March

Our youngest brainiac. He came up with this combo by himself. He really does love to dress up, even in his regular clothes. I am trying to get him to only wear ONE set of clothes each day and it's a struggle. But we can't help but laugh! Bennett is starting to READ. Simple, three letter words but it is reading and he can write his name. I don't feel like I've taught him one bit about writing, he just wants to learn to make the letters. He'll be ready for preschool in the Fall.

I am part of a neighborhood play group that was organized in our ward. So far it's been great, I'll only host about 5-6 kids once a month and the other weeks Bennett goes to another family's home or to the church with two other moms and a bigger group. Sometimes it's hard to let him go, but then I realize how much I need and want to accomplish every day and then I think it's okay.

Paxton had a fun week at school as the "swashbuckler" aka star student. This entailed making a poster about himself, taking his favorite book, getting a letter from mom and dad and being "king" for a day. I wanted to put a photo of his poster here but his teacher hasn't given it back yet. This photo was an attempt to get both cats but they were being "catty" so we only got Chica. Even if you have been to our house, you probably have never seen her because she hides when most visitors come.

This is Paxton's new bed, made by Grandpa. Despite my sure belief that he would fall out of it, he hasn't! He loves it, and I like it so much that I positioned it to get a maximum view of it when I walk by his room : ) His brother and our giant cat Chico enjoy it too...sometimes too much.

Here's the chicken coop as we started to paint it. Bennett really did help, and he never got tired of it until we were done. It was the perfect painting project for a kid his age. We did the roof one day and re-coated the red another. It came from our neighbor's rental property and had been left so he suggested we use it and we really appreciate it. Eventually his flock could be combined with ours because he only has 3 chickens.

Here's the after picture...I like to call it the chicken church. The lower roof has two separate panels that lift up; one to feed them and the other has nesting boxes directly underneath it where we can collect eggs, hopefully this summer.

The is the enclosed run that they can go out into anytime and still be safe from predators. We also let them out of both of these when we're nearby so they can have more space and pasture grass to peck at.

Once they're full grown they can be out more because then even stray cats aren't likely to mess with a bigger bird.
They aren't chicks any more - they're juveniles now and they look basically like miniature chickens with almost all their feathers.

Jared has had some great results from his latest firing of the kiln. One of our favorites is this blue color he achieved on a couple bowls;  I turned that bottom right one over to show it off. The tall vase is his tallest yet at 12 inches. The narrow shape was challenging. The other vases have a nice combination of green and brown colors. In the back is one of several bowls on which the color sort of washed out instead of being red or brown.