The End of February

Last month the kids were obsessed with Origami. 

Katy made at least 100 of these foxes.

Joanna made a bunch of dragons a bunny and lots of other creatures scattered all over my house!

Chase had a tournament in Hershey, PA the weekend I was in Texas. I made it back just in time to watch them win the whole tournament and take home the trophy

February was pretty cold all month but that didn't stop the kids from playing and exploring outside. Katy found these sunglasses missing lenses and turned them into fake glasses.  She would walk around with them and a clipboard and look very official for something :P

She said she likes playing outside in the winter because there's no bugs to worry about. She wanted me to take a picture of this big walking stick she found.

They now have lots of hideouts and forts they have built throughout the woods and hedgerows. This one is claimed by Katy but they all play in it with her too.

The middle of February we had our first day back at co-op and it is usually a very tiring stressful day, figuring out a new schedule, meeting new people and teachers, making sure everyone is paid, etc. It all must have been a little too much for Joanna because she was in a very BAD mood on the way home and just being mean and nasty.  I told her she was not allowed to come inside the house the rest of the day and HAD to stay out and play.  Well, I went out to check on them an hour or so later and found this:

:) Sometimes bad moods can be fixed outside.

Later in the week it snowed and I decided to take a rare homeschool day off.  We had crepes and hot chocolate and lots of sledding!

Toward the end of the month we went for a follow up for Joanna's wrist.  For some reason I decided to take all of the kids with me and that was fun 😂

I guess after doing school all day they were a little wound up.  They were fascinated by the machine that cuts the cast off though.

So Jo has been in just a brace for a few weeks now and we have another follow-up this Friday.  She was so happy to get the cast taken off and be able to shower normally and wash her own hair and even use her right hand for writing, drawing and crafting.
Chase and I went over to the small animal auction at a local farmer's market to try and purchase some pigeons or doves to train Honey with.  We walked in and immediately saw all these adorable baby goats!  I wanted to stay and buy all of them to take home with me 😍

I resisted the urge to buy a single baby goat though :P

Chase and Ricky got end of the winter hair cuts. Chase decided a while ago that he doesn't want buzz cuts anymore so I've been practicing and practicing to be able to give him a good haircut.  Sometimes it doesn't turn out very good but overall I think I am getting the hang of it.

Funny thing is, it's usually hit of miss if I take him to a barber too because he has a callick in a weird place. So I figure I can just mess up his hair once in a while for free :P
We took the dogs on a nature walk with us and were laughing at Honey trying to look out the same window as Sweetpea.

Middle Creek is usually a place people go to see the snow geese and that is a very cool thing to see but there are also a lot really lovely trails on the State Park as well. This nature walk is right behind the museum and was a pretty nice long loop.

It was a cold day but the kids basically ran down the trails and so I had to walk very fast to keep up with them and we didn't even think about the cold after a while.

We loved this huge tree on the trail.

The kids were immediately drawn to this recently fallen tree with exposed root system.  The dogs liked wallowing in the mud 😝

found a little creek.

A lot of the trees had plaques in front of them and little snippets and facts about the trees.  We would stop and read some of them. This one made me laugh though because the tree decided it didn't want people to know what kind it was.

we found a whole "forest" of these cool little plants called Fan Clubmoss. It's a very interesting plant, reproducing through spores but not able to produce spores and reach maturity for sometimes up to 20 years!  Of course my kids just think they look like a cool Fairy forest :)

We found the tiniest chicken egg ever.

I'm thinking I need to call Guinness book of records because it's so tiny!