It has been awhile since I've posted because I cannot access this website at home.  I am now at the library - and going to the library each time I want to blog would be a big pain. 

So, please go to www dot twocabingirls dot blogspot dot com to find us.

Sorry for any confusion....

    Memorial Day weekend is always the official start of Summer to us.  School is done (except for a little bit here & there), the weather is getting warmer, and most importantly, lake season has begun!

    Last weekend at the cabin was busy - getting the place ready for summer.  The girls were in their GLORY!  They would live there permanently if that was an option.  Thank goodness they love it and are excited to go each weekend - otherwise the 4 hour drive would get to be pretty miserable.

    Our baby finches are growing big and the cowbird egg has mysteriously disappeared .

1 day old:

3 days old:

2 weeks old:

    We have a robin's nest under our deck for the first time.  Here is a view through the slats of the wood:

    Also, for the fourth summer in a row, we will raise Monarch and Zebra Swallowtail Butterflies.  Last year we raised 28 successfully - this year we have found them even earlier in the year and have 4 baby caterpillars and lots of eggs.  Here is one of our biggest ones - he's about 1/4" long.

    Our upside-down tomatoes bit the dust this weekend, I don't even want to post a picture of them because they are pitiful.  But, we will try again next week with bigger plants to see if they are heartier than the first ones.

    I hope you are enjoying your start to Summer as much as we are!!

    I'll leave you with a quote from Taylor:

    Taylor and Tatum were playing Barbies this morning and Taylor brought me her Barbie all dressed up and looking fancy.  I said, "Wow, is she ready to go shopping or out to dinner with friends in a cute outfit like that?"  And Taylor replied, "Nope, she's just a Mom."

Ouch.

    Who would've thought that having Tatum's arm in a sling would bring out the best in Taylor?  She has been a GREAT sister!

    I wasn't sure if she would be a little jealous of all the attention that Tatum is getting, but Taylor has been her biggest helper.  Here are just a few ways that Taylor is lending a hand:

• Making Tatum's bed in the mornings
• Taking the caps off of Tatum's markers when they are drawing
• Carrying things that are too heavy for Tatum
• Helping Tatum put her socks on, etc, etc.......

     Way to go Taylor - We're so proud of you!!

    Tatum did end up dancing in her recital on Friday night.  She tested out her skills with the sling on rehearsal night and she did fine, so we let her perform with her group.  I covered her sling with lavender fabric to match her costume and she was so thrilled to be able to dance.  (Shhhhh.....just don't tell the doctor.)

    We have another X-ray tomorrow afternoon, so hopefully the fracture shows improvement. 

    On Mother's Day I had to perform a big "motherly" duty, accompanying Tatum to the Emergency Room.

    While at a new park, just a bike ride away from our house, Tatum and Daddy were climbing a rope jungle gym.  After reaching the tip-top, they had a race to see who could get down first.  Well, Tatum won that race, although she didn't land on her feet.

    After X-rays, we found that she fractured her humerus (upper arm bone).  That means no dancing in the ballet recital on Friday night (that brought the most tears), no tennis lessons in 3 weeks, and taking it easy when playing outside for about 6 weeks. 

    Needless to say, the whole ordeal was not very 'humerous'.........get it?  humerous/humerus....did you just groan? 

    Our dreaded week of testing is officially done!  The tests were mailed in today for scoring.  We should have our results in 4-8 weeks.  Here are the girls's thoughts:

    Taylor - "The tests were easier than last year, I think I'm smarter now."

    Tatum - "They were fun!"  (strange, I know)

    I think I have more test anxiety than they do, because who's fault is it if they don't do well???

    We opened the windows this morning to the sweet singing of the birds.  Taylor thought she heard the chirping of baby birds out front so we went outside to check on our 3 little purple finch eggs.  (see the picture 2 entries back)

    We were sad to see that the Brown-headed Cowbird had visited our little nest just as it did last year.  Here is what we saw this morning:

    Brown-headed Cowbirds are brood parasites.  That means that they do not build nests of their own.  The female lays her eggs (as many as 40 per year) in the nests of other birds.  Our Cowbird also took 2 eggs out of our nest and dropped them on the ground to break. 

    The Cowbird eggs usually hatch first, so they grow bigger and stronger than the host's eggs.  They get more food and more space in the nest, so the host's chicks usually die.

    We debated taking the Cowbird egg out of our nest and disposing of it, but apparently they are a protected species and it is illegal. 

    So for an added Science lesson, we'll keep an eye on these eggs/babies and hope that our little purple finch is a fighter. 

    I was not on my way to winning the "Mother-of-the-Year" award this morning.  At breakfast, I happened to mention that today was May Day.  Since we had not even begun to plan our May Basket crafts for Taylor & Tatum's friends, I foolishly suggested that maybe, just maybe, we could skip it this year.  The girls paused for a moment, looked at each other - and I could see the wheels turning in their minds. 

