Fickle minds and ice cream

Claire and i were at an ice cream shop today while we were waiting to pick up Skye from preschool. it was sort of strange but nice to be just the two of us. we'll have to get used to that, especially since Skye starts kindergarten in September! while we were enjoying our ice cream cone, we saw another mum with two girls come into the shop. the mother was trying to help her older daughter decide what flavour to order. what flavour do you want? i want the white one. vanilla? yes, vanilla. are you sure you want vanilla? what about strawberry? are you sure you don't want strawberry? no, i want vanilla. are you sure? you're not going to change your mind? no, i want vanilla.

i couldn't help but smile. i have probably done the same thing with Skye. she always goes and changes her mind about things, so you can never be sure she wants what she initially says she wants. it's maddening and i try to cover all my bases, but of course, when i'm feeling scattered or forgetful, i forget.

well, Claire and i enjoyed our ice cream--we had a flavour called "imagine whirled peace". :)

Trials of growing hair

Skye has been wanting to grow her hair for a while now and i reluctantly agreed, hoping she was old enough to realize that long hair meant lots more time and care. at first, things went alright, but for the last week, we had been struggling every morning over tying up Skye's hair. finally, i told her she had to let me cut it off. if we don't tie up her hair, she complains she's getting hot and sweaty, yet she puts up a fight in the mornings over brushing (her hair gets pretty knotty) and whines whenever her hair hurts when i'm tying it up. i thought she'd be really sad over the hair cutting, but i think deep down inside, she is glad that her hair is now short and she doesn't have to do much with it. i asked her if she wanted bangs so that she won't even have to wear a barrette, but she decided that she wasn't quite ready for bangs.

i hope i gave Skye a fair chance. i really don't want her to feel like i'm forcing her to look a certain way, but at the same time, i'm weary of the constant battle over hair. i mean, come on, i have short hair for a reason and spend hardly any time in front of the mirror in the mornings. i'm not about to spend all my mornings trying to get my daughter to brush her hair so that it's not a tangled mess and then to tie it up so that she's not sweating like crazy.

for now, we are all happy with the new shorter bob; at least, until the next time Skye has a "i want long hair" phase.

Shopping for school supplies

so i thought i'd be smart and buy Skye's school supplies early. plus, we'll be travelling abit in August and i'd rather get it over with. so the girls and i were at Target and i was glad the section with the school supplies wasn't too crowded. i thought, oh good, we'll breeze through this. clutching the list, we made our way SLOWLY down each aisle. there was too much to choose from. what kind of glue stick? what kind of notebook? what kind of tape? i mean, you can spend an entire day doing this if you wanted to!

Claire wanted to participate in everything and grabbed all kinds of things off the shelves. at one point, she had even managed to pull out those price sheets in the plastic sleeves on the shelves!! when Skye was trying on backpacks, Claire had to try them on too and refused to take one off. i gave up and let her follow me around the store carrying a backpack as big as herself on her back. i managed to put it back on the shelf when she got distracted by something else. and then in the middle of all this, she pees all over the floor. i'm looking for an employee and there's none to be found. fortunately, i was prepared for once, with clean clothes in my bag. i stripped off all of Claire's clothes, hoping she wouldn't run off naked down the store, mopped up the pee with the wet clothes, got Claire dressed again, all in a matter of minutes.

i'm really glad i have to do this just once a year. :)

Skye's latest

didn't i worry about when Skye would ever learn to swim because she absolutely refused to put her head in the water? well, Skye is swimming like a fish now! check out the new movie of her pushing off the side of the pool--can you spot her among all the other kids? one day, it all just clicked. without any prompting from me, she decided to put her head in the water and when i asked her when she started doing that, she said she had been doing it during swim lesson, but of course had forgotten to tell me about it. after a day of doing that, all the other things started to come together. she is no longer doing doggy paddle, but actually swimming! and she is even going to the bottom of the pool to get rings and torpedoes!! it is unbelievable how quickly she is progressing now that she's made that decision to stick her head in the water. the next thing to conquer is swimming in the deep end...

Claire's latest

here are some things Claire is up to these days. because it is so hot, she has taken to going about the house in nothing but shoes, usually shoes that are too big for her. check out the new movie of her playing at the pool. she's such a happy baby when in the water.

Hey, Mama, take a picture of us for your blog!

yes, that is what Skye said to me the other day. so, here is the photo she wanted me to take! :)



and here is a shot of the girls looking very girly!

Starting night weaning

for the last month, i haven't gotten a good night's rest. Claire, who's actually been a much better sleeper at night than Skye (who used to wake every 2 hrs to nurse), was waking up quite frequently after a bout of illness. we decided it was time to night wean. i was a little concerned. night weaning Skye was not easy, so i was expecting it to be just as difficult, maybe even harder. well, it's been 3 nights and Claire actually hasn't cried much at all. she calls for me (i am temporarily sleeping downstairs) and Phil goes in and then she eventually goes back to sleep. she doesn't wake up as frequently, but i won't claim success until after a couple of weeks.

Family biking

we've been biking together as a family now over the weekends and it's been lots of fun. this past weekend, we biked to Lake Monona and biked along a trail that runs around the lake. we've been wanting to do this for so long and now we can! and here is how:

Harvesting cherries

because it was so cold, our cherries were rather late this year, but we had plenty to make a cherry pie and cherry compote. the biggest attraction for the kids was the cherry pitter...so while i picked, the kids pitted, including some of our neighbourhood kids. Claire was more interested in her boots...

