The Lord's Prayer

Liliana, after a few difficult days battling Lyme disease, was well enough tonight to say her prayers as her usual happy self.  She's still super tired and more into quiet activities close to me these days, but hopefully the worst is behind us!  The 2nd video is simply for laughs: I thought I'd have her say the Lord's Prayer a second time in case it sounded better but all I recorded was a very distracting little sister bouncing on her bed.

 

 

The Shore

 

The Fairy Garden

  The Fairy's Garden

 
     After much anticipation and prolonged planning, the girls have their own miniature fairy garden on the back balcony.  And one of the most beautiful aspects of it is how many people were involved in this one little pot.  The girls see it and after Liliana states her oft quoted, "I love my fairy garden," she then will mention how Granddad brought dirt for her garden and how Maren and family gave her the fairy and trellis and little toadstools and how Auntie Em painted the wooden toadstools for her, etc, etc.  I'd be hard put to think of someone she knows that is not somehow involved by her way of thinking!
       We used the toadstool houses we made last summer (out of unfinished birdhouses from a local craft store) for the fairy's house, sticks tied together with string and wire for fencing, shells from Grandma's for additional fencing, shade plants (my favorite is the scotch moss) for grassy knolls and shrubbery (thanks to gardening money for Vera's birthday from her Plank grandparents), some fairy furniture, and some tiny rocks to make our own little fairy land.  I could easily see myself spending a zillion more hours to make bridges, houses and more for an entire fairy forest but I will make myself wait until they are older and can hand-build them along with me!  Welcome to our little fairy spot!

Psalm 23 recited by Liliana

Psalm 23

 

       We have been reciting Psalm 23 as the girls ready themselves for bed in the evening.  After saying it together for about a week, Liliana also loved doing it on her own so I videoed this clip--it's not the most polished example of how well she knows it, but I love the active stuffed frog involved in the scene.

 

The Old Rugged Cross (The girls are still singing of Easter!)

Baby Robins

       We've been thrilled this Spring to have baby birds to watch in two Robins' nests.  The first nest was on a low basement windowsill.  The second nest is on our back balcony flowerbox.  Just as the first nest emptied of its occupants, the 2nd nest began hatching.  Any day now, our 2nd nest will empty--but guess what I found today in the first nest?  A NEW EGG!!!  So our watching will continue. 

 

       We have all learned so much about the growth and habits of robins from our daily observation and I'm just so thankful that they chose our house for their nests.  I have already documented the nests in albums on facebook, but for those of you who aren't there, I thought I'd share a few photos from the mother robin feeding her babies today.  The babies are 13 days old today so almost ready to leave the nest.  The mother robin now allows me to be two feet away when she feeds her birdlings, so today I took advantage of her trust by taking these photos:

 

 

Garden Beginnings

Seedlings transplanted, additional seeds planted, and now we watch while the garden grows...