    Then, almost simultaneously, came...

    "But Mom, if we get dressed really fast..."

    "But Mom, if we eat breakfast and brush our teeth really quick..."

    "But Mom, we've got those colorful cups in the cupboard..."

    So, hurry we did and rounded up all of our cups, went to 2 local stores for pipe cleaners (for the handles on our cups), sweets, and flower seed packets to fill the cups.

    Before we knew it, 18 May Baskets were assembled & delivered - and I had 2 very happy girls.

    After getting home from Phy Ed, there were 2 baskets waiting on the front steps just for them. 

    Knowing that our friends were probably as excited as the girls were, made all that craziness worth it!!  Happy May Day everyone!

    We had been wondering why our little feathered friends weren't taking much of the ribbons and yarn from our bag of nesting materials.  But, little did we know, the nests have been built and eggs are already resting in them.  Next year we'll have to put our bag out in early March. 

    Here is a nest that is in a tree in our front yard.  We'll keep waiting for them to hatch and post a picture of the babies soon!

    Eeek - time has gotten away from me and it's been a long time since I've updated this blog. 

    Here are a few of our little sprouts that will eventually be planted in our garden.  This year we will have zucchini, tomatoes, cucumbers, carrots, beans, peas, pumpkins, onions, parsley, oregano, basil, and peppers.  The garden has been tilled, the peas have been planted (and are peeking up out of the ground), and our upside-down tomato planters have been built.

    Yes, after 8 years of gardening and losing many of our tomatoes to crawling insects or having them rot by resting on the ground - we are trying something new.

    We saw an advertisement in the Sky-Mall magazine for an upside-down tomato garden by Hammacher-Schlemmer. Each of their ingenious little planters sells for $69.95 ~ YIKES!! 

    Penny-pinchers that we are, we opted to make them.  (I say 'we', but I really mean Tom )  They aren't as cute as those in the magazine, but they should do the job just fine.  We'll keep you posted on how well (or not) they work.  Here's a preview...

     The tomatoes will hang upside down from the bottom of the box and herbs will be planted on the top of each one.  Wish us luck!!

    I love being able to have the windows open in the Spring to hear the noisy singing of the birds. (Except at the cabin at 5am when I'm trying to sleep!)

    Family Fun - the only parenting magazine I still subscribe to - had this great idea:  fill an onion bag with bird nesting materials like ribbon, small sticks, dryer lint, pet hair, yarn, etc. and hang it outside.  Watch the birds take what they need to make cozy nests.

    Here is what ours looked like today - look for an "after photo" in the weeks to come.

    Why is it that after returning home from a nice long vacation, I feel like I need a vacation?

    We got home on Tuesday night from our week away, but getting back to our routine has been very slow-going.

   Maybe it's because all of us (except Tatum) were sick for our vacation.  It's hard to relax and enjoy if you feel terrible.

   Maybe it's laundry mountain that needs climbing after a week of living out of suitcases.

    Maybe it's the lack of excitement of paying bills, grocery shopping and cleaning toilets that makes me want to board a plane and return to Arizona for a HEALTHY weeklong vacation.

    The girls would return tomorrow if they could.  Hunting geckos was the highlight of their trip!

    They hunted each night for those little lizards and thought they were so cute! 

    The 90* days were a little hot for us since we still had snow back home, but it was something we could probably get used to.

    It was so nice to see our parents too.  If you can't be at home in your own bed when your sick, being with your parents is the next best thing.  (Thanks mom & dad for taking such good care of us!)

    After getting off of the plane in Minnesota, though, I think we all felt - "There's no place like home!"

    How sad!  The girls were in the middle of school, when all of a sudden Taylor got a great, big smile on her face and yelled, "The Sun!!"

    Yes, it's been about 5 days since the sun has shown her face...and we were all starting to get a little crabby. 

    Tatum was doing her geography reading with the sun beating down on her back, just loving it.  Taylor had to move her chair over to the sun, too, so that she wouldn't miss out on that wonderful feeling.

    On the bright side???  April Showers bring May Flowers

    I started something new with the girls today - journaling with them.  I bought each of them their own journal and wrote something to each of them on their first page.  They will write back to me on the next page and so on. 

    I am hoping that this will create a wonderful way to preserve memories of their childhood...in their own words and handwriting.  Don't you wish you had something like that from your childhood? 

    I loved watching each of them read that first page and see their faces light up as they did.  Maybe they are just 'sappy' like me. 

