Washing soda crystals can be made to grow very quickly, and we decided to test this out. Turns out, it's true! Dante is holding a pipe cleaner with far too many "seed" crystals on it, which is is about to dip into our supersaturated solution. Evidently, we should have used "a" seed crystal, rather than a gazillion. But, as you can see below, we still got a nice looking set of crystals in less than half a hour.
Yipee!! We got to celebrate Valentine's Day out in the snow! A first for us this year -- it hasn't snowed enough until now.
My dad bought this contraption at a tag sale, and it flies. Especially on icy snow. Do you see Dante hanging on the back?
The worst part of sledding is the walk back up the hill. Especially when the "snow" consists of freezing rain balls.
The playscape gets some winter action.
Lucia has had enough. Time for cocoa. And to put the bread in the oven.
Dante and Lucia helped make ciabatta for dinner to night. Yum!
This place is called Great Adventure. Judging from the cages, perhaps a more apt moniker would be Great Escape.
Snuggle Buggle.
We headed up to the Magic Wings Butterfly Conservatory in Deerfield, MA yesterday -- 80 degrees and humid without getting on a plane! Yipee!
This is Pebbles, one of a pair of lizards the staff will take out and let you pet. If I recall correctly, this species lives 50 years.
Rupert the chameleon didn't come out for a visit, but look at his cool hands!
And lastly, all jammied and buckled up for the car ride home after a yummy felafel dinner/Herrel's ice cream in Northampton.
Daddy skates backwards while Dante tries to catch him.
We've been playing with wool lately, and are trying our hands at needle felting. Can't seem to find the strawberry, guess I should have made a cluster. But you get the idea. It's pretty easy, just takes some patience. Basically you bunch up the wool and stab it numerous times with barbed needles until it's in the shape you want. Without stabbing yourself, which is the tricky part. Dante has made a flower and designed a small ball which I helped him felt. It's so exciting to watch things take shape as you go along.
I'm not sure it's sugarplums dancing in their heads...this was from the photoshoot for a christmas card photo, which we never printed.
Hey, that dress looks familiar!
Look what I can do... with long hair and jingle bell hair bands.