Visit from Grandparents

Phil's parents came up from Illinois today. we took them to Lake Wingra and went on a paddle boat. the girls enjoyed that. Claire wasn't too crazy about the life-jacket she had to wear, but was soon enjoying watching the seagulls. the weather was perfect to be out on the lake today. sunny and breezy. we could even enjoy a dinner on our deck without getting bitten by too many bugs. the girls enjoyed playing with their grandparents and had a lovely time.






here's Skye getting some arugula from our garden for our dinner!

Farmer's market and Marigold's and mulberries

here are some shots from our saturday. we made a visit to the farmer's market with Phil pushing the girls on the car. then we stopped at Marigold's, an eatery near the capitol, and had a delicious brunch. when we got home, the girls picked some mulberries with their friend Caleb. here are some shots!

Happy 4th of July

as i write this, i can hear the fireworks exploding outside. the girls are sleeping and i wonder when they'll get to see fireworks? but Skye was so tuckered out from the neighbourhood 4th of July celebrations and swimming that she couldn't stay up. Claire missed the midday celebrations because of her nap, but i sent Phil and Skye. there was the parade and games and food. here are some shots from the day.

all the neighbourhood kids come out with the bikes, scooters, wagons, strollers, etc, all decked out in red, blue and white. here's Skye with her bike.

Hard questions...

recently, Skye asked a question i'm not at all sure i answered well. in the last year, we had been praying for two people we know who have cancer. one died, the other person is doing well. Skye asked me why God didn't answer our prayer for the person that died. i said that God doesn't always answer our prayers the way we think He should answer them. i told her that the person who died is with God in heaven, so he's in a good place, but i'm not sure this all made sense to her. i'm trying to answer her questions in ways that she can understand, but how can i really know how much she understands? as she gets older, there'll be more and more tough questions for me to answer...

on a different note, i discovered this blog written by a mother, the nonchalant mom - she dispenses some interesting advice, one of which we put into use today. she said putting an onion on a bug bite takes away the poison, thus taking away the itchiness and the swelling. so when Skye complained of a mosquito bite, we put an onion on it and she said it stopped itching!!

Pied Piper

my neighbour called me the Pied Piper today. as the girls and i were heading out to the park this morning, we ran into one neighbour after another and we collected the kids and took them with us to the park. and soon, some other neighbours showed up too. then we all made our way to one house where they were getting a new driveway poured. they wanted all the kids to put their hand prints on the wet cement.

it was almost a perfect day. sunny, breezy...we could have stayed outside all day.

in the afternoon, after Claire's nap, we headed to the pool. Skye is getting better at her doggy paddle. :) it's slow, but i think she is getting more comfortable with the water. Claire seems to love the feeling of floating in the water. she holds onto the stairs and lets her legs float up and she sort of hangs out like that. she gets a kick out of jumping up and down in the water as well. it's a pleasure to watch her experimenting with the water.

"Waitress"

so i finally got to watch the movie "Waitress" and really enjoyed it. i'd heard of it when it first came out, mainly because of the death of Adrienne Shelly, the director, and was sort of intrigued. i loved the world Adrienne Shelly created in the movie. i loved the beautiful pies that were created. i loved how she portrayed motherhood. perhaps because i don't get to watch too many movies created by women, i thoroughly enjoyed this one. i hope i'm not giving anything away to those of you who haven't watched it by saying that i loved how the main character in the movie discovers a strength in herself when she becomes a mother. anyways, it was a feel-good movie and it definitely made me crave some cherry pie (which i hope to make soon when we harvest our cherries from our trees).

Mistress Mary, quite contrary, How does your garden grow?

being a novice gardener at best, i'm learning all kinds of things about my garden. i've found growing vegetables the easiest--all they seem to require is water, sunshine and weeding. we'll see how they do this year. in North Carolina, our vegetables seemed to grow abundantly without much help. last year, i couldn't get myself to even think about the garden, but this year, i've been trying to get a handle on our backyard that's looking more and more like a jungle. so, the vegetables are growing and we've already enjoyed arugula. however, growing flowers is a completely different story. they require something more than the basic necessities. we have three hydrangea bushes in our backyard and they haven't bloomed once since we moved in. at first, i had no idea they were hydrangeas - the bushes looked so scraggly i cut them back, thinking it would help them grow. well, grow, yes, but no blooms. i hacked them back again this year early spring and i have a single hydrangea blooming. i managed to not cut one bloom!! you see, until now, i had wondered if what we had were really hydrangeas! at least now i know they really are hydrangeas. so i read up online and to my horror, i realized i'm not supposed to prune certain types of hydrangeas! i'll know better now and hopefully next year we'll finally be able to enjoy some beautiful hydrangea blooms in our garden. :)

Picking strawberries

yesterday, we went strawberry picking. we went out to the farm we are doing a CSA with this year. because of our CSA, we get 10 lbs of free strawberries if we pick our own, so we decided to pick as much as the girls would last and make strawberry jam. the berries were great!! and this farm doesn't spray at all, so we didn't really have to worry about what the girls were eating. the berries were certainly smaller than other farms we've been to, but really really good. when we got home, we made jam and canned them. i'm hoping we can make more jam the rest of the year. there's the blueberries next, then grapes, and apples for apple butter...yum!

check out the new videos too!