    Boy what a busy week we had last week!  We had friends staying with us from Tuesday through Friday morning.  They have 2 boys ages 5 & 8, so the girls were in heaven to have built-in playmates for most of the week.  They were all so well behaved & got along so well - it was surprisingly easy to have 4 kids.  (Okay, okay, I realize that having 4 parents around helped  )

    We took 4 days off from school last week to host our friends, so I was feeling a little delinquent with our schooling.  We hit it hard again today, but added in some fun by going to the Arboretum afterward.  

    Our Arboretum has so many wonderful gardens, wetlands and woodlands!  We have been members for about 6 years and no matter what the season, it's always beautiful.  The girls brought their charcoals, colored pencils and sketchbooks and they worked hard at capturing some of the scenery.  We walked on some of the garden paths and walking trails so they could find the perfect spot to sketch.

    Since today was 80 degrees (in March!!) we really feel like we should start planting our vegetables inside...but as soon as I do that, Mother Nature will remind us that it's March and it will snow or something crazy like that.  We'll be patient and wait til mid April, but we did clean up the strawberries yesterday and actually saw some green in there .

    Here are some pictures from our day:

Sketching

A fence made with twigs tied together by rope (by Taylor)

Large piney trees - not sure what kind they are but you know what I mean (by Tatum)

A sure sign of spring!

A beautiful hibiscus in the greenhouse

We watched this little guy and his friend fill their cheeks - cute, isn't he?

Since I'm always behind the camera, here are a couple pictures of me & the girls

Hope you were able to get out & enjoy nature a little bit today too. 

I can hardly believe my 'baby' is going to be 8 in less than 2 weeks!  I have a hard time thinking back 8 years to when she was born.  Thank goodness for the billions of photo albums we have, to remind us of those baby days. 

     The video above (please be impressed, that was kind of difficult to get on here) is of Tatum with her early birthday present from Nana & Grampa M.  She is too tall for her old bike - the one she learned to ride first without training wheels.  She has graduated to a mountain bike!  She picked it out herself and it is purple & pink and totally 'girlie'....just like her .

     Taylor was very much the helpful big sister and gave her lots of pointers to master this bigger bike. (Although Taylor had to give it a few trial runs herself.) Now she thinks she needs a new bike too.  I told her to eat her fruits and vegetables so she can grow a few more inches first. 

    Well, we have a new addition to our family!  Nope, it's not a baby (whew!).  It's not a puppy!  It's a little car!  Is it a face only a parent could love???

     The girls are very excited & since it's Daddy's car, he's excited too.  I must admit it probably looks like a clown car as the 4 of us pile in & out .

Here are a few pictures that I took of the girls this morning.

Have a wonderful weekend!

     Do you remember the Alamo?  I remember the saying 'Remember the Alamo', but only from a movie.  I couldn't tell you why we should remember the Alamo...until today.

     The Alamo was the topic of our history lesson today.  After reading certain history lessons with the girls, I wish I would have paid more attention to history in school  It is pretty interesting!

     Our project today should help the girls 'Remember the Alamo' better than I did.

     Taylor & Tatum made gingerbread Alamo-shaped cookies.  These were BIG cookies!  We made homemade gingerbread and the girls cut it into the shape of the Alamo.

     Of course, once it was baked, the girls didn't think it was very pretty.  We had to make ornamental frosting & the girls wanted to go 'SPRINKLE CRAZY!'  Here are the pictures...you might get a cavity just from looking at them!

     Was it really just 3 days ago when I was happy about the snow?

     Have I really posted 3 or 4 entries about the fun & beauty of the snow?

     Well, as of today, the excitement has officially worn off!!

     We woke up to about 3 inches of snow this morning...it was pretty.  After phy ed today we headed to the grocery store, just to get bread, cereal and fruit.  Unfortunately, the rest of the town was there stocking up on food for the weekend blizzard...it was nuts!

     At home there was another 3-4 inches of snow waiting to be shoveled - it wasn't so pretty anymore.

     Tom flew to Cincinnati this morning and was supposed to fly home tonight, but his flight was cancelled because of the snow.  Hopefully he'll be home tomorrow morning.  There goes my shoveling partner.

     After supper there was another 3 inches of snow to be shoveled - Ugh!

     Tonight - a hot bath. Tomorrow - a few aspirin & a little more shoveling.  We expect another 2-4 inches of snow by noon Friday.

  Calgon, take me away!!!

Here is a picture of the girls at the neighbors playing in the blizzard.

     Are you getting tired of seeing our improvements to the snow fort?  I'm sorry, but it has been so long since we've had a nice big snowfall - We ( or should I say Daddy & the girls ) are REALLY enjoying it!  The girls think these photos are "blog-worthy", so here they are.  Last time - I promise.

     After another hour and a half outside working on our castle, it now has a wall around it and is almost too tall to see out of!!

Look at these HAPPY FACES!!