luckily we had classes all morning to take my mind off of our pesky house guests. darla started pottery last week. she’s WAY into it so far. and i’ve made the mistake of not putting her in pottery appropriate attire two weeks in a row. sigh.
here she is at the wheel:
weekly tally:
4/25 – 1 mile
4/26 – 1 mile
4/28 – 1 mile
4/29 – 5.3 miles
grand total = 8.3 miles
not bad for the first week. hopefully the weather will cooperate more this next se’night. our ride home from the gym yesterday was in the rain. no biggie fries, though. it’s only a .5 mi from our homestead.
i did the math and figured out it will take me 3,200 miles to ride back the bike if i average gas to be $3.75 a gallon. bahahaha. how many years will that take? at least 8.3 is a start.
also, darla has now requested that her bike be called Ruby Juice too. I can’t decide on RuJu Too, RuJu Two, or RuJuTooTwo. i kinda like the last one. what do you think?
lastly, a pic of darla waiting for RuJu to be delivered in our bike trailer with my old not-creepy-at-all hug-a-bunch doll.
happy riding.
we picked up monsters, inc. at the library this week.
darla said she wanted to draw pictures of the monsters like boo does, so we did.
that’s her rendering of mike and randall. i did the inside of mike’s eye but little one did all the rest.
i’m surprised b/c most of the time when we draw darla just wants to do scribbles or a series of straight lines, which is fine, but i didn’t really know until yesterday that she did have ideas of anatomically correct placement of limbs and facial spacial relations.
i guess i’m just going to have to remember that this girl gets inspiration from monsters, ghosts and cavities. asking her to draw me a mermaid, flower garden or fairies will produce just a bunch of scribbles.
hmmmm what to do while waiting for a little one to start her journey into the world…yep, flying a kite sounds good.
concluding with ice cream never hurts either.
the zephyrs are nice out there, people. get a kite this week!
here’s the rest of darla’s vacation. i say “darla’s vacation” because there is a noticeable lack of any photos of me, meg or my lovely girl friends. just darla, cory and elsa. it looks like they all had a great week together, huh? oh well, jussgonnahavtagoback!
THIS is a mike wright smile
i love these last two pictures. darla was trying to argue with me about something probably inconsequential and then she was trying to be indignant. it’s pretty hard to take an indignant banana seriously… i can’t wait to put these pics on a graduation announcement some day.
we had lots of adventures, a good deal of which were not captured on film because i was trying to put the camera down, have conversations and be present some of the time.
i would say darla’s first trip to “Lost Angeles” was a success.
the root children left some nice goodies for darla to welcome spring
They brought her: flower seeds, ruth heller coloring books, Richard Doyle’s Fairyland Coloring Book, The Flowers’ Festival by Elsa Beskow, a tank dress for warm weather by theifandbandit, and new Salt Water Sandals for her first trip to the pacific.
i think she was most fond of the sandals. she wanted to wear dress and shoes immediately and wanted to plant her seeds immediately too. i understand all those things. momma’s the same way. she ran outside and shouted “thank you root children!” first thing after she donned both items.
happy spring everyone!
in case any of you are looking for gifts for wee ones to celebrate the first day of spring, check out ruth heller coloring books. so many nature & outdoor designs that will put all those elmo coloring book pages to shame. pretty, pretty! darla will be receiving a few of these from the flower children come March 20.
most of my goals for the weekend fell through the cracks except for the Malabar Farms Maple Syrup Festival. Darla and i trekked north during the good weather saturday and we had a good ol’ time revisiting the process of maple syrup. really, i just made it a priority to purchase some more of the syrup because it is so delicious. one taste of real, fresh syrup and you’ll never want to go back to the hfcs substitute.
the view is beautious maximus. can you tell i made darla pose for the second shot?
tractor rides and tickles from evergreen branches
she chose her raccoon socks because they live in the forest and would like maple syrup, so she says.
we cheated on the candy rule and got some cotton candy made from maple syrup. can you tell by her face that she was happy to indulge? she then proceeded to tell strangers that maple syrup is healthy. which we were informed at the festival that it is. it has the lowest calorie content of any of the natural sweeteners and is good for your kidneys if it is pure. more pancakes anyone?
we did enjoy a pancake breakfast on sunday morning to break in our new bottle. i hope we will continue our visit as an annual tradition. it was bittersweet to visit as a twosome this year. i missed our cali friends dearly remembering our experience the previous year. hopefully next year we’ll be able to enlist more of a gang to join us.
like millions of others across america for the past 4+ decades, the lorax has been a big part of our home. it holds a special place in my heart in regards to darla’s upbringing thus far. i like trees and everyone likes trees and dr. seuss did our society a great service by writing the story of the lorax.
i took darla to see the new lorax movie this morning. it just so happened that we were the only viewers in the theater so we got to enjoy the movie in a special more loud and interactive way. this simply means i didn’t have to worry about reminding darla to be quiet during the film. the universe knew what it was doing once again because, to my delight, darla often spoke lines from the original movie and book throughout the movie. the current movie is loosely based on the original and doesn’t rely heavily on rhyme. i was very happy that she remembered such lines. Upon the first introduction of the once-ler she hopped out of her seat, put her hands on her hip and said “he’s crazy with greed” at the movie screen. ohhhh how i love her.
unsurprisingly, i prefer the original versions but i think this one did a good job of building on top of something that was already pretty great. I’m glad we went to be reminded by a couple of things by our old pal, The Lorax. the first being: “a tree falls the way it leans. be careful of the way you lean.” the second line that got to me (that’s code for made me cry, again. for about the 4th time in the movie) was “it doesn’t matter what it is. it only matters what it could become.” i hope to hold these new lines as dearly to me as the tried and true “unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing’s going to get better. it’s not.”
it really is a goal of mine this year to make our household further the steps toward earth friendliness. i hope to get my little sapling more involved with learning about trees, plants and all growing things. i need to do more than just show her videos and read her books. i need to make sure we plant and sow and tend. it has to happen. new goal for the year: plant a tree with darla.
it seems like these spring like days are filling up more quickly than the cozy, insular days of winter. we’ve had a little spring in our step and running at a quicker gait. lots happening:
we had a double bounce house day so she worked up a thirst. if anyone needs recommendations on either the world of bounce or kingdom of bounce i can provide some insights. aren’t my areas of expertise so glamorous? the next time i’ll be sure to check my deets before our dates with friends.
a younger me would be laughing and scoffing at how much the current me takes joy from clean laundry
the morning after a sleepover with the burkeybuns crew. they decided to dress as towels.
i took darla to her first indoor play – the house at pooh corner. i was pretty sure that we were going to be the only ones in attendance until a huge school group came in 2 min prior to showtime. take a look at that annoyed look i’m already getting from darla for asking her to pose in front of the set.
after the play we walked across the street to visit the state house. i figured it was never too early to start learning some state history and architectural elements, right? darla was very impressed by the rotunda. she said it sounds just like Aisling. $5 worth of brussel sprouts can go to whoever gets that reference.
looking forward to an equally busy weekend. We’ve got the Lorax, Malabar Farms Maple Syrup Festival, Ohio Wildlife Center open house and BalletMet Sleeping Beauty all on tap along with some dinner dates and a labor information session. yay for busy schedules that help the days without our salty sailor pass quickly.
momjeanz 