Simply Chickadees: 2014

*Gideon picked the pussy willow branches for me and then made me a plaque out of Legos that says "Love."

I love it!

I can't believe how fast the past few months have flown by. School is wrapping up, perennials are waking up in the garden and my guest room is filled with trays of happy seedlings and smells...well it smells like dirt. To a gardener that smell and feel of dirt after a long dark winter is lovely!

In March I planted seedlings that I ordered from Swallowtailgardenseeds.com. They have a wonderful selection of herbs, vegetables, annual, and perennial seeds. They also offer some organic seeds that I like for herbs and vegetables. I may or may not have planted too many...I am running out of room.

Geraniums.

I ordered four varieties and they are coming along wonderfully.

I needed a little color after the winter.

I found these little bottles at Ozarks Americana. They are so cute. I am thinking of hanging them over the kitchen island. Some little green ferns in them might be refreshing too.

We have been spending some time outdoors. Even Captain America is loving the spring days.

Curriculum Fair has come and gone and we have ordered all our curriculum for next year. Yay. SBA testing for Tanner is done. Yay. We are studying Space for the next few weeks in science which has resulted in several experiments. Very fun!

This was a good experiment and the boys repeated it until we ran out of baking powder. Then I looked up how to make a rocket using a water bottle, vinegar, baking soda, and a cork. It took a few tries because it is a fast reaction with those ingredients. We had a bottle shoot across the back yard spraying vinegar as it went. It was awesome!

Next week the boys have a booth at the Worlds Fair for our homeschool program. All the kids will have passports for visiting all the countries. We chose Egypt. It has been a blast to put costumes and information together. We have a lot of things we are going to try to put together. So next week I should have more pictures and possibly a time lapse video of the boys putting a Lego Egyptian Tomb set together.

Enjoy the Spring days!

Posted with Blogsy

A few months ago I placed an order on Knit Picks. I spent some time "dream shopping" with a few yarns and had added them to my online shopping cart. Well apparently I was not very attentive when I placed my order and so...I ordered my dream yarns with my order. Oops.

When I got my order it was to find that yarn that was soft, light, vibrant... utterly delicious. I bought it in three colors: Emerald, Azurite and Amethyst. They are part of the Diadem fingering weight yarns.

A friend of mine had a birthday last month and it was so fun to work with this yarn. It blocks amazingly well. I may have to order more, but on purpose this time. :)

Here is what I made. You can get the pattern here: http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/shaelyn I wanted a shawl that was long enough for a comfortable drape. I used 1 1/2 skeins of the Diadem yarn on this.

Below: this is before I blocked it. I was impressed by how well it opened up the pattern after.