Dressed up

S in her Easter dress with her kitty tail. The tail was part of S's Halloween costume, and has become an appendage.

H in her Easter dress in my grandmothers apple tree.

I spent a lot of time in this tree when I was little. I used to think I was so high up.

Dying and finding

The colors make me happy.

S taking it all in

As soon as the eggs are decorated, H and S want to eat them all. Its become a tradition that they each eat an egg before the dye is even dry. I remember the easter eggs of my youth, my mother complaining that no one would eat any of the eggs.

Then again, my mother bought at least 3 dozen eggs to dye each year, and that is too many hard boiled eggs to be eaten by anyone. Then there were the number of years where the egg quality was questionable. (This surely to be denied by by mother.) For example the Easter morning when I dropped an egg and it broke on the floor in front of me revealing its uncooked status, my mom exclaiming something to the effect of maybe she should have let them cook a little longer.

Action shot

The Easter bunny brought the girls cute fluffy bunnies in their baskets. The Easter bunny was thrilled to find two bunnies just different enough to be told apart, but similar enough to be equal. This turned out to be not a problem at all as one of the bunnies has morphed into a cat.

S pins the ears on hers down with her hand and introduces her bunny as a kitty. When she asks "where my kitty!?" we help her find her bunny. This seems to be the way it goes with her- before we know it she'll have everything renamed and we'll be left confused and wondering how this happened.

Pruning

S loves to cut. She'll sit for a long time with her scissors and some paper and happily make confetti. I've learned that she can cut tiny pieces of paper without cutting her fingers and so far she has kept her cutting to the paper she's allowed to cut. Better still is that with her neat freak gene I can give her a bowl when she's done cutting and she'll pick up all the pieces of confetti and put them in the bowl for easy recycling.

I have been using this love of cutting to my advantage- but until recently only for the time it provided me to do something else while S was busy cutting.

I was outside trying to clean up the garden, S was resisting and no amount of digging, bubbles or the usual outside antics were working. But THEN, I went in and got her scissors and we both spent some time getting the garden ready for spring planting.

The possibilities are endless.

Rescue

This morning H and I were making our way through a parking lot on the way to a store. We looked down and there were many worms on the black top after yesterdays hard rain. Some were wriggling about, other had met their wormy maker.

H was at first disgusted. We walked towards the store, H checking the bottom of her shoes every 2 steps. Then she stopped, "We should help those worms." I took a breath to begin the explanation of why we shouldn't. How we couldn't possibly help every worm, how it would be out of the frying pan into the fire with all those birds waiting in the bushes. I stopped, and agreed. We walked back to the car, thankfully H had a select group of worms in mind to save, not the whole parking lot. She wouldn't touch them, but directed as I picked up worm after worm and threw them to "safety". There really was quite a bird feast going on in those bushes.

Finally satisfied that we had rescued enough worms, we headed back to the store. H smiled at me, held her hand up and said "high five!" All in a days work.

The gift card

One of the many gifts H received from her classmates was a gift card to Target. I was surprised and amused at first, it seemed a strange gift for a 6 yr old. Not looking a gift horse and all that, I was never for a second ungrateful (perhaps a little envious, as I am shameless in my love of Target) I just thought it was odd. Because it was not something I would have thought of.

H was excited to use her card- I refrained on more than one occasion from suggesting how she should use it. I told her we'd go shopping one morning that H was on spring break when S was in school, about 10 days since she got her gift card. No argument, no 'are we there yet', 'is it time yet',' when are we going', etc.

A few days ago, H whispered to me that she was going to use some of her gift card to get something for S, too. She wanted to get her a teddy bear, she was going to make a card and tape a lollipop to it. She was so excited, and I had tears in my eyes that she had this idea. I said it would be a very nice thing to do, but tried not to make a big deal out of it. It really would be ok for her to use her gift card on herself, should she change her mind. I wondered if she'd stick to her plan (although she has never NOT stuck to a plan).

H came home from school one day last week with a heart shaped card with rainbows and peace signs drawn on it "This is for S's surprise" she hiss-whispered spit in my ear.

This morning, we dropped S off at school and headed to Target. H quickly decided on a stuffed Maltese that came with the name Princess and its own carrying case. Then she found a very soft polar bear for S. (S often demands "where the polar bears?" then her eyes fill up with tears when you don't have an answer. "The zoo" and "the arctic" don't suffice.)

We came home and H taped the card and a lollipop (that I found in the bottom of my bag from a trip to the bank a while ago) to the bear, and took it to school to surprise S. H was so happy that S was happy, and I had to pinch myself to keep from sobbing at the warm fuzziness of it all.

Six

H turns six today.

After celebrating all weekend, with 2 parties in one day- the actual birth day seems anti-climactic, but real. All weekend I wasn't thinking she was any older, because for me its all about the day. She was still 5 years and 363 days old at her party. No cause for alarm. But, now shes 6. (well, not until around 7 tonight. I guess thats pushing it. Fine. Shes six. I can handle it.)

I hadn't intended on having 2 parties, by the way. We invited 25 of her closest friends to a moon bounce party- which was great despite my freaking out about the number of kids- great also in that its 2 hours long, and then its done. Except for us, we had family over, dinner, cake again, and lots of presents. The partying continued into the night.

H is, of course, wonderful. And beautiful. And smart. I keep looking at her marveling at how she came from J and I- sometimes I see pieces of us in her, but mostly it's all her, and thats amazing.

S makes a print

I have been stuck. For what seems like forever.
Someones working- these pictures light up my soul in a way that can only be as corny as it sounds. The very best part is that I swear up and down I didn't put her up to this. She said she wanted to go to the tude tude (whenever S uses her word for studio, I get "going to a go-go" in my head and have to answer her with a Mich Jaggar-esque "Every-bo-tay..") She wanted to "Roll. Right there." And I lived vicariously through her printing. The whole thing was done in about 5 minutes- but it was a good five minutes..

She draws.

She rolls.

She rolls some more.

She contemplates.

She contemplates some more.

She uses the barren... (printing on the back of a print of mine)

A print. Is that beautiful or what?