Getting Into It

At fourteen months, she's perfecting the art of getting into things:

things like

toy bins (isn't she proud of herself?)

and dolly strollers

and wagons

and cabinets, and markers, and crayons and drawers and a whole list of things I'd rather she left alone.

May Day, May Day

When I was a kid, May 1st meant May Day and May Day meant May Baskets.  I remember coming home from school and working with my brother to make baskets and secretly deliver them to the neighbor kids.  Then I remember waiting for our doorbell to ring and trying to catch the kids who delivered baskets to our house.  

Because we finally lived in a neighborhood with kids and because the kids finally seemed old enough to grasp the concept, the kids I set to work on our first ever May baskets.

I set the girls to work making Happy May Day tags

and I put together some very simple baskets.

We popped some popcorn and got out the candy and filled them up together. 

 Then I sent them off, baskets in hand.

and a few minutes later they came running back.

Then it was off to the next place,

sneaking up the steps

and running for their lives after ringing the doorbell.

Theia ran so frantically that her shoe fell off.  I just happened to catch it on camera.  She and I couldn't stop laughing for quite sometime.  

We'll have to hone our sneaky skills in years to come.  I'm pretty sure they got caught at every house, which may have had something to do with the clueless two-year old involved.  It was fun to introduce them to this tradition and you can bet next year on May 1st, they'll be clambering to deliver May baskets to new, unsuspecting neighbors.

Fare Princess

It's been years, and I don't really know how it all got started, but the girls have been playing the made up game of Fare Princess (Fairy Princess) since before Theia could talk.  When we lived in Maryland, they would play it with their friends, Ava, Jillian, Andrew and Faith.  I've never really had a deep understanding of this game.  When I ask them, they usually don't have much to say in the way of explaining the game, its parts or its rules.  I do know it means they dress up, sometimes there is a bad guy (which used to be Andrew and is now Joey) and that's about where my knowledge of things end.  Until recently, that is.  Until I found this:

the holy grail of Fare Princess, sitting on the counter.

Now everything is crystal clear, sort of. 

They're the Fare princess rules and they're sort of written in code (so allow me to interpret as best I can):

*no atacking the casle (no attacking the castle)

*no steleng (no stealing)

*no yoosing her magic (no using her magic)

*no magic tricks 

*no ridening in her caridg at nit or day (no riding in her carrige at night or day)

*no ridening on her horses (no riding on her horses)

*no steling wings (no stealing wings)

*no tacking prisnrs (no taking prisoners)

Now that I finally have all this figured out, Xandra informed me last week that she thought she might be getting too old to play Fare Princess.  Then a few hours later I asked the girls what they were doing and she said, "Playing Fare Princess."  A princess is allowed to change her mind, isn't she?  

Mabee thay shood rite that in the rools.

'Eeping

It happens every once in awhile.  That panicky feeling when I realize it's been a long time since I've seen/heard the baby.  Then I start badgering the kids about where Tikvah is at, have they seen Tikvah, and I start nervously looking from room to room.  On this particular day, when I asked, Joey informed me "Babi in my 'oom."  As I approached the closed door I wondered why I didn't hear any crying.  Usually when Tikvah gets shut in a room she cries.  Then Joey informed me, "Babi 'eeping."  More confusion on my part.  How did they get her in her bed.  When did they put her to bed?  As I opened the door, this is what I saw.

Babi 'eeping.

Passed out, in the middle of the floor.

'eeping.

Tutus Too

Snow days are good days for jammies

and baking cookies,

and eating cookie dough,

and tutus, too.

Snow Spectacle

Our unexpected snow on April 8th turned out to be nothing compared to the blizzard that hit Bismarck on April 15th.

This spring snow dumped a mere 15-18 inches of snow on the ground.

As with most blizzards there was LOTS of wind.  That meant that some places around our house had no snow (see above)

and other places had large drifts,

the largest being just outside our sliding glass door.  We estimated this drift was about six feet tall by the end of the storm, although our picture taken a day or two later shows it much shorter.

The kids mostly enjoyed the crazy spring snow, although Joey had a mishap one afternoon getting caught in a  drift wherein he couldn't move and when he tried to move completely lost his snow boot in the drift.  This revealed that he was wearing no socks.  Theia, being a kind sister, left him alone in the drift to come tell me he was stuck and screaming.  I'm sure if anyone was watching they thoroughly enjoyed the spectacle of the pregnant lady, 7 months along, clumsily navigating the drifts all around the house to rescue her stuck and screaming at the top of his lungs two year old and then carry him bootless and still crying back around the house.  Graceful is not a word that comes to mind.  While walking around the house was difficult and long, and the sliding glass door was much closer, the only way I could fathom getting to him from the above location was to dive head first into the snow.  That's a whole other kind of spectacle even I'm smart enough to avoid.

Spring Has Sprung?

I'm learning that it can be a long winter in North Dakota.  It was refreshing, then, on April 3rd, to get to send the kids out on bikes for the first time this spring.

They thoroughly enjoyed being outside again in the near 70 degree temperatures.

And they got to share the experience

with their friend, Katelyn, who was visiting for the day.

The interesting thing about North Dakota, however, is that five days later

they were riding their bikes in the snow.

A little unexpected snow

on April 8th

didn't stop the fun.

but it did require a little warm up in front of the fireplace

when the fun was done.