Hello again- I am having a hard time getting here these days, arn't I? It has felt so full and busy lately, somehow getting to this little space has been hard to do.
This time of year is so beautiful up on our little mountain farm. It is lush and green and full of bird song and blossoms. We are loving every minute of it.
baby baby baby... how we love you! (her just-woke-up-from-a-nap face just kills me!)
These days with my little ones are so full. Full of noise and mess and pure magic. Like today-beginning by being leapt upon by two little boys who start the morning full speed and love to crawl around the bed (and on top of me,) with their sister before I've even managed to fully open my eyes.
Then there was sipping my tea while watching my 8-year-old lead my little, almost-walking, almost-one-year-old around the house holding her hands in his, both of them grinning. Then there was sharing breakfast with two special guests- King Arthur and Spider Man, who had a very engaging conversation about swords and webs and the special powers each embodied. They jumped out of their seats to demonstrate. King Arthur could pull the wooden sword out of the laundry basket stone with ease- which Spider Man could not do even with full effort. However, King Arthur could not climb the walls, which Spider Man was happy to show he- quite literally- could do.
They then transformed into road workers- with a quick costume change- and headed out to the garden to work on the pathways. There was laundry to sort and fold inside with a busy little helper who enjoyed pulling it out of the baskets and emptying her brothers underwear drawer onto the floor, all while chatting away in her delightful babble.
There was some handwork time together with the boys (now transformed back into themselves,) who were wanting to finish their gifts for the baby's birthday- sewing and fingerknitting and pompom making, and pulling bits of discarded pompom fluff out of said baby's mouth. Then their was lunch with the boys who were again another set of characters- a kung-fu fighter and an Australian railway worker- only this time they insisted I join the game as a British restauranteur- complete with my (greatly exaggerated and embarrassingly terrible- but apparently highly entertaining) British accent. There was much giggling as well as a terrific spontaneous rendition of the song "Kung-Fu Fighters" (by the kung-fu fighter himself- not by me,) and the boys headed outside to listen to a story on the iPod in the backyard for quiet time, still in character.
There was packing a picnic lunch and gathering up the fiddle and the diaper bag and the sun hats and the warm sweaters and finding the already packed bag of soccer gear and water bottles left on the front seat of the van by my wonderful and thoughtful husband.
There was a little boy's final fiddle lesson of the season and him playing "Twinkle" and "Cabbages" proudly for our whole family, and then a picnic by the river, and a baby tossing her hat in the river (to be rescued by a quick brother,) and a game of hide and seek with a new friend at the park and piling back in the van to the soccer field for practice. There was taking the baby to the little toddler park nearby, and her very first try at a swing, and watching her grin and then recount the experience later with adorable arm movements and a sort of "weeeeee" sound. There were tired kids to get into bed, and a baby who dozed in the car and then was up till past ten wide awake, and Papa dancing her to sleep to that same CD he has danced all his babies to sleep to, and watching him carrying her up to bed, so sweetly snuggled into his shoulder. And there was staying up too late looking through photos of my baby girl's first year in preparation for her birthday, feeling the swells of emotion as I looked at images of her birth and her tiny newness and her growing little self. And there was another cup of tea and tired parents off to bed well past the hour that they should.
and that's just one day. One busy, full to the brim day. One day in this noisy, messy, beautiful, and utterly charmed life.
