Our New Life: Part II (winter, winter, winter, SPRING!)

The toads came out when the weather finally warmed up at the beginning of this month, and shortly after the toads came the eggs: hundreds of small black eggs floating along the shallow end of our mostly empty pool in their jelly-ish sack. Two weeks ago I noticed teeny tiny tadpoles swimming around the egg sacks and began regularly climbing down the stairs into the pool to keep a close watch on the life cycle of the American Toad. Eric is hoping to drain the pool at some point early summer so he can clean it out and see what it will take to get it working. We'll relocate all the toads down to the stream at that time, so I figure this is probably our only opportunity to have such a close-up view. And there are SO MANY toads in there. The kids and Eric have already emptied close to 10 buckets of them into the stream, and still I count 30-40 sitting around the edges on a sunny day. I haven't even tried to count the tadpoles...

I've been eager to share them with friends so we invited friends over last weekend, and as I was walking down the pool stairs to point out the egg sacks, I came down on the side of my foot with all my weight. The crunch was audible; the pain, manageable, but enough to let me know that it was likely broken. I climbed back out with help from my friend and settled on the pool deck to order pizzas for the kids. I spent the evening hopping on one foot. When that got exhausting, I dropped my hands to the floor and got around using a sort-of one-legged hopping mountain climber movement. I bought crutches the next day, which was just as exhausting of a way to get around, but at least I was upright.

On Monday the bone doctor confirmed that I'd fractured my fifth metatarsal. It's commonly referred to as a dancer's fracture. He put me in a boot and instructed me to return in 6 weeks.

I haven't been back out to the pool, but Eric said it's overflowing with tadpoles, and that he's never seen so many. I can put a little weight on my foot now so I'll probably try to sneak back out there later today.

I do have photos of the toads, but they'll be in the next post. I'm way ahead of myself story-wise and need to catch up on January through March first, so here it is: another 3-month photo dump that takes us back to winter....ugh! The trails were still clear at the beginning of January, and Joy could still get down to Bone Island for snack without getting buried in snow on the way there.

Then we got a little snow...that was fun. We found a great sledding hill behind our house. Jacob is not a big fan of cold-weather play, so we usually end up back inside pretty quickly while Hannah and Eric wear themselves out sledding

Then we went to school with Hannah, and she showed us all the number work she's been doing.

That snow mostly melted before more came, so we returned to Bone Island. Eric has since moved the below log; it is now part of a three-log bridge.

Uncle Justin came to visit in mid-January. 

It was chilly, but not too cold for 'smores!

Then the snow started. The first one didn't amount to too much (you can see the ground around  Hannah and her snowman below).

When it wasn't snowing, it was still pretty bitter cold, so we spent a lot of time indoors. Turns out Jacob likes dress-up every bit as much as Hannah. (He also really likes robots.)

Every time the temperature outside rose above 25 or so we took full advantage of the seeming warmth and took to the woods.

Although we don't typically do much of anything for Valentine's Day, we did make some dark chocolate covered strawberries a couple days later. Yum!

Okay, I know this next one seems weird, and I agree, but I wanted to share anyway. Hannah set up this shrine of sorts on the back of the sink with two lucky beans and this little regal kitty that Amy brought back for her from one of her trips to Japan. I love it when I walk into someplace mundane, like, say, the bathroom, and find a Hannah shrine. 

This next one was after one of the medium snows. I think we got about 4 inches. This one never melted though so all the big snows that followed added to this base.

Eric shoveled our super long driveway after this one which saved us from paying $60 to have a guy plow it. We had two more big snows after this, too big for Eric to shovel in a reasonable amount of time and with a reasonable amount of energy. Fortunately, we lucked out again with awesome neighbors, and these neighbors also have a tractor with a snow blower that they generously used to clear our path out of here following both subsequent snows.

Jacob loves helping with outdoor tasks!

Hannah and Eric built a snow fort after the last big snow.  The snow was taller than the dog by this point (not that that takes much) which made it impossible for both her and Jacob to walk through, so it didn't take long for cabin fever to settle in. 

 

Then the temperatures inched above freezing, and the snow started to melt, and we left our house to see if the fish in the cove had made it (they had).

