Farm Girl

Here is our farm girl helping with her chores. She takes the job very seriously. Feeding the chickens by hand is one of her favorite things. It's usually a job she does with Papa after work (now that it is light out when he gets home! Hooray for light!) Our last batch of chickens were pretty wild but these 4 are so gentle and tame. They roam the yard for most of the day and are often on the back porch looking in. Sometimes they peck on the door as if to say, "Let us in!" I knew I wanted Fiona to be able to hold and pet and hand feed these chickens so we handled them a lot from the time they arrived as little chicks. Success! They crouch down as soon as we walk up to them and they often follow us around the yard in a little chicken parade. I think Fiona is on her way to becoming quite the farm girl. Now we just need to find her a real farm. Until then our 4 chickens will have to do.

My favorite part of the video is the beginning where she instructs them to say cheese! "Say cheese body."

Book Storage

The Papa built book case

painted and ready to go

The book lover

The Cindy sewn book sling

Finally we have some great book storage for all of Fiona's books. We love books and we have tons of them. It was always difficult to find a way to store them where she could see the covers. We have a solution! Actually two solutions.

Brian built the wooden bookcase using plans from Knock Off Wood. We love that website! She has posted tons of great plans for free. She's also a fellow Alaskan. We knew we wanted Fiona to be able to see the book covers and this fit the bill perfectly. Brian did an awesome job on it! I'm so excited that he is getting into wood working and have given him an armoire for all of my craft supplies for his next project!

The fabric book sling came from this tutorial on Penny Carnival. I've been wanting it for a long time. Due to a defunct sewing machine it wasn't happening. Then in a stroke of genius, I invited my friend Cindy over with her sewing machine (and skills). She read the tutorial and made short work of the project! Thank you Cindy, you rock! Fiona loves it. We have a handful of books for bedtime reading just above her bed. She loves it!

We have more books in storage in the closet which we'll rotate into the mix. We also got two boxes of books from the Craig, AK cousins! Such a treat. I actually remember reading many of those books to Jeremiah and Zach. It's fun to be reading them to Fiona now!

Yeah Books!

More Birthday Fun!

We celebrated Fiona's birthday as a family. We had her favorites for dinner... tias (quesadillas), beans, and tatoes (fried potatoes). Delicious! She loved us singing to her and enjoyed licking the frosting off of her cupcake. She also had fun opening her presents. Our good friends the Barnett's got her a Mr. Potato head! Her cousins from Ohio gave her a Raggedy Ann doll. Love the classics! Mama and Papa got her baby doll sling. She opened it, tried it on, and threw it on the ground and said "I no yike it!" Good thing we also had a cool "bike" for her too! That has her stamp of approval.

Another Trip Around the Sun!

Happy 2nd Birthday Fiona Aileen!
Mama and Papa love you so much!