picture summer- day 23 {life is but a dream}

Playing around with a blue plastic bucket, some sunshine, water and this sailboat Eva made.



Miniature wishing well.

picture summer- day 18 {play time}

Blueberry season!

picture summer- day 10 {summer memories}

picture color- day 26 {whimsy}

Eva and I looked for evidence of whimsy everywhere we went today. All over the park she pointed out color to me and each time we decided it was beautiful, but not necessarily whimsical. Finally I noticed the pony riding in her basket on her scooter and I thought- what could be more whimsical?

picture color- day 24 {library of color}

picture color- day 15 {playful pause}

I was playing around with a hopscotch grid that I drew. (In pink chalk, of course.)



And Eva added some ruffles to the border. A girl after my own heart.

picture color- day 4 {technicolor}

I played around with Eva's hula hoops today. She has a few in different sizes and colors and I loved how they looked out in the brilliant Oregon sunshine. This one was my favorite-

Slice of Life Tuesday

{on Thursday}

This week's theme is Yellow. I'm obviously gaga for daffodils.

snow

So much for spring. Of course, the snow's all gone now, leaving us only with weather that feels a little-bit-colder-than-usual for this time of year, reminding us of our brief brush with Winter.



There was just enough snow yesterday for the kids to make the beginnings of a snow creature. Here is the head, I believe, of a snow vulture, of all things, to be exact.

game play

I mentioned before that the kids and I have been enjoying playing Carcassonne together after receiving it for Christmas. Something has happened over the last month or so, though, that has made playing the game with all three of us not quite as enjoyable as it had been. Or maybe it's just that things change? and I liked it how it was? Who can say. Did I think we would always be able to play this game together. Peacefully? No. But did I think it would last a bit longer than a month? Yes. I thought for sure I had at least a few months of playing this game with the three of us before it's novelty wore off. And I have to say- it just isn't quite the same when I play with just one kid or the other. There is something about three that adds a bit more dimension to Carcassonne, although it most definitely can be played with two. Something about not {quite} enough variety. I'm not sure. I saw one of its expansion packs at the toy store the other day and am considering buying it to add some variety to the two-person game and a little more flair to the three-person game in the hopes of refocusing Samuel more on the game and less on what Eva is up to. (Aside- Eva has quite a bit more energy and a little less game-focus than Samuel. She is three years younger, after all. I am fine with her playing the game while standing on her head and simultaneously building with her unused figures. Samuel, however, is not. So there is quite a bit of negotiation that takes place around how each wants to play the game. Which sometimes is fine. And other times- I will be honest- is exhausting. Tonight is a case in point for exhausting. Although, to be fair, once the game was over, Samuel was smiling and telling me how happy he was to have continued to play. So that is something. Still, I am looking for ways to have less exhausting and more fine, if you know what I mean. Which might mean, eventually, focusing on playing more Carcassonne alone with Eva and other games alone (like Stratego and Dominion) with Samuel, at least for the time being. Path of Least Resistance, and all that.)

Two kids, two computers

Thank goodness. There is still some scuffling over who uses which and when, but it has mellowed out quite a bit since we figured out the sound on one of them and added a second wireless mouse. Now Webkinz can be played seamlessly on either.

three

Still life with Star Wars. (So yeah. There are a lot of Star Wars guys around these days...)

one

(OK- I'm totally off track for the blog every day thing {not going to add *already*. That seems implied. Sort of.} Things came up and blogging didn't happen. Oh well. I'm making the best of it now and adding extra today. It won't count for the official blogging counters, but I'll go ahead and count it for myself and try for the official counters next month {again}.)

We've been having fun with my new ipod touch that I was given for my birthday. The kids have also been playing quite a bit with the Star Wars figures. Samuel was given several new guys for Christmas and bought two more just the other day at Toys R Us with a gift card he was also given. Toys R Us, by the way, is much more palatable on January 3rd than it was on December 27th. Samuel noticed right away and will hopefully remember this fact next year as well so that we can forego what has turned into a yearly trip right after Christmas. Obviously, this is something I would skip anyway, but I try and be supportive at Christmas with this sort of thing. And really, if I'm at all honest with myself, I also know that it will be more restful if I just go ahead and make the trip than if I try and put it off. That is- unless he decides to wait on his own. Which- as i mentioned above- he may very well choose to do next year. We shall see.

