Girl's goin' bike ridin'

My parents bought this really neat bike for Victoria to ride. Actually I feel like it is more for me. Now I can ride my bike with a little more freedom. Anyway, this Hitchhiker bike attaches to mine but keeps the little one safe on the back. She absolutely loves it. I can even feel her pedal. Of course whenever I coast she picks it up a bit trying to go faster. I have to use the break alot and tell her to slow down. She feels invincible which worries me. Either way it is great to get out in this beautiful weather we have been having. This day we spent 2 hours riding on a bike path that leads down to the golf course. We watched the ducks and geese for a while before heading home. It was great!

GEIKO poster contest

Daphne won another poster contest. This time it was for the Geiko campaign for wearing your seatbelt. She won first place in her category for Highschoolers and $150. I really think the dinosaur egg in the carseat is what captured the judges.

Memories of Skooper

Last week we unexpectedly had to let go of Jared's beloved Skooper. She turned 9 on St. Patrick's Day of this year. (Here she is with her white sister Fern, or should I say "pink". Daphne loved the thought that her bunny was pink) 9 Years is pretty old for a bunny. She lived a pretty cush life for a rabbit. She started out her life living in a hutch with misters and ice blocks during the summer. Being let out during the day and put back for the night. Here she is when they were only a couple months old. They were the cutest bunnies. A little blurry. They never stayed put long enough for a picture. About the time I was extremely pregnant with Victoria, Kirk and Jared were out of town. It was up to me to herd them back into their hutch. (Her and her sister Fern) I had had enough of their mischievious behavior and said "fine, stay out!" Well, they got their way. They had complete run of the yard. Skooper will be missed. Now it is up to Ben to eat our leftover vegetable scraps and bananas that no one wants because they are brown. Skooper has done her share of bad bunny behavior in her time. There was a time she took up residence near the sprinkler valves for its coolness. We had noticed that the vegetation in our yard was looking a little crispy. We discovered that she had pulled the sprinkler wires out, and proceeded to strip all of the rubber coating off of each individual wire. And I mean all! There was once when one of the valves up in the back part of our yard was malfunctioning. Of course the first thing we checked were the wires. No problem, they were still intact. That is until I tugged on them and the wire came out of the ground disconnected. Skooper had severed them underground. I should have known, she had been tunneling right next to the valve. I am surprised that she never electricuted herself. Once(before we learned how destructive bunnies can be) the kids and I grew 126 sunflower seedlings. We transplanted them in the backyard. After about an hour of planting these wonderful seedlings we turned around to inspect our accomplishments only to find that every single one of those seedlings had been nibbled to the ground by Fern and Skooper! NO! YES they did! They were eating as fast as we were planting. She has been known to sever vines at the base of the plant leaving us with a completely dead vine clinging to the trellis. She was forgiven. So now she rests behind the gate that was built to keep her and other bad bunnies away from well loved flowers to nibble. The sign on the gate reads "No Bunnies Allowed". Kirk is presently building a new arbor for the grape vine. It should be beautiful. A perfect place to rest in peace.

The Infamous Milk Jug Igloo

Project Igloo is complete!

About a year ago Kaleb and I thought it would be a fun project to build an igloo out of milk jugs. We just needed to collect the jugs...no problem! Yeah...right. We collected for one year thinking that we must have enough to atleast get started. So in January we did just that. We pulled them out of the shed and started gluing them together with hot glue. We got only two rows down. Okay...so not enough jugs. So we called in reinforcements. We advertised on our Homeschool website that the Headleys needed milk jugs! Wow, we got a great response from several families. It was awesome. It still took 3 more months to build it. Everyone was drinking milk as fast as they could. We can't thank them enough for saving them for us. So here are the pictures that we promised you all. It was quite a project to do on our own. We used about 50 glue sticks and 227 milk jugs! Of course hot glue doesn't last forever when exposed to weather and we almost lost the whole thing in a wind storm. It will probably be hanging around for quite a while. It has become the place stretch the imagination.

The N.A.P.

I informed Victoria this afternoon that she really needed a nap today. Of course she is still claiming to be "giving them up". Jared started giggling and asked her..."don't you want to participate in the National Army Program?" It only took me a second to figure out the acronym. Victoria had a stern look on her face trying to figure it out. Very quickly, she pointed her little finger at him and declared "I don't like that program!" Needless to say, she was put down for a nap and chose to sing rather than sleep.

Daphne's Favorite.

Just kidding. Caterpillars really freak Daphne out. We have raised Painted Lady butterflies quite a few times. This time Kaleb and Victoria are observing this transformation. This was just about an hour before they changed into their chrysallis. It has to be the most bizarre of God's amazing creations. If you have never seen this you should really get yourself a Butterfly house from Insectlore and watch closely. The day the caterpillars came in the mail they were itsy bitsy. They grow so fast. Within a weeks time they start hanging from the lid. The gross part is they lose their upper body. Yuck! We came back an hour later and three of them had changed into a chrysallis. The other two did their thing the next day.

Oranges!!!

We are up to our eyeballs with oranges! Jared spent almost 2 hours climbing the tree, wall and on the roof harvesting oranges from our tree. We didn't realize really how many there were. He filled the sink twice. We all took our turn at juicing 6 gallons of juice. We froze most of it.

Through the Eyes of a 4 year old.

I was the only one who didn't seem to know that Victoria was snapping photos. I was relieved that she had the strap around her neck like her Daddy has taught all the kids. Probably something my own Mother should have learned a long time ago. She has been known to drop cameras in the ocean, tide pools, and I think the Kern River too. Anyway, she showed me all her pictures. It was sweet looking at what she thought was interesting.




Her collection of Blue's Clue.











A partially completed milk jug igloo.

Our neighbor's way too tall palm trees.

Daphne's Flowers

Here are a few pictures of many that Daphne took in our friend's backyard. She has definately inherited the artistic gene. The most simplest flowers can be the most beautiful. Like Daphne.

Gardening with Steve

While the kids were doing their Raku firing...Victoria was hanging out with Steve on the other end of the yard. They planted zuccini plants together. They also harvested an artichoke which Chrissy cooked up. It was tasty. We love artichokes.

Art with Larry

Larry is the kid's art teacher for the past 6 years. He does some pretty neat stuff aside from drawing and painting. He is a jack-of-all-trades in the art world. These are pictures of their Raku firing. It is a type of firing of pottery. They started out with pots that they threw on the wheel themselves and tiles. The glaze is a copper base that turns metalic. It is a pretty cool process. This is the Raku kiln that Larry constructed himself. It is hooked up to a propane tank which heats the overturned trash barrel insulated to withstand and extremely high temp.This is what it looks like before the piece is fired. These are mushroom tops. We have quite a few in our potted plants on the porch.
Here one of the pots is extremely hot and ready to be smothered in a can with a lid and newspaper in it. If I remember right the smoldering is what makes the glaze turn all different colors. Every piece has a unique finish.
This is Daphne's.