Buttons!

Easily a Morning of Entertainment

Free Range Chicks

Our chicks hatched two weeks ago today at a big hatchery in the midwest. They made it through the sexing process (as featured on Dirty Jobs) and were determined to be female (males are culled), promptly put in a package, and shipped overnight to Keene, NH, where we picked them up the following day. We put them in a box that looked remarkably like a Dunkin Donuts' Munchkins box and brought them home, where they have since been underneath a heat lamp in our basement.

So today was, quite literally, their first moment out in the fresh air. They didn't know what to do at first, but they quickly settled down and started tearing up the grass, something at which chickens excel. Oh, and the girls enjoyed the fresh air too.

Easter at Nubi

We hosted Easter at Nubi this year. Deb's family came as well as both sets of grandparents. On Saturday it was pretty rainy, but the kids had a great time anyway, scootering around the neighborhood when it wasn't raining, and playing in the basement or reading together when it was.

On Easter morning we went to a 7 a.m. service at the Dublin Community Church. Afterward we had an Easter Egg hunt in the sunken garden. There were about ten kids total.

Afterward we had a nice Easter dinner. Everyone contributed something, and it was one of my easier holiday meals.

Snow?!? Really?!?

It has been one long cold spring.

One-Day-Old Chick Flick

Trampoline

Last year our neighbors put up their trampoline. It was pretty late in the fall as I recall, and because it was new, it was such a thrill that we spent every single recess and afternoon out there for a while. I do remember being out there with hats and gloves on.

This spring as soon as the trampoline went back up we were back. Here's Lila and Lee running around.

Weekend Free

The girls went to New Castle for the weekend, and Bridges and I had some time alone. We chose not to go away, but instead stay home and just relax and rest. We were both just over this crazy month-long virus that we had, and we slept a lot.

Friday was the best day weather-wise, and we took a glass of wine up to the horse pasture in the evening. I love the view from up there.

The Bedtime Routine

Our bedtime routine has gotten very predictable. Bridges usually reads to the girls and tucks them in, then I go in and give them a kiss good night. Then they ask for water (actually they seem to have stopped doing that lately). Then we go downstairs, and eventually one of them comes downstairs and says "I can't sleep" and we say "go into our bed" and later when we go upstairs that girl is sound asleep in our bed and we move her back into her own bed.

Sometimes they make this process more efficient and they skip the coming downstairs, in which case it's always a bit of a surprise to discover which girl is in our bed.

But tonight, they both migrated in there, and we found this adorable scene.

Love That Outfit

It's so cool it's even reflected in the pond.

But she's wearing the hat, neck warmer, and mittens I made her!

More on Letters to Xan

I mentioned that Clara has been exchanging letters with Xan, and actually, her writing has improved tremendously. Here is one of her first notes to Xan. Translation: "Xan: I love you. Tigers are my favorite kind of animal." The words are placed wherever there is room on the paper, and you have to struggle to figure out what the words actually are.

Now here is her most recent one, which barely needs translation. One big difference is that she began to ask for help with spelling instead of making up her own spelling. It's interesting that she realized she needs to spell things so that others can read them. But it's still pretty impressive how much progress she made in terms of spacing and just general legibility in less than two weeks. It's amazing what they learn on their own when they are motivated!

Xan

Clara has a new best friend. Xan, who is just a few months older than Clara, has taken more than six months to warm up to her. He is very attached to his mom, but recently he has come out of his shell a bit and has started playing with Clara. They are best best friends. It is really adorable. His dad snapped this picture of them "reading" to each other.

Clara is thrilled to have a friend her age, instead of always being the youngest of the bigger kids. She definitely has a bit of the stalker in her, though, as she had previously demonstrated after Christmas when she missed Molly and spent several days making piles upon piles of pictures for her. Anyway, recently I had given her the Griffin and Sabine books to look through, and she decided she wanted to make a book full of envelopes with letters to Xan, and so she sat down and wrote him about twenty letters, most of which had some variation of:

TO:XAN
FROM:CLARA
I LOVE YOU SO MUCH.

(I have translated these from her phonetic spellings and random word placement. Even she has trouble reading her own letters).

Bridges moderated her impulses and created a notebook with pages of envelopes, and they have been exchanging the notebook and filling it with a new letter each time. It's very cute.