The other thing the kids and I have been spending time doing is playing the game Carcassonne. It was introduced to me at Powells a few days before Christmas by a dad who very kindly explained to me all of the games on this large table of games they had featured at the store. He had played them all- plays most of them still- and Carcassonne was one that he highly recommended- both in general and for Samuel's age. And he was right. It is an excellent game and all three of us keep suggesting we play it. The length is just right for Eva {and me} and there is enough strategy to keep Samuel enthusiastic. Plus, you get to say you are a knight if you put your little wooden guy in a castle, and who doesn't like that. We all like being thieves. And today, the monasteries turned into zen monasteries, which I had to laugh at. A fine mixing of East and West in the Middle Ages.



Plus, Eva likes to play with and build with the little Carcassonne guys.

This morning after I brushed my teeth, I went to take a sip of water from the cup near the sink. I looked inside the cup and saw that Eva had drawn a smiley face inside on the bottom. This made me smile. Even better was when I realized she had used permanent marker and that most likely there would *always* be a smiley face at the bottom of this cup.

And here are some of the scenes I saw in the shower, leftover from Eva's bath the night before. I particularly like the little squirrel perched on that little shower-pull-up thingy.

robot den

What Samuel's been up to, at least in part. He has several different games going on right now, is heavily into Harry Potter (along with Eva and I), as well as The Last Airbender, which the kids are re-watching after we went to see the movie (which we liked) earlier this week.

This game is an assortment of Star Wars guys, the new Lego Hero guys (they have bit parts, it seems...), as well as various robots who I think come from Iron Man. I think. Don't quiz me on that, though.



View of most of the scene.



Upstairs. There are robots, bounty hunters, maps, and lots and lots of guns.



Also upstairs. You can see more guns taped to the top. This is one protected fortress.



Downstairs living quarters. Prison. Luke and the other guy are trapped in Silly Putty.

fun and games

Eva set up a river today for leaf races and then a game with her favorite erasers that she is collecting these days-



Swimming at the mouth of the river. Guinea pig on his own rock island.



Frog keeping watch. Elephant and penguin slide.

Samuel is heavily immersed in Harry Potter and Transformers these days.



Optimus Prime- who, by the way, had us both pulling our hair out a few short weeks ago. Has that much time passed already?



The kids have both been enjoying the fresh sand and water in the sand/water table. I thought there was a hedgehog family crossing that bridge when I last looked but I see that the army guys wanted a photo of their own.

5 amazing things

{my} list of things to do to feel good about life-
write
sit with a cat on your lap
go out {into the garden} and smell the flowers
look- really pay attention- to guinea pigs
take a walk {in the woods}
notice good things around you

there are others, to be sure, but this morning i took note of five amazing things in my bathroom while i brushed my teeth. it was a lot. it was enough. to put a smile on my mind. sometimes a mind really really needs a smile. even when it just won't budge. five amazing things did the trick- or enough of the trick- to get me over here to the computer to write, which should help to finish off the trick just enough to get my whole self outside to the garden to not only smell the flowers, but to plant some as well. double whammy of goodness this morning. and all before the kids have woken up.

so 5 amazing things i noticed in my bathroom while brushing my teeth this morning. five things i love.

there is a spider in the far left corner as you walk in who has a second egg sac that is about to hatch. her first egg sac hatched about a month ago and those spiderlings have since dispersed. we are looking forward to watching these babies hatch and disperse as well.

sitting on a frame hanging on the wall, there is a wooden block on which eva drew a picture of two green stick figures- me and eva- holding hands. i smile at the goodness in that drawing. where it came from within her to imagine holding my hand. being with me. so much love to notice in a drawing like that.

hanging on that same frame is my yin/yang necklace. some days there is nothing better than yin and yang to really sum it all up. the truth of it. the simplicity. the cliche. the cynic and the poet in me can both have a really good laugh. and a sigh. and a smile.

in the soap dish in the shower is a small plastic frog who i hope will always be there to remind me of the time when eva put her there.

