Spring?

What I think of as spring might finally be here! It looks like we'll at least be consistently hitting the high 60's or low 70's from here on out and more flowers are starting to bloom. Now I know it's technically the first day of summer, but I just can't believe THIS is summer.

In the flower bed in front of our house, a few huge flower buds finally opened up to reveal peonies (which I'd never knowingly seen in person before). Our landlord told me how you need ants on peonies to eat away a sticky layer on the bud and allow them to open. The skeptic that I am did an online search and turns out that's just a myth, but the ants are still beneficial. The peonies excrete a sugary substance, which attracts the ants and the ants fight off (eat, I guess?) some of the bad bugs.

We also had a bunch of these super cute little blue flowers come up. I looked on the Montana plant life website and I'm pretty sure they're forget-me-nots

And this little guy came up that kinda looks like blue flax, but I'm not sure because it's more purple than blue

Our tomatoes plants are doing well too. In front of the house, there used to be huge cottonwood trees and the stumps are still there. Josh's brother pointed out that the centers of the stumps were pretty rotted out, but still moist--like the tree's system is still pulling water up from the ground. He thought it'd be a good place to plant and we agreed. A week after we arrived, we got some tomato and basil plants along with a few squash seeds and we added a little soil to the stumps and planted everything there. All the plants are happy and the tomatoes are blooming. Here is a picture of me standing on one of the stumps to show how big they are...and I have size 11 feet, just for reference. Oh, and yes, that is the beginning of a baby belly in the way. Just yesterday I made the comment, "I'm starting to pooch out" and Josh immediately answered back, "YEAH you have!" (just because you have a PhD doesn't mean the brain to mouth filter is always in place when talking to your pregnant wife).


And last, but not least, the girl's riding their bikes the other day

All The Colors

I have a slight addiction to crayons. Okay, it might go beyond that...I bought crayons and coloring books for myself right on up through college (now I pretend they're for the kids) and I might get a little giddy when packs of crayons go on sale for $0.25. I've been known to buy an entire case of crayons some years. Yes, yearS and therein lies the problem. I was a little lax for a while about letting the girls get into the crayon stash, so there were A LOT of partially used crayons lying around. As I was setting up our homeschool room here, I decided they only needed one big school supply box of crayons and what didn't fit in the box, would have to go (not counting my not-yet-opened stash, of course).

So, Sierra and I sat down and picked out all the broken crayons and the really well used crayons and then just grabbed out a few more so the box would close. We peeled all the paper off these crayons and put them in baggies to save for crayon reincarnation (turns out crayons are slightly Buddhist, who'd have thunk it?). None of the ideas I list here are my own, they're widely talked about in various places on the internet and I can't even link to something specific, because I read a lot of pages and then just gave it a whirl.

First, we did window hangings like we made when I was a kid. I haven't found our crayon sharpener yet, so I just used the small side of a cheese grater to shave the crayons. A crayon sharpener would work a lot better if you have one. The shavings are put between two pieces of wax paper: Then newspaper is put on top (to protect the iron). Set the iron on low and briefly iron over everything, checking frequently to see if the shavings are melted yet. Once everything is melted and cooled, cut it into a shape you like. Cut a frame from two pieces of construction paper and glue them on both sides of the wax paper.
Hang in the window to enjoy! Sierra decided she'd rather use less shavings next time so it's not so dark looking in the middle.

The other project we did today was making new crayons. Broken up pieces of crayon (may be easier to do this with a knife) are put in a muffin tin. Bake at 250 until they are all melted (it takes a little while, but do not leave the oven!!), then carefully take out of oven (careful not to swirl your colors together) and let cool completely. Voila, new, multi-colored crayons. I should have put more crayon pieces in each muffin tin.

I have plans to make candles as well, but can't find wicks here in town. We'll be heading up to the "big city" of Missoula on Saturday for an appointment and I'm assuming I'll be able to get wicks then and try out the candles this weekend. I'll post about it when I do!

A few small tips: I'm a crayola loyalist, other brands just aren't the same. I've read other brands may not work as well for some of these projects, but definitely don't mix brands in one project because they may have different melting points. I've also read washable crayons are more brittle when they're melted and cooled, so they don't work well either.

Look! The Sun!

The sun came out today and it was almost warm. Reminded me of early Spring in Texas (except that it's June, but whatever). We had a busy day outdoors.

First, we walked down to the farmer's market, which is getting bigger every week There isn't a ton of produce available yet, but it's still fun to look at all the booths and check out the huge assortment of handmade goods There has been a little bit more produce each week though and today we picked up some carrots and sweet onions Once we were at the farmer's market, it was only two more blocks to get to main street, so we continued up that way to browse at the book store and to stop in at The Paperclip, which is a mash up of office, homeschool and art supplies.

We came home for lunch, and then struck out again to go explore Blodgett Canyon. We were told the Blodgett Canyon Overlook would be a good trail to take the kids on, so we tried it out.

At the trail head
We found wild strawberries! (I think, anyway, still need to look them up and double check and then, of course, see if they set fruit) (Update: I'm going out on a limb and saying, yes, we found strawberries)
A pretty butterfly that crossed our path
I think Sedona's destined to be a geologist. Everywhere we go, she's picking up rocks
The first look out point, that's the city of Hamilton below
An interesting flower we saw periodically. Any ideas on what it is? (Update: My mother-in-law let me know this looks like a trillium of some sort and after a little research, I agree the flower looks very much like one, except it didn't have "leaves" up by the flower and it looks like trilliums don't really grow around here. Trilliums are in the same Order as Lilies though and I found an entry on the Montana Plant Life website suggesting it may be a Gunnison's mariposa lily, or something similar. The picture isn't an exact match, but everything about the description matches.)
This whole area had a large forest fire ten years ago
We made it to the top!
The canyon (glacier carved)
We happened to have cell service, so we let Sierra call grandma and tell her she was on a mountain
And we watched all the chipmunks darting around

Fun times. Between me and the kids and the occasional narrow trail with steep drop-offs, we had to take it slow, but we made it up in about 2 hours and down in 45 minutes. We didn't even run out of water (which Josh and I seem to have a talent for). When we made it back to town, we went out and gorged ourselves on pizza--everyone was starved.

Quick baby update: I'm 16 weeks today. Started up with the contractions this week (not unusual for me), but they're very very infrequent and not yet worrisome. Lots of kicks and flip-flops and I've occasionally felt kicks with my hand too, but no one else has caught it yet.

P.S. I changed the blog design again. I like this one a lot better, but I'm still not sure. What do you think?

A New Look

Blogger made it easy to change up everything about your blog design, so I've been playing around. I'm not sure I like it, I might be changing things around for a few days ;-)