Mother's Day weekend

Here's my mom, and the little person who made me a mom, caught in one of my mom's favorite baby activities.

I almost said that this was the best Mother's Day ever, but then that would leave this out:

That was last year at Happy Hollow, and it's one of my all-time favorite Gwen photos.

Plus, there's this little gem at a picnic with my sister-in-law's family. It's super-short (I don't think I knew I was taking a movie, actually - the camera was my MD present.) (Hey, look at me - I uploaded a video!)

And of course, there was Mother's Day 2006, which was when I got my best present ever: it was the day after we found out we were pregnant.

Still, this weekend was pretty dang special. And I have zero pictures to prove it. I had the camera with me - I just didn't use it.

Keidi's little girl showed up on Tuesday, so on Saturday we took some lunch over to the newly expanded family. Eliana is very small! I look at her, and I look at my big tall girl, and it's hard to imagine that she was that tiny. Then I pick Eliana up, and my arms remember, and my body starts to sway, and I think, oh yeah. I had one that was this little, and this fragile. She's so sweet. When I introduced her to Gwen, she turned her little head and really focused on Gwen's face. So cute! The little sister baby!

Then Calvin decided all the guys should go to see Star Trek, so he and Jim called Kevin to see if he could go, and Alejandro (Keidi's friend Amy's husband,) and all the girls got together after naps and had dinner together. We had all sorts of little people running around the house, and one making little squeaky grunts before falling asleep again. I love our little group.

On Sunday, I got to sleep in, and Gwen brought me a Happy Mother's Day balloon which she promptly proclaimed was hers. We had breakfast and hung out and eventually went for a hike. The thing was, I had a bigger day planned, and then we downscaled, and at the last minute I decided I didn't want to deal with the camera, so I left it in the car. We were just a Henry Cowell, after all - we go there all the time. But we went down a different trail, one with a massive hill that we haven't been on since Rosie died. Then Gwen wanted to see the creek, so we went down to the little clearing where Rosie used to wade. And stayed there, because it was cool and pretty and private. Gwen threw rocks in the creek to the see the splash. I threw sticks in the creek to watch them float downstream. Jim climbed up on a log to watch us. Gwen kept chattering away, doing her little running dialogue about everything she does and sees. There was a little breeze, and it was green and sun-dappled and fantastic. I really wished I had brought my camera, but it was kind of nice to just relax and enjoy the moment, too. Gwen figured out the she could wade in the stream. She found a stick that was much longer than she is, and she kept throwing it into the creek, fetching it, and throwing it in again. Having a dog first really was good training. It was a great afternoon, with Rosie's spirit right there with us - I swear I could see her smile.

These are pictures from the Friday before Eliana, some of my favorite moms ever...

Shanon and Danny

Stacy and Ryan

Keidi and Adessa

Me and my girl

Easter roundup, pt 2 - Dying Eggs

Gwennie luurrrvvvvs herself some Easter. It's nearly Mother's Day, and she's got both her new bunnies out and they're all looking for Easter eggs. (Mama, on the other hand? A little tired of stepping on plastic eggs. Even if they do morph into baby turtles or trains on occasion.)

But from a toddler's perspective, what's not to love? No scary monsters, no doorbells to ring (for the life of her, Gwen did not understand why those people didn't ask her in, already.) There's this fun game where you look for bright colored objects, and then when she realized they had candy in them? Whoo to the capital Hoo!

Plus, we went to dye Easter eggs and Uncle Scot's and Auntie Kathleen. Visiting them rocks Gwen's world anyway, and this time there were presents and messes to made as well. Auntie Kathleen found an apron for her, and off we went.

First, there was the careful observation part. You dump the what in the where?

Oh, I see. Put the egg in there!

I can do that. Mama and Daddy may have to save me from dumping dye everywhere, but I can do that.

Here's all of us getting started.

Uncle Scot gets his crafty on. His egg was definitely the star of the show - multiple layers of colors, finished off by dabbing pink spots on with a QTip. But did I take a picture of the finished project? Oh no. But I did enjoy eating it.

Daddy did a pink one.

and here we are finishing up. No actual clothes were damaged, which was a win.

Gwen is pulling her hair out because we ran out of eggs to dye.

Wow, you have to really like us to plow through all these pictures. What can I say? We're cute.

