Friday Fun

This is what Justin and Valen do together if you leave them alone, unsupervised and with several packages of sculpy clay.

two posts in one day! unheard of!

last weekend uncle luke came to visit from washington and he wanted to go to niagara falls. since we have been to the falls several times and have tons of pictures of us in front of the falls--and since none of the pictures of us with uncle luke turned out very good--i thought i would post some fun pictures of us at the falls, just not in front of the falls.



riley found a great hill to roll down and spent quite a bit of time doing so. she had grass and weeds and all sorts of stuff in her hair and grass stains on her NEW pants when she was done, but she had a great time!


i think they had more fun doing this than looking at the falls, AGAIN!


a picture to prove that black squirrels do cross the boarder! here we thought all this time that black squirrels live only in canada.



GOAT FARM

for the past several weeks we have been getting fresh goats milk from a local farm and making cheese out of it. we decided that we wanted to meet the goats that produce the milk for our cheese and our friends graciously took us along for the trip. riley had a great time looking at all of the animals. she wasn't so sure about touching them or getting to close to anything other than the cat, but she had a fun time anyway.


one of the more fun things was watching the little baby goats eat!

For those of you who have no faith in my blogging abilities!

so i told myself at the beginning of the year that i would be awesome at blogging. . . well you can see how well that has turned out. i wanted to blog every day, then it became every other day, then i settled for once a week, now it's looking like it might be once a month. but then i tell myself the only reason that i started blogging was so that those family and friends who are thousands of miles away can see pictures of our girls, so i don't feel too bad because i just took these pictures.

first day of "summer"
the weather was so beautiful the other day and we couldn't resist pulling out the swimming pool.


i love this picture because riley looks like she is in a juice box commercial!


cuteness with chocolate chip cookie on her face.


riley and miles having a great time!



the joys a hose brings!


i'm really hoping that we have more nice days and that we actually have a summer this year!

Chouinard Family Fun

So we have a lot of fun events as of late. I was having trouble with the camera, so it has taken me a while to post these, but here they are:




Kazoo Museum in Eden.
We went to the Kazoo Museum in Eden, NY with the play group last week. The museum itself was small, but Riley enjoyed looking at all of the different types of kazoos. She also really liked the gift shop, and being with her friends.


Here she is making her own kazoo.



It was difficult to take pictures and help Riley make her kazoo.




Here is the finished product. Riley was an expert by the end of the day.

It was a fun trip. I would suggest catching it when the corn festival comes in the fall.

Dyeing Easter Eggs:

We aren't huge into eating hard boiled eggs, so we only dye a dozen eggs each year--in fact we haven't eaten any since Easter--so they dyeing process is quick. If you blink you miss it, but we had fun. This and carving pumpkins are one of Justin's favorite things to do.

Justin gets just as involved as the kids and always thinks out and plans his egg--the girls get the majority of the eggs--very carefully.

I'm sure that here Valen is telling Riley what to do. Riley is pretty stubborn, so I'm not sure if she did what she was told to do.

We all had fun and turned out some really great looking eggs!



The Chouinard's Attempt to Plant a Garden:

We decided that we were finally going to attempt to plant a garden. Because we live in student housing we can't actually use the ground to plant a garden. And because we are cheap it has taken us several years of dumpster diving to get enough planters to make gardening worth it. We'll see if it works!

Riley loves digging in the dirt, and the fact that she got a new Dora shovel and permission to do so made it all the more sweet!

Valen wasn't as sure that this was her thing. She had fun planting her flowers, but then lost interest. I'm not sure gardening is her thing.

Justin was quite excited to finally get to do this. I just hope it works. We both come from ranching families, but neither of us know how to do the outdoor garden thing.


Easter Egg Hunt:

After planting our seeds, we had an Easter egg hunt outside for the girls. Our "backyard"--which is really a shared backyard with all of our neighbors--is fairly big, so we had a lot of room to work with, which is good because we had a lot of eggs!

I keep telling myself that Valen is too old to do this sort of thing, but I think she had more fun than Riley did!

Riley was crazy! She would run one direction, find a few eggs, and run clear across the yard to get a few more, and then switch back the other direction. I don't think she got very many eggs, but she sure got a lot of exercise!


Easter Morning:

The girl's made out pretty good this year--three movies a piece!

Valen has been a bit obsessed with Star Wars lately and I found a sticker book. She was a little excited.

Valenism

Tonight at dinner Valen tells me she wants to be an oceanologist.

"That's an oceanographer."

"No mom, I don't want to take pictures, I want to study the ocean!"

WHAT!?!

I found my first grey hair this morning. . .

Valen's First Meal

For one of her Faith in God requirements Valen had to help plan, prepare and serve a nutritious meal. She was very excited and enjoyed the planning process. She was only a little frustrated when I kept modifying things for her--such as telling her that she needed a whole grain pasta because white pasta doesn't count as nutritious. I bought all of the groceries and she helped make the meal. She spent the afternoon in the kitchen with Justin making dinner. On the menu was an organic whole grain pasta with organic locally bottled sauce; steamed organic broccoli--without cheese sauce; organic fruit kabobs and organic multi-grain bread. The meal was followed by a Family Home Evening lesson on following the Word of Wisdom. We talked about what foods are good for our bodies; what foods are a sometimes food and what things do not belong in our bodies at all. For dessert we had: brownies, ice cream, fudge topping and whipped cream--none of it low-fat or organic, because, like Valen says, "Sometimes my body needs sugar Mom."



Way to go Valen!