A Few Forgotten Pictures

At the beginning of the summer we had the blessing of welcoming four new babies into the nest right outside my kitchen window.  The mama bird (or maybe it was the dad) even added flowers to the nest- on May Day, no less.  Emma and Ben had so much fun watching the growth and progress of the house finches, until one day we realized that three of them had left the nest and the remaining bird was making a frantic sound I had never heard before. We had no choice but to take a peek and see what the problem was.

The poor baby was buried under the other birds for so long that it had become encrusted in their waste, which had dried and prevented the bird's legs from forming properly.  After digging the bird out of the poo cement we realized both its' legs were broken and it wasn't going to be able to fly.  The parents had already abandoned the bird, so it was slowly starving to death.  It was clearly in agony.  Once I explained the situation to Emma, she ran downstairs and found a box and an Easter towel with birds on it.  She held it and sang to it the entire drive to the division of wildlife, where they put it to sleep.  It was a sad day at our house.  At least it was for me.  It didn't take them long to get over it because they were so excited about all the dioramas demonstrating Colorado wildlife.  

Later that night we grieved by having dinner at Costco.  And by dinner I mean we sat at a display picnic table and enjoyed a buffet of free samples.  Trenton threw the kids in the giant bear box.  I think they had died and gone to heaven.

Later that weekend, Laurie had us over to celebrate all of the May birthdays. 

The rest of this post is just a compilation of pictures that were on a drive I had forgotten about.  They don't have any particular relevance to each other.