First strawberries of the season

We went out strawberry picking with our friends Jen and her son Ronin. 

So fun! We picked over 12lbs in about an hour. 

Fun day!

Happy Mothers Day

Every year on Mother's Day, I try to get a photo of me with the kids. This year's photo might be my favorite so far. 

Forest and Farm Girl

Olivia's class at MLC has been learning about the forest and all of its creatures this trimester. They have been heading up to Forest Park regularly--they even take a city bus there! She is enjoying the different ways her teacher has approached the topic from forest yoga to art, writing and spirit animals. I love that she is getting out into nature and exploring on her own. Also that on forest hike days she has to wear jeans. Jeans! They look adorable! 

These days she likes to say she's a farm girl. She has shown a remarkable dedication to the chickens, checking on them and caring for them. For her elective at school her first choice was gardening--and she loves it! 

So great!

Another sleeping Sammy photo

Olivia's work

Olivia's poem:

As the unicorn shows her shadow

And the Fairygodgirl lowers her lasso.

The sun shines bright!

The flowers bloom.

And the little hummingbird flies his tune!

The cat's whiskers dangle down

The baby dog hides his frown

We had our mid-year conference with Olivia's teacher and were very happy to hear how well she is doing in class, what a helpful member of their community she is. A friend to all, is how Cami discribed her. She also has gone from kindergarten-level reading at the beginning of the year to end-of second grade level now. Olivia told all of us she wants to learn and spell new and big words. I'm pretty proud of her. 

Here is a recent portrait of the family by Olivia: 

Sammy's Drawings

Sammy's portrait of Chris. Today he added glasses after weeks of just dots for eyes. The lines across the face are lips and mustache. I also love Sammy's floating guys pictures:

And his picture of himself and daddy, not to scale:

The Wolf Club

Olivia's teacher sent an email saying that the Wolf Club, a group of first and second graders who gather on Mondays to discuss wolves during recess, was looking for help gathering crafts for the craft fair. I said to Olivia, "Did you know there's a wolf club in your class." She looked at me and said, "Yeah, I'm in it!" So, note to self, I do not know everything that is happening in her life. We created necklaces to sell that feature her drawings of wolves: 

So proud of her. 

2015 - A Year in the Life

Here's a short movie I made using the app 1 Second Every Day. I didn't actually manage to capture every day of 2015, and most clips are longer than one second, but you get the idea.