bits of Easter

matching skirts for the girls
watching Dani totally hone in on eggs. She got it. not even 1 1/2 years old! I was impressed.
Easter vigil. thank goodness for cry rooms where Dani is boss and there are new books to read.
warthogs and raccoons and armadillos and God only knows what else getting to most of the cascarones and a lot of the plastic eggs.
oh and ants.
Marmee's bunny paw prints. Marmee is THE original pinterest.
Mila picking up on the song THEY CALL ME JANE...THAT'S NOT MY NAME THAT'S NOT MY NAME THAT'S NOT MY NAME which she heard at the egg hunt booming out their booty music. Thanks Indian River County recreation department.
Dani danced to WANT YOU TAKE ME TO...FUNKYTOOOOOOWN. okay now that was cute.
my annual rant on the absence of egg hunts. there are only egg grabs where they toss a gajillion eggs on the lawn and you trample one another to grab them. it's lovely, and there are helicopter parents all over the place. thus the instant gratification attitude of generations continue. 
we will always have an egg HUNT at our house.
lollipops where the jellybeans were planted. magic jellybeans, given to us by the Easter bunny. as the Easter bunny does.
Mila's favorite thing to find inside eggs: jellybeans!
but really. she was excited about everything. 3 1/2 oozes joy.
and tyranny.
shingles.
not the girls. 
not me. 

I think it's fair to say I'm obsessed with Scrubby.

I know this pic is blurry but in it I see a glimpse of teenage Mila. And for that, it stays.

chewing on our lip, like mother like daughter

this was pre church for the Saturday Easter vigil

Steve is having a rough 2014. I'm sorry, husband. 
nibbled carrots and egg shells. proof that the bunny came.
one glove. OJ? MJ? no it's Steve.
new fairy wings.
paper flowers. it's becoming tradition.
actually they were made from cornhusks. not sure if I'll be working with that medium again. 
I just used the word 'medium' in a sentence about me. how obnoxious?! blargh.
too late to bloom wheatgrass. yarn grass instead.
chocolate bunnies. duh.
but Steve pointed out that they were hollow. because i guess we all need more chocolate?
pavlova. it's becoming tradition.
deviled eggs. duh.
Easter baskets containing new bathing suits (deeply established tradition) and saltwaters. summer!
Wal-mart sells cascarones now. they're cheeeeeeaaaap. I might've just blown out my last egg.
probably not. next year I'm resurrecting the egg tree again.
I stockpiled those cascarones as if the apocalypse was coming and we'd be switching over to cascarones currency. In that case we're all set guys. 
Dani's first official egg hunt was a cascarones egg hunt. right on, Dani Lu. 

not an Easter we'll soon forget, mostly because of poor Steve's shingles. Oof. We're still in the thick of it. It wasn't lost on us, though, that it was our first here in this house and therefore pretty special. These 3 acres are gonna see some spectacular hunts during the Weibel era. I just gots a feeling.

Happy Easter!

Thought I'd share. The Easter Bunny definitely wasn't our forte last week but he gained a lot more popularity with my crew this morning!

Happy Easter everyone, it is and always will be a day full of hope. As it should be. 

earthquakes

Since this afternoon my heart has been a jumbled mess as I've seen one of my dearest friends experience every parent's worst nightmare. Her wonderful son, Mila's age almost exactly, has been in the hospital very unexpectedly and they've been facing some horrific uncertainties. Thankfully, very very thankfully our deepest fears aren't coming to fruition and although he's not out of the woods yet, they are getting some answers and they are hopeful. I am thankful, relieved, and likely will be crying again soon. Isn't it scary, isn't it all so fragile--in an instant your entire landscape can shift so dramatically.

Maybe soon I'll post about our fun little Easter egg hunts we've been doing with the girls, and our new gardening adventures, or plans for fairy houses, or all the fun we had last month. March was good to us. Shoot, April's been good to us. But for now I'm just holding these people I love the most in this world a little tighter today, saying yes a lot more, and appreciating things that often get taken for granted.

12/52

"A portrait of my children, once a week, every week, in 2014." 

More about the 52 project here.

Dani: my littlest leprechaun. She's 99% imp and I can't get enough of her. 

Mila: She was so funny on St. Paddy's day. Steve had forgotten to dress her in pajamas with green in it the night before, so the first thing she did the next morning, even before coming into our room, was get dressed in this. No pinching for Mila this year!

11/52

"A portrait of my children, once a week, every week, in 2014." 

More about the 52 project here.

 

Mila: It's funny but looking back we realize she's always done this hands-jammed-in-mouth thing whenever she's feeling shy or nervous. That's our Wugs. 

Dani: Her and I had such a sweet, calm morning alone last week doing some gardening in the front yard. She was my striped gnome helper.

10/52

"A portrait of my children, once a week, every week, in 2014." 

More about the 52 project here.

 Mila: This was Dani's baptism day. The past week we had been 'celebrating' all of her babies getting baptized, including Pinocchio over there. Her idea, not mine. p.s. same headband she wore on her 2nd birthday :)
Dani: Here she is in her baptism gown, and you can see the glimmer of a tear at the bottom of her left eye. There may have been some howling. Baptismal water on the head is rough, folks.

1st Friday of spring

There's a shift in our day's rhythm that's come with the changing season (this is the best time of year to be a Floridian. Not hot. Gorgeous.). With the extra hour of daylight YAY! we've been spending it outside in that glorious bath of afternoon sunlight; gardening, tending to new flowers, new trees, eating mulch (Dani), setting out the bubble machine, making plans for a vegetable garden and a sunflower house, riding bicycles and scooters, eating dirt (again Dani). My parents gave us a barbeque for Christmas (thank you!) and well, grilling. I have a section in my summer recipes folder (yes I have a folder with recipes just for summertime. No shame!) just for grilling that went sadly unused year after year. Not this year! And canoeing. We went today; it was our first attempt with the girls unless you count the time we put Mila in a kayak in Hawaii and she screamed her head off, hating the life jacket. I count that. And in comparison everything went wildly better. Mila was amazing in the canoe, she is absolutely so ready for this stuff. Dani was doing a little up-down up-down I am the captain now thing (good movie! highly recommend) which in theory sounds benign but add wind, strong currents, and an alligator sighting not beached but in the water with us and well, I'm still saying better than the Hawaii moment. This spring's gonna be a good one.