Easter roundup, pt 1 - BC Hunt

Our first Easter activity was an Easter Egg Hunt at my old stomping grounds, Redwood Elementary. It made me a little sad to be back there; I have such great memories of my first year teaching there. And it was such a beautiful school. It still is, but the gardens and the playgrounds are breaking down. It's been 6 years after all.

We had the usual crew there for the hunt and a picnic - Gwennie, Ryan, Adessa, Daniel, plus Elijah and Jaden. There was an Easter Bunny who fascinated Adessa and deepy disturbed Ryan. Gwen wasn't thrilled with him either. She wanted to check out the hen and the chickens.


And hunt for eggs! Gwen, turn around! The eggs are in the classroom!













That's better. Gather them up!














Oh, look! Something shiny - I mean, round and bouncy!













Danny had the hang of it.













Ryan brought his usual attention to detail to the task.

















I have no idea what I did to make Adessa look so supermodelish.

Then we ate our picnic, played on the old playgrounds, and went home.

Kaboom

I have Easter photos. I have new snow photos (thanks, Kathleen!) And zoo stuff. But, my friends, things keep happening around here. I have more breaking news, although there are no bones this time.

There are trees. Trees falling in the rain and blocking in the neighbor's kid's playdate. Trees falling and making the manly men* of the top of Grace Way use little wimpy chainsaws** to clear the tree out so the poor little girl could go home.





Ok, it was only one tree, which wasn't really a tree, but more like an overgrown bush. But it had three trunks, and two of them crashed last night. In the middle of a little rainstorm that left white spots on my camera when I tried to document the manly men and the wimpy chainsaw.





And there was a child with a cast who was out in the rain watching the manly men and the wimpy chainsaw and the fallen tree until she said, "less go inside, Mama!" and then, "but what about me? You wanna take camera of me?" because she's two and talks like that.

As if I was going to post without a picture of her.




My new view. It's still pretty good, but hooboy, the front of the house is going to bake this summer. We're going to have to take down the third trunk, too - it's toast. Hello, telephone pole! Let's be friends!













Poor tree. Poor yard.











*That would be Jim and Bruce. They made it look good, baby!
**Bruce claims it's Karin's chainsaw (which a. now I want my own chainsaw, and b. oh, sure, Bruce. Thanks for the help!)

The Warrior Princess

Gwennie's still roaming around the house shouting, Let's find Easter eggs, Mama! SoI guess I'm not too terribly behind with the post. Even if it does cover most of the month.

But first, this news:

I was going to say, breaking news, but that was a little too close to the bone. Whoops! I went and did it anyway.

The remarkable Lady Gwendolyn busted her little arm this weekend, after jumping off her changing table (well, not leaping, but Jim had told her to stay put, and she decided she didn't want to, so it wasn't as if she slipped) on Friday night and then faceplanting on concrete Sunday afternoon. My beebee's first ER visit! Her mama is so proud (not!)

It's not really that bad an injury, since her bones are still so flexible. It's a fracture, rather than a snap-in-two break. Essentially, the bone on the side of her left wrist buckled when she landed on it the second time, which is very common in kids her age. There's a fiberglass splint underneath that wrap. She's hated up until today, when I actually want to take it off to give her filthy little body a bath. Now she won't let me near it.

The ER visit wasn't too bad, if you don't count all the crying, and the two parents holding the toddler down on the X-ray table, and the screaming when the toddler saw the doctor, and the forcefeeding of painkillers down her throat. That went on for a couple of days, actually. On the plus side, the painkillers make her loopy and very very happy. She's had a couple of sleepers sacrificed to the large lumpy appendage on her arm. Other than that, she just runs out of energy and cheerfulness more quickly than normal.

We'll get around to the actual Easter post soon....

My little toughie. She got that right after Tia Elvi told us how girly she is.

A girl and her books

It started pretty early....

...and it's just kept going.....

and growing.

Everybody gets in on the action...

even Rutherford.

Story time. We have lots of them.

Snow Day the Second

Remember when I said I'd blog about the second snow day when Auntie Kathleen and Grandma Jill sent me some pictures? Well, this is what I've got so far. That's Gwennie and Auntie Kathleen, outside of Pioneer on the last weekend of March. We had a great time - got there Friday night, Grandma Jill and Papa came on Saturday for a pancake breakfast, then we bundled up and hit the sledding hill. Gwen rode down the hill with Uncle Scot, snowballs were thrown, and snowmen were built. Gwen keeps asking to go back.
Kathleen has a lot of really great pictures, so when we get them transferred, I'll add more.