We went to Baraboo tuesday. We went to a small park that had a small zoo. The favorite animals were the prairie dogs.

I think that Caleb wanted to join them.

There were also some great horses to ride on in the park.

All of our kids are very good at playing. I think that this is an important skill.

We also bought a new minivan for our soon-to-be expanding family. It is a Chrysler Town & Country.

I hope that it was a good purchase.

Sunday afternoon

We took a walk in the Pheasant branch conservancy. It is just a bike trail around a nature preserve. There are a lot of bird boxes, lots of bird watchers, and lots of runners and bikers. The kids running and screaming with glee down the trail scared off some of the birds.

Caleb used the binoculars a lot. Everyone found a lot of great sticks.

There were lots of little streams of water. Caleb loved to throw rocks.

After we returned home, the kids used their snow shovels to play in the stuff that has off of the maple tree.

Landscape architect

Martin drew and labeled a detailled map of all of the plants that we have growing around our house.

This included
'field of garlic' which refers to the mustard garlic infesting our yard,
'attacking weeds' which have long sticks that can be used for swords,
several 'no ideas' which is what I told Martin when he asked me what kind of plants they were.

What a smart little kid.

The Arboretum

So we went for a morning walk in our Arboretum. Martin was very interested in finding birds. Maddie was very interested in climbing trees and smelling flowers, and Caleb just ran around and had fun. Martin was still able to see some birds. We even saw two sandhill cranes. Martin got very close to them. they are about 5 feet tall and have red stripes on their heads. I stayed behind with Caleb so we wouldn't scare them away.

We also saw A LOT of turkeys. Some even had their tail feathers up like they were getting ready to fight.

playing

I built the kids a sandbox out of free landscape materials from our neighbor. I also obtained free sand from craigslist, which I loaded up in our car.

Caleb, Maddie and especially Martin helped me to transport the sand from the buckets in the garage, around the house to the sandbox. It was a fun project. Everyone loves the sandbox. I like it because I never have to wonder where to find Caleb. He always goes to the sandbox whenever he is outside.

Hopefully this will prevent the kids from digging up anymore of my plants.

Caleb is adorable

Caleb does the following things which make him incredibly cute.

dance

pretend to be a sheep by walking on hand and feet while 'baa-ing'

ask for a drink of water by pretending to drink and slurping dramatically

Identify animals not by their names but by the sound that they make, e.g. a 'meow' is a cat, a 'rarr' is a dinosaur or bear, a 'moo' is a cow. Most unknown animals are automaticly dinosaurs

Demand that we play singstar with him. His favorite song; "who can it be now"

adamantly say 'no bath. no no no. no shower. no no no" this makes bathing difficult but is cute.

calls most food, especially dessert, a 'yummy yummy'

Easter Fun

We went to an easter egg hunt at the capitol Saturday. It was crowded and crazy.

The Easter Bunny signalled the start of the massive 6-12 year old egg hunt.

Every kid got a goody bag, no matter how many eggs they found. It was pretty fun. Afterwards we played on the beautiful lawn of the capitol.


Easter morning the kids all got baskets. Maddie and Caleb got rabbit ears. Maddie hopped all over the house because she was a bunny. They also found easter eggs. The kids also got a nice picture book about the real Easter story. Maddie said 'this is the best easter I have ever had'

Gardening

So we are starting some plants indoors in the hope that we will eventually plany them outdoors in our yet-to-be created garden. The kids love to watch everything sprout and begin to grow. hopefully they will be willing to eat some of it this fall.



I found some Rhubarb on Craigslist for $4.



Martin is good at digging holes, so we dug the hole for the rhubarb together. There is a little gardn square in our yard. It was overrun by chives and grass as well as another rhubarb. It is also in a pretty sunny spot that is great for rhubarb.


we added some comercial soil, and we will put mulch on top of the soil eventually. Next year we should have a lot of rhubarb!

walk in arboretum

Today we heard that some fish were jumping up a waterfall, so we went to try and see them. They weren't swimming up the waterfall, so the kids just threw rocks in the water.

Next, we went for a walk in the arboretum. This is a great time of year because there are no bugs and most of the trees are bare. We were able to see several effigy mounds, these are ancient burial mounds used by americans indians and many are at least 1000 years old. They are just raised dirt, so it is easy to miss them in the summer when they are covered by grasses and plants.
All of the kids enjoyed running around the trails and looking at the emerging plant life.

It is great to hear the kids' explainations and ideas about nature. Martin was able to correctly identify limestone and granite. Maddie wanted to know about moss and why it grew on rocks and trees but not people. Caleb really loved throwing rocks in the


water.
They all have such great little minds.

Family Race Day

Today two really neat things happened.
1. Martin beat me in a race.
2. My entire family did a race together.

I had originally planned to run the race slowly, and walk if I got tired. However Martin surprised me by running really fast (19:40) so I got to keep up with him. I finished just behind him. Good job Martin!!!!!


Caleb 'ran' the race on Benjamin's shoulders. Maddie enthusiasticly walked and ran the 2 mile race with them.









A lot of our friends did the run too. It was really great.







Maddie enjoyed talking to all of the people that she knew, and some that she didn't know. They all cheered for her when she crossed the finish line.








After the run the kids played in a nearby park.

Maddie and Caleb dressed up in their costumes today and ate vegetables and dip.

How they play with their costumes ;

Caleb says "Rarr!" It is very cute.

Maddie makes up complex narratives about a sad jaguar in a pet store that all of the other animals hate. Often the jaguar's mother has been shot by hunters.

When they are wearing their Lemur suits, the kids will run around and pull each others' tails. Martin will not dress up anymore, but he will pull the other kids' tails and pretend to be a hunter or explorer.

April Fools' Day

Our April Fools' Day tricks;

Martin put a stuffed animal snake in Benjamin's backpack with his clothes.
Ben biked to work, so when he got to work and changed his clothes, he found the snake.
Martin had been planning this trick for a week.

Maddie, with help from Ben, put all of her Barbie dolls under Martin's covers, so when he went to go to bed, he found a bunch of Barbie dolls. They both thought this was hilariously funny.

Kids are great.