At the beginning of March we returned to Hannah's classroom to celebrate her half birthday. Her summer birthday (and her mother's laziness) means that she had never had a chance to celebrate at school before, and it's such a beautiful celebration, that I wanted to make sure she didn't miss out completely. Since this is her last year in the children's house, this was our last chance. The children were already gathered in a circle when Jacob and I walked in at 11, and the sun with the months around it was already set up in the middle of the circle with a little candle in the middle of it. Hannah started at August and walked around the sun. After each lap, she paused so I could share her milestones that year with the class and show them a picture. After she'd made her final lap and ended at March, I passed out the chocolate zucchini mini muffins we'd made and an assortment of cut vegetables for the special birthday snack. I left the birthday book I'd made her in the classroom, and she shared it with her friends and teachers over the next few days. The laps around the sun are pretty small and didn't leave me much of a chance to take pics before I had to speak again, so this is the best I could do.

And then it was spring, and the rapidly melting snow was flooding the streets, and the sound of the car tires splashing through it combined with the warm sun streaming in through the car windows felt like freedom! Of course, it took FOREVER to melt at our yard, so we took our freedom to the playground near Hannah's school where we traipsed through the slush that still covered the path in some places and tried to wear out the dog who was losing her mind from lack of fresh air and exercise. We were all going a bit crazy by this point and were happy just feeling the warm sun on our faces. 

As soon as the snow was gone, the strange plant that I referenced in my last post burst through the wet soil adding it's purplish self to the otherwise brown landscape. I sent another picture to my friend Jeanne who managed to identify it as an Eastern Skunk Cabbage. The picture below shows the flower which pops up first, before the stem and leaves. It smells bad to attract the flies that pollinate it...awesome. They are everywhere in the woods, especially in the low parts that are really wet. In spite of their prevalence, I rarely smell it. Every once in a while I get a whiff of the gnarly-ness.

Cheeeeeeeeeeese!!!

The fog on this particular day made the woods look really magical and mysterious.

Hannah is into drumming lately and asking for drum lessons. In lieu of professional training, she is opting for lots of practice and prefers to practice outdoors on sunny days while perched on the concrete sewer top thingy (likely the only warm spot in the yard at the time the picture was taken).

We finally made it to the zoo during spring break to see the not-so-new-anymore penguin exhibit. It's really nice, but it was pretty cold that day so the penguins weren't terribly active.

Nesting children!

Jacob found this comfy seat and threw a fit when Hannah joined him. He is visibly mad and trying to push her off in most of the pictures I took.

And then it snowed again. Arggghh! It dusted every single branch of every single tree so that I couldn't help admiring it in spite of being totally over winter.

We haven't taken Hannah to the family concerts at the BSO since Jacob was born, and I've been wanting to get back into it and see how he does, so one weekend when Eric was out of town, we joined Kylie and her mom. Remind me not to do that again. Jacob refused to sit still. After running up and down the stairs in our section a few times, he bolted for the door and made it out into the hallway where he took off running. I caught up to him and brought him back, but after the third time, I gave up trying to restrain him. I left Hannah with her friend and let Jacob run around on in the lobby. He's clearly not ready for the symphony.

He did better at Tales &Tails at the Irvine Nature Center where he got to pet a toad after a few stories. This was before our pool was overflowing with toads so it was still a novelty.  Now he catches toads almost daily, and it's all I can do to keep the kids from bringing them indoors.

More on toads to come...April is full of toads, and I'm going to try really hard not to get so far behind that I'm dumping 3-months worth of pictures on you at a time anymore.

Our New Life: Part 1 of a Massive Photo Dump

Hannah and I were teary-eyed before going to sleep for the last time in our old house, but we adjusted to country life pretty quickly. For the first time for this city kid, fall meant a whole yard full of leaves and grass to sprawl out and roll around in!!

Plus streams to splash in (this tiny one runs in front of our house by the street)!

This next one of the stream out front has a hidden child.

Fall also means Grandfriend's Day at Hannah's school. Here's Hannah showing Grammy how to write a story with the moveable alphabet.

While Grammy and Hannah were at school, the boys and I played in the woods and threw rocks in the bigger stream on the north side of the house. All the rock-throwing pics were blurry, but here's one of Mason wielding a stick like a sword.

