Feats of strength and grace, and selfies

Ella and Nora took several sessions of gymnastics this year. Here are some shots of the last day of one session where they were displaying their tricks to applause from parents and classmates.

They were super! 

Also deserving a medal for her patience was little sister Susanna who had to sit on Mama's lap for a whole hour while watching other kids run, jump, tumble etc. It was extremely challenging and sometimes athletic for both of us to keep her with me. This day she amused herself by taking a series of selfies. She did this all by herself before I realized. She didn't realize she was taking photos of course, she was just enjoying her beautiful smile reflected back to her on the screen, but she got some good ones!

Vacation is off to a great start!

It's so good to get back to a family happy place in Merry-land! Our first day has consisted mostly of foraging--for groceries, crab parts dropped by birds in the backyard, mussels off the rocks at the waters edge, and whole crabs we hope to catch in the crab pots we set out with Aunt Debbie. 

Oh yeah, and for delicious ice cream!!

Some more of the best of last winter

Snow! (last January)

 So in case you couldn't tell, I *may be trying to catch up a bit from my lack of blogging over the last 6 months. We'll just see how it goes. Nothing worse than a "Sorry! I'm going to start blogging here again regularly!" post as a blog's last gasp. K, well, maybe a few things are worse than that. Anyway. Here are some photos from January!

This is what I would paint if I made time to paint. I love tree shapes silhouetted against a beautiful sunset in winter.

So we got a little bit of snow last winter! And some great new friends in our beautiful new hood. Here we are trying to make the best of a teeeeeny bit of snow that fell one afternoon. You could actually slide down the hill, but you got pretty muddy. Ah, it was fun.

Then we got some real snow! It was so pretty.

Yes, that is a tutu over the snow pants and under the winter coat.

And the lake even froze!!

We had fun tracking what we imagined were the amazing wildlife species in our backyard on the snow: bunnies, marmots, what could they be?? A little research showed we found pretty much all squirrel tracks. Which makes sense . . . if you watch the wildlife in our yard at all.

They did cutely lead right up to this hollow though!

Susanna in a winter hat! Her own styling.

Here she is again, just the other day. This time styling by the McCall Sisters Fashion House. A bold look for mid-June, it must be said.

Reading

Sweet moment today, Ella reading a chapter book to Nora and a friend from preschool we ran into in the library. I'm so excited for her that she can read now!!

From the McCall Sisters' Fashion House