[FAMILY] Woodland Fairy Garden Party

I LOVE party planning - LOVE IT!! I put weeks and weeks of pinning, planning and dreaming up my littles big day - it's my gift to them. This years theme for Chloe was Woodland Fairy Garden (not sure what happened to mermaids...). We had fairy houses and wands to decorate, potted flower treat bags, toadstool sandwiches, chipmunk snacks and whimsical metal frogs on real moss covered logs standing guard at the entrance to the magical fairy princess' home.

What made this party so sweet, was certainly all the little details - vintage plastic doilies, mason glass cups with daisy lids and birch bark printed paper straws, silk flowers tied with twine, tulle butterflies, oversized tissue flowers and wood inspired plastic plates.

The food was simple and fun. Sandwiches cut with toadstool and heart cookie cutters, skewers of fruit (fairy wands), caramel popcorn (fairy clouds), hickory stick chips (fairy twigs), cheddar sunchips (tree bark), Babybell cheese half opened (ladybugs), banana chips (chipmunk snacks) and pink lemonade (nectar). For desert, there was pretty cupcakes, poppyseed lemon cake and chocolate pudding topped with oreo crumbs and a pretty silk flower popsicle stick (fairy garden).

In lieu of treat bags, every little fairy went home with a pretty potted flower, complete with a silk butterfly and a vintage inspired white eyelet pot.

Now onto planning my boys party....zombies. Time to switch gears...!

[LIVING LAB] Pond Exploration

The days are warming up, the songbirds are singing, the garden floor is erupting with life and my sluggish, hum drum winter mood is lifting. This can only mean one thing...SPRING HAS SPRUNG!!

Spring...oh wonderful, wonderful spring. My FAVOURITE season of the year - dewey mornings, longer days, promise and anticipation of summer. PURE BLISS.

With spring comes (drum role please) TADPOLES!! Our little local ponds are filled with those beautiful, gelatanous globs of eggs clinging to the reeds and dead branches. We had so much fun last spring raising tadpoles, that we decided to try it again this year. We collected two small clusters of eggs - one cluster has the typical black speckled frog eggs, and the other is a much denser egg cluster of light brown eggs, which we found a bit deeper in the water. We think they may be salamander. Wouldn't that be exciting!

We collected our eggs in a small cooler and were amazed when we transferred it to our container at home. That small sampling produced a magnitude of life. We counted at least twenty caddisfly larvae, a damselfly nymph and possibly dragonfly larvae (which we'll need to remove, as they'll both eat the tadpoles). We also have a funny creature swimming around just below the surface. We think it's a water boatman but are not quite sure...will try to get a photo of it.

[CHICKENS] New Fluffy Bums

Our new little crew of fluffy bums made their way into our living room yesterday afternoon. They are so-frickin'-cute, I can't stand it!

We made the long trek (and I mean LONG) to Beau Peep Farms to collect our little gals and 'accidentally' came home with one extra. We added a Mottled Houdan to our flock - she is such a beautiful and unique looking chick, that I just couldn't help myself. Oops.

Juniper is enjoying his new 'television' and heat lamp (because you know, the entire world revolves around him), and the kids are in love with their new pets. Oh and Maple, she has sniffed each one, given them a little lick and is now pretending they don't exist. Poor Maple...too many cute little critters in the house to steal her spotlight. Don't worry girl, you're still number one in our books.