Solemn

With Easter, being such a serious holiday and all, we were glad to spend it with these two.

Happy Easter

By 10am today, Scarlett had already eaten an entire chocolate bunny.

Weekending

We had a quiet, low-key weekend, which was good because our April and May are shaping up to be busy and exhausting.  The sun is out, but it's deceptive.  Once we get outside, we realize it's still the season for cold fingers and ears.  Luckily, Scarlett takes her frog hat everywhere, and if it's not cold enough to wear, she just carries it around. 

Our weekend involved an outing to Salt & Straw for ice cream with Polly.  Scarlett liked this big horse, and when I told her the sign said no riding the horse, she wanted to see it. 

Their salt ice cream with the caramel ribbon is sooooo delicious.  Even though Polly refuses to try it.  Scarlett wanted chocolate, or swirl.  I told her, this place has lots of different kinds, but she still said chocolate.  Finally, she ended up with chocolate ice cream that had brownie chunks.

In the spirit of messy experiments, we put packing peanuts into water to watch them dissolve ("ice peanuts", she called them).  Scarlett liked this, until the end when the half-wet peanuts stuck to her legs.

I call this shot 'pondering'.  Her eyes are the same blue as her dress.  Isn't she perfect?  I just love her to pieces. I asked her to smile and she said 'I AM smiling, mama'. 

But the best part of the weekend was that we discovered another playground near our house.  I think it's fairly new, and mostly gated in.  Scarlett and I had a blast on the merry-go-round, and really fast slides, and a bunch of other toys that I can't even describe.  Scar did the best jazz hands pose the world has ever seen...

fun.

After many attempts, and excited moments, followed by disappointments, then more attempts and finally some measure of success, I got to see my favorite band of the moment, fun. last night.  The show was rescheduled twice and I had some work trip conflicts and finally Charlie bought me some black market tickets so I would stop pestering him to try and win them from the radio station.  It. Was. Awesome.

I tried to buy tickets to their next show unsuccessfully, so I'm putting it out to the universe.  Universe, I want to see fun. at the Edgefield.  I got married there, so it's an extra special place.  Make it happen, please.

Happy Green Day!

It is St. Patrick's Day in a household where anything that can be green, is green.

• I ran 15k  (Note for my mother-in-law, I did not wear green. I might have been the only person not wearing green. Poland represent!)
• When I came home, there were green donuts waiting for me.  Scarlett was dragging me by the hand into the kitchen to show me the surprise they'd made.
• Scarlett and I had a picnic of mostly green food in the driveway while Charlie worked on the garden.
• We put on our green beaded necklaces and went for a walk.
• I wanted to make green dinner but we had a hard time picking anything out, so we had soup and bread. 

Happy green day, from us.

Cleaning talk

Scarlett was pretending to clean the windows (where did she learn that?  not from us!) and dipping her washcloth into pretend water.  She hands it to me.  "Smell it.  It smells like scarecrow."

Cousintime

Dirt diggin'

It's spring!  I think.  It looks like spring, and it's been warmer.  So we bought a big pile of dirt to fill up our raised beds, and Charlie has been planting all sorts of things.  Our little helper got messy and had a lot of fun burying her bath frog in the dirt and then finding it.  Real frogs hibernate in the mud at the bottom of ponds, did you know that?  True fact.

Froglove

A Story

Part 1
"Tanana Banana lived by the sea of the shore. It was so delightful that Tanana had a cape in the [indecipherable].
Can I read you this book?
It was so delightful Tanana noticed a pretty pink snail.  All it was was a pretty pink snail that said goodnight.  They all say goodnight."

Part 2
"I haven't decided the words yet.
A pretty pink bullfrog lived by the sea by the water. It noticed a pretty pink bear and a heart and the water."

Lunchtime conversation

Eating a veggie dog, Scarlett says:

"This tastes a little bit like jello."

Thing #1: She has never had jello.
Thing #2: The one time we tried to give her jello, she refused to put it in her mouth.  Just scrunched up her face and shook her head.  And it was GREEN jello.