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day 2360: Odin The Merry Maker!

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odin recently proclaimed that he wanted to make christmas gifts for all his friends. while quite an ambitious goal, it’s perfectly reasonable considering he’s stated his belief that homemade things are always waaaaaaay better than things from a store.

he’s carefully considering what each friend might like and decided that one friend in particular would surely enjoy a red cape for “playing knights”.

so, with a little help from mama, odin sewed a cape!



odin, modelling his creation. it turned out quite nice! we’re super proud of him for taking on such a great project. i’m sure his friends will really enjoy his handywork.

time for an odin etsy store?

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day 2345: ’tis the season for christmas tree huntin’ and zip line ridin’!

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it’s that time of the year to make the trek to our local "cut your own" tree farm to procure the perfect christmas tree!

some might recall from previous years that our favorite local tree farm – snowy ridge in westby, wisconsin – also has a a giant tree house and zip line and a warming house with hot cocoa and cookies. so, really, what more could you ask for? and as an added bonus, thanks to a recent snow fall, the place was transformed into a winter wonderland.

after years of having a slim selection of mature eastern white pines ( our family favorite ), the farm has plenty available after planting a bunch a few years back. it’s almost doesn’t seem as fun now that we can just walk in and find the perfect tree without having to trek to the farthest reachest of the property.



i always wonder what sort of insurance rider they have to carry with a zip line on the property, since it seem a bit risky especially when everything is icy anbd slippery and the kids are encumbered with winter gear. hi. ho. all in the name of good wintery fun!



true to its name you can really get zipping on the zip line!



the zip line ends in this awesome tree house which i’d love to recreate in our backyard with a line running from our house.



in keeping with tradition, after felling the tree and riding a zip line, one must warm one’s bones in the toasty warming house while sipping hot chocolate and dreaming of christmas morning.

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day 2345: six years of parenting pays off with the first snow of the season.

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we got our first good snow fall of the season last night with a 4 or so inches covering the ground, which means, of course, that it’s time to get out the shovels and The Community Snow Blower to clear out the driveway and sidewalk and make paths to the chicken coop and sauna.

never one to be shy of The Elements, odin has been helping me shovel snow for years with great determination and gusto even if he hasn’t been able to move great amounts of snow. and last year he even helped me on occasion operate the snow blower, though it was a bit of an effort for his five year old muscles to lug it around for extended periods of time.

but now he’s almost six and a half years old and apparently all the training has paid off. this morning he was excitedly shoveling snow off the front walk and sidewalks before i even finished my first cup of coffee. and as if that wasn’t enough work, he told me he reeeeaaaaalllllyyy wanted to snow blow the entire driveway – all 100 feet of it.

and, sure enough, he happily did just that for. over. two. hours.

i hope he remembers his zeal for snow removal when he’s a teenager 🙂

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day 2324: life without video games. or fun with a deck of cards!

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if you’re really, really old, you might recall life before video game consoles. a simpler slower, time when on gray, cold mornings you might see a deck of cards and spend hours finding different things to do with it, like building a house of cards.

i can actually recall spending many such mornings in my youth toiling away at building card houses so amusing to see odin has developed a similar interest.

this design by Odin the Engineer might look a look slap-dashed together but it’s remarkably sturdy and, most importantly, resistant to having a small collapse bring down the entire structure.



next, Odin the Engineer went on to experiment with multilevel structures which are quite challenging but no match for odin’s patience and persistence. it really is a great way to test your fine motor skills!



after hours of building card houses, Odin the Engineer invented a way to demonstrate the domino effect with cards by figuring out how to line the cards up so that they would stay standing until he tipped the first one over which would tranfer it’s energy to the next one would would tip over and transfer it’s energy to the next one and so on and so forth.



it’s quite a clever design – i think we’ll have to buy a few more decks of cards to see how long a chain reaction he can make.

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day 2311: odin The Very Ferocious Bear.

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this halloween odin wanted to be a Very Ferocious Bear who, apparently, wears rainboots.

kris did a fine job whipping up an intimidating costume for him, although i kept slipping up and telling him how cute he looked and he kept reminding me how ferocious he was.

we started the evening by attending a fun production of the lion, the witch and the wardobe at a local park but i was dressed as tall, dark, creepy, black caped and hooded alien without a face and just a hint of the angel of death costume which did a good job of unnerving adults & children but made taking photos impossible.

i did manage to get a cute photo of odin The Very Ferocious Bear and a Princess friend before donning my mask.



later, odin The Very Ferocious Bear met met up with some buddies and hit the streets to scare the heck of local townsfolk. or, rather, briefly stun them with their overwhelming cuteness so they would hand out just a bit more candy than usual.



the gang meets up with some friends while out and about in Search of Sugar.

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day 2308: odin discovers an extra special gift in the nesting box.

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it’s been a fun week of collecting eggs from The Girls. whichever one of them started laying has learned to lay in the nesting box instead of randomly around the coop and odin has been super excited to get up in the morning & grab fresh (& warm) eggs from the boxes.

so far we’ve been getting an egg a day from the eight birds which for some reason made me think that only one of the girls has been laying, but it’s hard to know for sure since all the eggs are brown. there’s less and less daylight every day which lowers production, so for all we know three or four of The Girls could be laying every few days instead of one hen laying every day.

today was extra exciting because we found not one but three eggs! so, more than one of The Girls has started laying. and we know for certain the source of one the eggs since it was a pretty pastel blue-green color.

a colored egg can only mean our ameraucana has started leaving us little tasty treasures.

so fun to watch odin grab the eggs, without forgetting to say “thanks!”, and race back up to the house to excitedly show his mother the latest gifts from The Girls.