Birthday Girls

We celebrated a couple of birthdays recently.  My lovely little Lu turned five and she is so excited because as far as she’s concerned kindergarten is right around the corner.  At dinner on her birthday she asked me if she was officially five yet.  I told her yes, she had been five for about twenty minutes.  She  pushed back her chair looked down at her outstretched legs and exclaimed, “Wow! It worked! My legs really are longer!”  We could not stop laughing!

The things that girl says!  Today Elle had a little accident with Erik and started crying.  Alyx very sternly told us, “That is why we should not keep babies in the house.”  We never know what is going to come out of that mouth.  She definitely keeps us on our toes.

Elle had a nice little birthday party and woke up the next morning wanting to spend the day like this:

My poor little lady was sick for the next few days, along with Erik (still sick), and Sean.  It’s been quite the house to be in this past week. 

But there are always moments that make up for the ick.  After church all my girls wanted to snuggle with Daddy.  Oh, my lucky ladybugs.  What a gift to have sisters!  What a gift to have daughters.  Happy birthday to all my spring babies!

Roman Training Camp

Djeryd is obsessed with all things Roman at the moment.  When I say obsessed I mean obsessed.  Observe the backyard:

Yes, that is my son, dressed in a tunic, with a hatchet, making sticks pointy.  And yes, he’s doing this of his own volition in his precious free time.  Why does he need pointy sticks?  See below:

This is a small-scale version of a rather effective barricade that would be erected around a Roman battle camp.  So naturally it is erected in my backyard.  The shield on the ground is one of many  Djeryd has constructed for Erik so they can actually try to kill each other when they sword fight, but still be protected.

Djeryd’s newest shield is the classic humongous Roman body shield.  He free-handed patterns, then meticulously copied them onto the shield.  Why did he bother with the patterns, you ask?  Because he has plans to outfit the entire family with such shields, and he’s thinking ahead. 

These carefully crafted shields come in handy during sword fighting training.  Djeryd teaches Erik and Anna, and then Anna teaches Alyx.  A continuous cycle of violence in my very own backyard.  It warms a mother’s heart to see her innocent little daughters going at each other with sharpened chunks of wood.  Oh, and yes, with the baby looking on.

What’s ahead for our resident Roman encampment?  I don’t know, but this is what Djeryd came home with Saturday morning:

Yes, those are more sticks.  Sticks that he literally carried across town on his back.  Sticks that he is going to make pointy.  Who says a kid has to grow up on a chunk of property to do all this crazy stuff?  Three cheers for obsessions!

These Are a Few of My Favorite Things . . .

Coming home from running errands and walking in the door to find my entire family cleaning the floors as fast as they can to surprise me (they also cleaned up the whole house while I was out).

Lu’s lovely paintings

Elle’s first venture out on the actual lawn, of course after the initial touch of grass captured in this photo, she refused to go near it.  It sure makes watching her outside easy.

The weather has been gorgeous! And I have made the most of it getting outside everyday by forgoing my daily nap.  I have been digging up weeds, digging up beds, sowing seeds (two pea sprouts and three spinach leaves are up as of tonight!) and smelling the heavenly perfume of this evergreen clematis. 

And my little gardeners-in-training. 

Life is good.  ;>

Preschool: Ladybug Walk

We went on a field trip for preschool a few weeks ago; a Ladybug Walk.

It’s a program the city puts on to get kids excited about nature.

Basically they give each kid a little ladybug backpack full of exploring tools.

Things like spoons for digging and magnifying glasses for inspecting things in greater detail.

The girls, however, thought the magnifying glasses were for pretending they were little old English men with monocles.

They explored tree bark and flowers and dug up worms and peeped through sewer grates and looked for nests in the tops of trees and followed bushy tailed squirrels.

They even picked up a new little friend.

After a very quick hour they turned in their backpacks and earned a ladybug sticker.

We were at a park so that led to wild and crazy fun for a while.

They enjoyed snacks.

And all their baby siblings.

It was definitely a grand day out.

My Gorgeous Girl

While going through pictures for an upcoming post, I found this lucky shot of my lovely little Lu. 

I love that girl!