Pretty, Happy, Funny, Real - May 2, 2015

 ~ Capturing the context of contentment in everyday life 

~Every Thursday, at Like Mother, Like Daughter!

Pretty

These pictures are from Easter, but the girls wore these dresses for Mass today (sufficient justification for me to show them here). Whenever the girls wear these dresses, we receive a flurry of compliments usually with the advice for Donnie and me to "enjoy this this time, because it goes by so quickly."  Indeed, I relish the sight of my girls in these dresses with a sort of preemptive nostalgia. What better symbolizes the innocence and sanctity of girlhood than a smocked dress?

Happy

A pair of robins have set up housekeeping in the rododendrum by our front door.  We noticed the nest over a week ago, and wondered at our luck.  We had a direct view into the nest from our front stoop and a very good view from our guest room.  Then passed many days when we didn't see a robin in the nest, and I reconciled myself that the robins had thought better of locating their nest next to such a nexus of noise.  But lo and behold, today, on our return from Church, there were two perfect blue eggs in the nest, soon to be followed by a third.

Here is  mother robin on her eggs.

Our robins are a sign that spring has finally found its stride here in northern Connecticut.   We're enjoying it!  Maria spends hours building fairy houses and setting out imaginary feasts on flat rocks.   Lulu has taken a new interest in the climbing dome and an old interest in donning her magenta tutu swimming suit.   Pippa is proving to be quite the outdoorsy toddler.   She points her  chubby finger at the door and cries and makes herself a nuisance until let out.   Donnie has been clearing brush and making himself  busy with the logs.  He his fond of his outdoor kingdom.

As spring has unfurled around us,  I've been reading The Secret Garden aloud to the girls.  It's the perfect literary accompaniment, and does so much to open the senses and the heart to the season.   It was one a my favorites as a child, and it's a joy to share it with the kiddos and see Maria's dawning sense of wonder.  Louisa is not quite at the stage of wonderment, but she has at least gleaned that we do not want to be like Colin, and throw tantrums!  (And, indeed, we have no excuse, because we are not stuck in bed believing that our backs are crooked!)

Maria tending her garden.

One of Maria's fairy houses.

Funny

Donnie relayed the following conversation:

Lulu:
Don: What are you singing?
Lulu: It's a song that's never been singed before.
Don: What's it about?
Lulu: It's about pirates and a land full of princesses and Cinderella and Snowwhite, and Belle and a war and the princesses are wearing pink dresses and the pirates are fighting the princesses.
Don: How does it end?
Lulu: The ship sinks and the land sinks. It's a pretty funny song.

It's so very Lulu to sing about pirates and princesses at war.  Louisa combines a deep love of fanciness with a willingness to wield violence.  Happily, it's mostly theoretical violence.  For a while, her stock retaliation to any imaginary bad guy was to "cut his fingers off."

Real

This is shot from our guest room, which doubles as a craft room.  It offers just a small glimpse of the disorder that reigns around here.  I am trying to focus of creating oases of order.  This room is still very much a desert.