We took a break from our yard for Hannah's once-a-month Art Kids preschool program at the Walter's. Younger siblings are not supposed to participate (or even come really, though that's often impossible), but Hannah has been a regular since age 3, and this particular class was small, so they let Jacob squeeze in and try out painting for the first time. He loved it!I signed him up for the Art Tots classes as soon as he turns 2.

Back to the yard: We had a beautiful fall here with a lot of really mild days that were perfect for crunching through leaves and exploring our new place.

Eric cut a piece of wood and used some rope to tie it to a tree by the house. It's pretty rudimentary, but the kids love it.

Snacks are often more delicious when munched from a partially rotting log while tickling your bare toes in fallen leaves.

Hannah and Eric stuffed the scarecrow again this year, but there were no passing pedestrians to enjoy it. I used to enjoy watching the reactions from my perch near the front window.

Hannah wanted to be Elphaba this year so I bough her a witch costume. The rest of us jumped aboard the bandwagon and dressed up as Oz characters as well. Eric got this awesome evil monkey costume, we found a cute lion costume for Jacob on Craig's List, and I got pushed into being Dorothy, a decision I followed through with begrudgingly, especially considering the big drop in temperature that happened right in time for Halloween. It was our first time picking a theme (and my last time picking anything with non-face flesh being exposed to air), but since it took a lot of the thinking out of it for me, it will not be our last. From now on, I'm going to let Hannah and Jacob decide what to be, and then I'm going to pick something in that theme.

For the second year in a row, we spent Halloween in Rodger's Forge with our good friends who snapped this picture of us. 

I didn't feel like fussing with the green face paint for her school party, so she's just a witch here. the adorable lamb is one of her closest friends.

I walked into Jacob's room after nap one day to find Hannah in the crib with him and both of them giggling uncontrollably.

It was fun watching Kaya tentatively explore her new outdoor space.

Hide-and-seek has so many more options out here!

Dance parties are a regular event around here. During this particular dance party, Hannah broke out her old flower girl dress to make it a fancy-dancey party.

So far we have still not grown tired of watching the deer cluster around the bird feeder at dinner time each night.

Having never before lived beyond the confines of the concrete jungle, I found all kinds of amazingly beautiful things that I took pics of to show Eric when he returned home from work each day, like this sprouted acorn....

...and this one, which lost its hat...

...and this piece of bark with a really pretty pattern of roundish shapes on the inside...

...and, on a larger scale, this tree, under which I found the above things. In spite of having a kabillion trees, this is the only good climbing tree, so that's a bit of a bummer, but at least there's one!

This access trail runs along the north side of our house and used to be a driveway to an old farm house back there. Just north of this trail is the big stream, and on the other side of that is a development. The old farm house is still there though mighty run down and can be accessed from the development. When the developer was buying up plots, the previous owner of our home, who originally only owned the land up to this trail, bought up the stream and woods on the other side of the trail, which is awesome since that was the main appeal of this place.

I love it when they play nicely and quietly together!

Jacob thought Kaya might like some crackers for a snack...

...and a kiss.

In addition to joining Hannah in her many art projects, he also shares her love of dress-up.

This is the big stream I keep talking about, the one on the north side of the house.

There are tons of big trees along the edge with partially exposed roots that the kids love to play in. I love how they look!

Hannah spotted this marbled orb weaver (which we called "Camo Orange Spider" until my friend Jeanne told me the true name).

My dad brought down a riding mower that he'd refurbished so Eric could cut the grass once before winter. Other than that, it's been used primarily as a kiddie ride.

We took another break from our yard one morning to visit Port Discovery before the Curious George exhibit left.

And then the snow started.....just a little at first, but this much before Thanksgiving is crazy and was not a good omen. We had fun though and promptly start rolling balls in an effort to get them big enough for a snowman.

We spent an awesome Thanksgiving at my aunt's and uncle's house this year. I love any excuse to get the crew together, and a holiday is a pretty good one. Somehow, in spite of the snow being patchy, we managed to build this huge snowman.

No trip to my aunt's is complete without a little target practice!

