Grew a Liza

I bought new pots for the front porch but crazy weather has slowed my progress in getting them planted with flowers.  Now I’m not sure I want to fill them when I could fill them with a Lizee. 

   Today was special because despite the 4th consecutive day of strait rain, we saw a new bird.  I walked into Backyard Birds, a darling store down the street, several years ago and was almost immediately fully transformed into the crazy neighborhood bird lady.  This was the first time we had this paticular visitor, a male Lazuli Bunting.  We don’t have any traditional pets but I think my kids are developing a healthy respect of creatures with a different approach.  Liza loves these little creatures.  Last fall I would prop her in her bumbo with peanuts around and let the jays entertain her.  Now she keeps careful track of the birds out the windows as she eats her meals and checks on them (bir!) as we pass windows throughout the day and always first thing in the morning.  Alison and Stuart were equally delighted today with this little guy—but really who wouldn’t be.  He’s such a handsome little fellow. 

Liza’s First Tempera Painting

 

 

Lizee the Gardener

When I was weeding my raspberries Eliza came out to help.  She loves being in the gardens and I’m so excited to have another wee gardener to help Alison and I. 

Also, my raspberries have become more of a weed than needing to be weeded.  I’m planning on tilling my garden this weekend.  If you are interested in raspberry shoots, please come pick some up.  There are a lot that have moved past their boundary and I feel so sad just killing the sweet little suckers.  I also have some painted daisy and russian sage plants that need a new home. 

  

Fairy Show

Alison worked hard all day to create a fairy show, including painting a backdrop with giant flowers and grass. She told me everything had to be giant because fairies are so tiny.  I was amazed with her grasp on perspective.
Unfortunately directing a show was trickier than she anticipated.  Her mean fairy stepmother (Abby) had to go home for dinner midshow, her fairy god-mother (me) was less than enthused and kept taking breaks to take pictures, her fairy prince (Stuart) didn’t want to dance, and her fairy show audience (Eliza) kept causing trouble and didn’t want to pose with the fairy star (Alison, naturally).  Tears were shed.

   

Happy Birthday

Katie organized a party at Nickel City for my sister’s birthday party.  Fun was had by all!  Even Lizee found the perfect way to spend nickels.  My sister Kelsie indulged her with hundreds of rotations on the mini carousel.  She held her little nickels and danced as it went around and around.  If taken away from the little wonder, she would point until reunited.  Katie made the cake and it was amazing (need that recipe).  Hank was in his element dominating a ball drop game. In fact thanks to Uncle Hank, Stuart’s dream was realized to buy a toy—which worked for 48 hours--that only cost about a million tickets.          

Shoot, this place is a mess.

So, based on my current configuration of software I have been uploading to my blog from a writer, which is a lot faster and also the reason there are posts again.  However, I noticed that it doesn’t have the clickable big size picture anymore.  To compensate for that, I thought I’d change the photos on the blog to be bigger but now posts seem real long and also, it may take longer to load the blog.  I need feedback, is that annoying?  Prefer small pictures (no clicking) or bigger pictures?  Or I suppose there is also the option of no posts, but who likes that.  Send me comments!  If you have better ideas let me know.

Edited to add: I figured out how to restore clicks to a bigger picture, so I think I'll find a happy medium.  Tell me what you think still, I'm interested, and anticipate some bloggy design changes in the next few weeks.