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...

 

 

Our Garden House: Peas, Beans & Happiness

Vera Rose in her gardening gear.

        Last week I assembled Liliana and Vera Rose's garden play house with high hopes that it will be gorgeous by August!  Basically, the house is a metal frame covered with netting for plants to grow on, up, and over to create a magical, fairy-like enclosure for summer play.  The hardest thing about gardening is waiting for the plants to grow!  I want it covered and opulently flowered NOW but the girls are much more patient than me and are happy to play in it as it is--in fact they love peaking through the mesh. 
       We started vegetable seedlings of peas, beans, zucchini, and squash (among others) over a month ago so those currently surround the garden fort, plus seedlings of Black Eyed Susan Vine and Egyptian Pea Vine.  Plus, I planted more Black Eyed Susan Vine and another decorative vine's seeds around the fort after it was staked, and have started additional seedlings of the same indoors this week so hopefully this will be a no-fail experiment to cover the play house with plants!  We shall see.  Gardening is such an adventure--I love its mix of predictable (we know when the seeds should germinate, how many days until it will bloom, etc) and unforeseen (we never actually know for sure what will survive in our garden!).  I will keep you posted as to how our happy fairy garden grows...

A Birthday Crown for Vera Rose

Yes, that's yogurt all over her face!

       My sister makes exquisite pieces of textile art and the crown above is a gorgeous example of her work.  Made of wool felt which has been painstakingly hand appliqued with a Hawaiian applique technique, and covered with delicate floral emboidery, the crown is already loved by our whole family!  Vera Rose and Liliana have both been wearing it today and Vera Rose will cherish it forever.  How thankful I am for a sister who is not only talented but also generous in her time to find a way to make this even though she has three little boys of her own!

Our Robin's Nest: Three Little Birdlings on our Windowsill

       This year, a robin kindly built her nest on a low outside windowsill.  First the nest appeared, all cleverly made with thin twigs and even some of our purple Easter grass that migrated from one of the girls' Easter baskets.  It seemed a long wait, but sometime in April (after peaking into the nest a thousand times!) I spied four gorgeously bold jade-colored eggs.  Magnificent. 

        Tragedy of some kind met one of the eggs because I found a partially broken and very empty egg in the grass below the nest. Then, on May Day, two little baby robins hatched from their eggs! Liliana and Vera Rose shrieked with delight when I held them up to see the fascinatingly bald, ugly/beautiful birds with their tiny necks, their huge closed eyes and their spindly wings as the birdlings peacefully slept. When the birds move, their heads bobble and collapse quickly. 

May 1st:  Day 1: two robins hatch from eggs and huddle next to the remaining egg.



May 1st:  Day 1 with two birds hatching.

       By Day 2, the remaining egg had hatched overnight and all three birds periodically stopped their rest to raise their heads and open their beaks to swallow the entire sky.  Tiny chirping sounds can now be heard, not even drowned out by the noise of the worried mother chirping at me from the nearby lilac bush.  These hatchlings are so tufty and grotesque yet so meticulously detailed and lovely.  I feel so privileged to watch them grow and so delighted to share such a wonder of Creation with Liliana and Vera Rose. 

May 2nd: Day 2 of life