first sign of spring

A daffodil in bloom. A day spent outside. With no shoes on. A smile on her face. It can't get better than this.

dear tooth fairy

Rather than put her tooth under her pillow for the tooth fairy to find, Sarah wrote a note instead.

dear tooth fairy

I want my tooth.

may I have a toy

or something?

thank you

Love, Sarah

a

Thankfully, the tooth fairy understood. She gave Sarah a quarter and took the note instead of her tooth. It is the first tooth, after all. However, I'm not quite certain how the tooth fairy will respond if she keeps writing these kinds of notes . . . I mean, the tooth fairy must need baby teeth for some reason, right? Certainly they will serve some very important tooth fairy purpose?

a lost tooth

After three months of wiggling and anticipating the loss of her tooth, Sarah has finally done it. I was in class tonight and missed the big moment (sigh), but thankfully Brian documented it for me. He also told me that Eric was grossed out at first, but then kept sticking his finger in her mouth. Too bad I missed that one . . .

Knowing this child, she will share the news with whoever is willing to admire the little gap in her mouth (or whoever happens to be near her in the next few weeks.) I'm happy for her - lots of friends have already been here and experienced this, and I know how badly she wanted to join them.

Outer Space

We had some fun with Bendaroos last weekend. Sarah made Earth, the sun, Saturn, and an asteroid. Eric asked me to make him a spaceship and an alien, and he added a satellite, a comet, and some space rocks. We decided to use space-inspired paper for the background - thank goodness for my failed attempt at making children's name plaques! We have LOTS of paper to choose from whenever a craft idea strikes. :)

Eric was the one who came up with this idea, and I was happy to see Sarah follow his lead. She seems to be willing to do that more often, and it's good for all of us.

One last thing - the Bendaroos glowed in the dark, so Sarah and Eric kept running into the bathroom and shutting the door, oohing and aahing over their creations. So much fun!

Treasure Hunts

The other day, Sarah and Eric decided that we should look for treasures. So, they both drew maps and helped me find my way. Eric led me to the sandbox (a very nice treasure indeed!) and Sarah's treasure was a lovely dinner of sand and berries, complete with little chairs to sit on.

I took their lead and drew a map and made two paper hearts for them to find. Sarah liked the idea so much that she drew a second map, cut little hearts out of that map (no clue given there, huh?), and we followed her once again. Too cute, and quite appropriate, considering that today is Valentine's Day! I hope you had a great day!

a lovely moss forest

Brian took these pictures on our walk the other day. If I could, I'd take a shrinking pill so that I could go explore . . .

a walk in the woods, part 2

Brian pointed out that perhaps I neglected to share some photos that were important to what I was writing about on the last post. Specifically, he asked me why I didn't share these two pictures of me - and why I falsely suggested that it was only him and Eric making funny faces for the camera. He has a point, but here's mine. I rarely ham it up for the camera, and I just happened to do so on this day. As for Brian and Eric, they always do, often making it difficult for the person behind the camera (usually me) to get a good picture. By the way, I'm totally letting go of any level of self-consciousness by posting this first picture - I look sort of crazy and kind of ugly. (No need to leave comments agreeing with this statement . . .)

a walk in the woods

It rained quite a bit recently, and when we were looking for something to do on Saturday afternoon, Brian and I convinced the kids that a walk to Duke Forest's concrete bridge would be a really good idea. I thought the water would be high and it just might be worth seeing. Not only was it high, but it covered the bridge that we usually walk over. We had a very interesting conversation on the way back to the car, with questions like, "What if the water were up to here?" and "What if the water were up to the tree tops?" and "What if the water went all the way up to New York City?" We answered as best we could. I remember walking here a few years ago, in early fall and after a severe drought. There was barely a trickle. It's amazing how things change . . .
Lovely smile . . .
not so much.
Like father, like son.
She wanted a tail, and there it is.
If you look really closely, you can see a dog on the bridge. She was very sweet and let us all say hello and give her some love. An added bonus.

Dinosaur (ROAR!)

Check them out! These outfits are handmade by Aunt Laurie - she made ten of them for each child who came to celebrate CJ's fifth birthday. She outdid herself, but that's to be expected. (She really goes all out for birthdays - I'm so impressed.) They wore these outfits for several days afterwards, and as you can see, the dinosaurs inspired their reading and their play. They did break some evolutionary/timeline rules, however, and added horses and cars to the mix. (That, too, was to be expected.)