome gift for our awesome new neighbors.



Jeremy and I made homemade waffles for dinner recently, with a special guest helper, sometimes known as "Kitty" and sometimes known as "Chocolate Chip Chunk Cookie" (apparently this is perfectly normal to a 5 year old).



After helping us read the recipe, Kitty moved to a safer perch to keep an eye on the waffle maker (she's on top of the paper towel holder).






Yes, we love breakfast-for-dinner (aka "brinner") and we see nothing wrong with involving chocolate. I swear there were lots of bananas under there!

Bog Blog

Soon after the Fourth there was a sunny day (aaaaaah!) and I said "Let's go to the bog!"

But first we needed special snacks, so we made "Bugs & Bark", a delightfully melty conglomeration of almonds, dried cherries, and three kinds of chocolate. Mmmmmm...

Then we took pictures of the snack, made some sandwiches, filled our water bottles, made sure everyone had used the potty, loaded the car, made a couple stops at random stores in Bangor, arrived at the bog, discovered we forgot to make a PB & J for Jeremy (sorry, bud, but you shouldn't have changed your mind about helping) and ate our lunches at the picnic table.

It only took us about 3 1/2 hours to get here:

But we enjoyed the perfect weather and lush foliage.

Here's the obligatory kids-on-the-big-rock photo:

And here's the back view to show off our homemade bandana bags in patriotic colors:

Blogged Down

As you can see in the post below, I am having issues with blog formatting, but since I am not prepared to learn html I guess I'll just have to struggle on...

Bear with me, folks.

Another Family Fourth

Gumpy's train made another successful parade appearance, with James and Nana Lois carrying a new banner, Madeline's assistance with the coal car and Nancy marching along side.

After a brief rest for the kids and frantic preparation on the part of the grown-ups, we had about 25 friends and family members over for the usual picnic food, even if we didn't have the usual picnic weather. Alan grilled during the worst of the downpour, while Madeline and Eric looked on.

Party-goers included 2 year old Samantha (and parents Helen and Rich not pictured),

Sonya and Mother Rita (and Cuthbert and Eric),

Jeremy and Nana Lois (and the rest of the Marks and Gumpy and Aunt Betty),

and several others not adequately captured digitally.

There was even a very maternal-looking spider (who enjoyed the party outdoors).

Alas, we did not venture out for the fireworks (mostly because we assumed they'd be post-poned), but Jeremy still had cause to don Alan's ear protectors due to the thunder which occasionally interrupted our reading aloud of a story about pirates.