Friday, October 26, 2018

Photo Friday: October Highlights

How can it be the end of October already?!!

This was our month of ducklings.  We ended up with just six out of twelve eggs hatching.




The first week or so, when they were adorable fuzz balls, the kids had a lot of fun playing with them.


 Now at just over three weeks old, they're already getting pretty big.  They are also a lot messier, and I am having to clean their pen every day, so I'm looking forward to moving them on to new homes soon.  The plan was to wait until they were about a month old and we could make a good guess as to the sex.  We wanted to keep one female.  The other five will to move along elsewhere.  (Duckling anyone?  They'll be the perfect size for Christmas dinner come December!)


Another big event this month was Sports Day at the kids' school.  My boys are really into running, so they were really looking forward to it.



I have no idea where their athleticism came from, but they both did well.  We also had our share of ... ahem ... learning opportunities.  You know, how to lose well, etc...  Still working on that.







 One of Brian's co-workers left this lovely decoration for Brian in his office before he left on furlough.  Kate was delighted, of course.


This week we roasted marshmallows indoors.  The store had marshmallows in stock, but it had been rainy in the evenings, so...






Speaking of rain, I'm really excited about this:

Cement culverts were put in the drainage ditch that runs along the uphill side of our yard.  During heavy rains, that ditch would often overflow and the water would run straight across the yard to our basement.  I can hardly wait for a downpour now to see how well the new culverts do at diverting the water away from my house!



 Just playing games on dad's Kindle.


And last but not least, some dance moves from the Sprinklesaurus:






Monday, October 1, 2018

September: Birthday, heights and no ducklings... yet

Here's some September photos for your viewing pleasure:

Still no ducklings.  By my calculations, they should have hatched four days ago, but I guess I was wrong.  I suppose that "35 days" is when they're in an incubator with perfectly regulated temperature and humidity. I really wanted to show you a pic of a day-old duckling, because, I mean, what's cuter than that?  But as of my writing this, four of the eggs have only just pipped (the first hole through the shell) this morning.  It could be another 24-48 hours.



"Baaa!"
 


We scheduled a trip to the dentist over the school break.


We have a new six-year-old in the house!  
 
Caleb had a Lego Ninjago-themed birthday party.
 

The balloon swords at Greg's party were a hit, so we carried that over to Caleb's party as well.
 


I was happy that Caleb decided last minute to do the green ninja and not the red one, because red frosting doesn't taste as good.


...and what good is a Lego birthday without some new Lego to play with?

 


Brian and I attended the wedding of two PNG colleagues.




 The new cherry picker that Brian ordered for his department finally arrived, so one weekend Brian took the kids down to try it out.  It goes a lot higher than the old one!





A view from up in the cherry picker.  You can't see our house from here, but if you follow that road up the hill until it turns to the right, you'll find our house.  This is Brian's daily commute up and down the hill.