And then it was December. We bought a real tree this year, just to see how it was. We were not impressed and do not intend to do it again. It was my first real tree ever, and honestly, I thought the smell would be more noticeable. Everyone talks about the awesome smell of a real tree, but I didn't notice much of a smell at all. Here's what I noticed: lots of pine needles constantly on my floor, weak branches that can't hold most of the ornaments, and a constantly crooked/falling tree. To be fair, that last one was probably due to the tree stand. In addition, there's the environmental factor which has always been a big enough deterrent for me in the past (I realize that there's an environmental impact to manufacturing fake trees as well, but since we already have the tree, that seems a moot point, one better used on someone who is considering buying a tree). Oh, and there's the cost: pay $60 for all that trouble, or put up the plastic one that we've had for eons. The latter it is!

This year Eric let Jacob try to put the star on first.

And then he let Hannah finish the job.

Jacob liked the idea of decorating but thought he was a better canvas for all those lights than the tree.

December was mild, so we enjoyed lots more outdoor time.

We used the pallets that the insulation came on to stack up some firewood.

And then Hannah's long-term wish came true: she got a dog. This is Joy. She's a little shih tzu who belonged to my uncle's late father. She's 6 and very sweet. Although she's not bred for this filthy outdoor lifestyle we live, she loves it! There's a little island of rocks in the big stream that we named Bone Island because there was a pretty close to a full animal skeleton on it when we moved in. Joy loves, loves, loves Bone Island. She hops down there using the stumps we stacked up, finds a bone, and happily gnaws away.

She also keeps my feet warm while I work.

As usual, we had two Christmases this year, the first a few weeks early with my family. As usual, I neglected to take photos and had to steal these from my cousin, Kim.

Clay and Mason got Ninja Turtle get-ups from someone, and walkie talkies from us.

Ok, another abrupt topic shift: does anyone know what this plant is? It looks like a bulb from the top, but as you can see from the photo below this next one, it's not. It grows all over the place around here mostly in the lowlands where it's really wet. And it was sprouting in the winter--how weird is that? Now that they snow is melted, there are a ton more, but they're purple and yellow now. I took a picture, but it's still on my phone and will have to wait until my part 2 photo dump.

We took a long walk on Eric's birthday through the woods on the south side that don't belong to us, but did belong to the woman we bought the house from. The whole thing was her family's land for hundreds of years. Unfortunately, she sold the south woods and the parts shown in the photos below to a developer and McMansions are now pending. Grumble, huff.

Our second Christmas lasted for a week, starting with Eric's birthday on Monday. The next day we took his parents and the kids to the hibachi grill for an entertaining dinner. Eric and I were the only ones who'd been before so we  had fun watching everyone else watching. Jacob loves all things flammable, but even he shied away from this giant of a fire.

I think Hannah would have liked it more if there were more space between the fire and her seat.

She did like the shrimp-catching part; who doesn't?? She even caught one, much to her surprise (and ours). I never catch them, but I'm always game to let a few smack me in the face while I try!

I love this picture of Jacob; he's so James Dean, minus the cancer stick. I'm pretty sure I like the first one best, but I had to share the second one too.

The kids loved reading all the wonderful books that Grannah and Granpah picked out for them.

The highlight of Hannah's Christmas was this shooting star necklace from her grandparents that has a real piece of meteorite in it. She wore it nonstop, including while showering until that chain broke. We put it on another chain, but this one is pretty big so she has to take it off when she swims or it falls off without her even realizing it.

They both ended up with cute knitted hats. Jacob's, shown in the picture below this one, is a dog and gets a ton of compliments from people wanting to know if I made it. Hah! Scarves people--I am limited to crocheting scarves.

Joel came in time for Christmas and stayed through the weekend so there was plenty of time to join us by the camp fires we've had pretty regularly since moving here (until the snow hit, that is). He also spent some time panning for gold in our stream. Sadly, this was not a successful venture.

Hannah's friend, Kylie, came over the following week, and the girls packed their backpacks full of snacks, toys, and books, and then went out for a walk in search of the perfect place for their picnic.

That wraps up 2014 in whatever the opposite of a nutshell is. I should read back through and edit, but honestly, I just want to be done with 2014. It took me forever to get this far, and I still have 3 months of pics from this year to get posted. So, no judging on any editorial mistakes I'm sure I made!