standing on the top of the shower's sliding glass door are two playmobil unicorns. eva put them there during one of her baths and i keep them there. if ever they fall, i put them back up. if you look at the wall behind the door, you can see the unicorns' shadows. there is something about seeing unicorn shadows on the wall to remind you of how magical life is. how sweet. how not everything has to be put away.

with all of this gratitude skipping around in my head, smiles lingering in my mind, cleaning out the guinea pig cage seems like an amazing gift. those little guys are going to love the fresh fleece under their toes. leave it to guinea pigs. hey, that's almost my whole list. imagine that.

update

updates. in case you were wondering-

after the going away party yesterday, there were no more ants today...



here's the cleared-off-table in action. see how the children magically appear at the cleared off table? where better to play a robot game?

i was also able to make it to the yarn store today with a somewhat healthier, although not entirely cured, samuel. second leg warmer here I come. just as soon as i play some dominoes and backgammon, the current games-du-jour. where will we play these games, you may be thinking? why, at the cleared off table, but of course...

slinky zen

The kids have been playing with a little orange slinky that showed up around the house recently and came from...somewhere? I used to know where everything came from. I still know what is ours, what looks familiar, but I don't necessarily know where it all came from anymore- and that's literally and philosophically speaking. My guess is that the little orange slinky came from a goodie bag from a birthday party at some point and was unearthed when they were going through a few random baskets-of-stuff out in the garage. They had fun playing with it and fighting over it for a day or two and then Eva said she wanted another slinky, a bigger one that could walk down stairs, etc. The little one is fun but doesn't move the way the bigger slinkies do- there doesn't seem to be enough weight behind the movement, for one thing. It is also very susceptible to getting tangled, more so than other larger slinkies? Maybe. I know I catch myself sighing deeply when that slinky is brought to me to be untangled. {And I think zen thoughts like- if this were the last time you would ever have to untangle a slinky could you embrace it as it is and not wish it away...Yeah, I'm a fairly serious individual. Mostly. Except when I'm laughing at how absurd it all is. Really.)

So we took a short trip to Toys R Us because Eva had a gift card she got from her grandpa for her birthday and what better thing to buy from Toys R Us than a slinky? And a giant snake. And another package of nerf-stuff. And I have to ask- why is it that whenever we go to Toys R Us, we end up having to go back to return something and exchange it for something else either that same day {as in we never actually leave the parking lot} or the next? I take a deep breath when we get ready to go to Toys R Us. The knowledge that it won't be just one trip, that they will try to sell me batteries, that there is candy everywhere, that the thing Samuel really wants is actually one of those motorized cars for kids that cost $500. (Why don't they make a police car one, by the way? He has been asking this question since he was 3 years old.) Plus, all the other stuff that comes with one of those giant stores- the lights, the loudness, the fact that if I stay in there long enough I will buy almost anything just to get out of there.

We found the slinky and several of those zhu zhu pets (who we saw at my friend Sarah's house when we went out to visit her recently). We also found something that we would eventually- a few hours later, actually- return to exchange for something else. {Check. Now some batteries and candy to make it complete.} And I have to say, while I know it isn't about getting there, I felt a little closer to there as I walked through Toys R Us and I really didn't mind it {um. as much}. I was even extremely grouchy yesterday and I managed to keep it together and appreciate this experience with my kids. A.Ma.Zing. The meditating and being-with-what-is thoughts really do seem to help {if help means being able to get through a trip to Toys R Us relatively unscathed. And at this point I think it does, as least in part.}

So I continue- to think being-with-what-is thoughts, to look for the good in all things, to meditate, and to trust that my heart will take me where I want to go {Mostly. Except when I am afraid that it won't. Or that I'll miss it or some other somesuch.} Watch this short one minute movie. It makes the point very very well- that this life is ours and it is happening right now.

fairy houses

Yesterday we spent some time outside at the park with friends. While Samuel ran off with Ben to play with lightsabers in a secret fort, Eva and some of the other girls made fairy houses. I went over a few times to stop other kids from knocking down the houses and sent them all over to another area where some flower bushes were growing. By the end of the day, the houses had been such a hit that there was a large group of toddlers and preschoolers building other flower lined houses in the area I had sent them to. It was very sweet to see all of those little ones carrying flowers back and forth with little branches and rocks. Such sweet inspiration.