Six and a half

Eleanor with her strawberry lemonade cake.  

This sweet and silly girl turned six and a half today.   Eleanor is calm and kind and always a help.  So when she was fiery and crabby and no help at all when we came home from the pool on Wednesday, we knew something was up.  It happened to be her temperature :(.  Since then she has missed a morning with friends at the zoo, the opening of sea lion cove, and her cousin's lead in the play Legally Blonde...which Eleanor desperately wanted to see last summer at the Muny and missed...ugh, two years in a row!   This morning she woke without a fever and tried hard to act like she felt great but it was pretty obvious that our girl isn't quite back to herself.    In the words of Lucy "Happy to you Ellie"!  We love you!

Hot

Lucy was up at 5:30 this morning and wanted some "hot", she calls coffee "hot".   She normally gets up at 7 so I could see why at 5:30 she wanted some hot.  I made her some chocolate milk, put it in a mug and she was happy.  Getting up early has its advantages though, with an expected high of 105 degrees today, we're going to head outside now before it gets too hot!

Resting up after our fun!

The iPad entertained her for a few minutes.  

What a fun weekend!  We had Family Day in Kansas City on Saturday.  My Aunt Kathy plans this day at her house every year and some years are bigger than others, this was a big one.   I counted three red headed babies other than Lucy!   We headed West early and took the kids to Great Wolf Lodge for a day.  The whole weekend was so much fun that Lucy really didn't find a need to sleep!  So last night we all logged a lot of hours of sleep and this morning feel ready for a great week.

Night, Night Woof Woof

After lunch Lucy wandered off to play on her own.  She was content and happy, even as the girls went next door to play....without her!  As I cleaned up lunch I kept peeking in on Lucy and listening to her pretend play.  I couldn't resist snapping a picture as she put her tiger "night night" with his ball, patting him and singing rock a bye baby.

The clicking of the camera didn't please momma tiger, she let me know I better be quiet... she put her finger to her mouth and said "shhhhh momma, woof woof night night".

Only the flowers!

Guess who has the hose?   Emma and Eleanor kept telling her "only the flowers, Lucy" to which she'd turn, spray the flowers and then, with a twinkle in her eyes spin back around to spray the girls.

Fairy Houses

Constructing their fairy house.  They could have worked alone but wanted to build together.  This was Emma's idea.  Before Eleanor agreed she said....you've got to listen to my ideas and use some of them.  I love these girls!  

 Last week by a random stroke (blessing) I read about a class at Shaw Nature Reserve based on Kristen's Fairy House, by Tracy Kane.  This has been a favorite book and movie at our house for a couple of years. The girls researched the author and even found out there is a fairy house festival every year in Maine.  So tempting to these girls, and their mother, who would love to visit Maine.  Since we're not heading east this summer I signed us up for the class immediately and we've been excited ever since.
 Kevin and I have never taken the girls to Shaw and I'd forgotten how beautiful it is.  So different form its big sis The Botanical Garden but amazing all the same.  We smiled and felt happy from the time we got out of the car until the time we chased Lucy down and wrangled her into her car seat to head home, which we really didn't want to do. We could have stayed all day and we're already planning to return.

There were several fairy houses hidden for the kids to find.  Can you spot one?

Native plants everywhere.  So pretty and natural.

That little building had chairs and a table inside.  I really wanted some iced tea and my book.

Lucy was awesome, running around finding sticks and leaves for the girls to use in their fairy house.

"I love this!!!" Eleanor

Dinner in London...or at least pretty close.

This year we've declared our summer weekends---vacations.  So as near as we are able we're having nothing but fun on the weekends.  This weekend that include Jungle Boogie at the Zoo, dance class, Circus Flora, swimming, running, and bike riding. Pretty darn vacation like!   But our last bit of fun topped it all.  We are doing a little study of Shakespeare around here and decided that dinner at the Fox and Hounds Pub at the Cheshire Lodge would be a good way to experience a London pub without all the expense of a London vacation.  We knew we'd have fun (no cooking!  hamburgers!) but WOW, we had such a great time.  The kids loved the little pub setting and getting to wander around the hotel while they made our dinner.  We also had the most fortunate encounter with Rickey, an employee at the Cheshire who pretty much treated the girls like they owned the place.  He gave us a grand tour and was full of all sorts of fun facts.  We'll be back, that's for sure!

A little obsessed...

Up by 6:30.  Dressed, ready for the day and playing before 7.   

Some of us aren't dressed but we're up and awfully happy to be sneaking into the game! 

Streamlined

After two years of  "first week out of school misery" see 2011, 2010,  I finally learned.  I can happily say that although we did not totally dodge the bullet, the whole process was streamlined and today, only four days into summer vacation we had an indisputably fabulous day!  Woo Hoo,  PRAISE GOD, because let me tell you over the weekend it was looking bleak.  All the usual suspects showed up- crying, whining, and even that ugly, hateful fighting.    I ordinarily have a lot of patience but not the past few days.  If the last two years have taught me anything it's that for whatever reason (transition, exhaustion, funky schedule) my kids struggle with the first bit out of school.  Establishing some firm expectations and letting everybody know about them clearly and without hesitation and then holding tight while the dust settles is the quickest way to summer bliss.  Thank you, little blog for being the reminder in the back of my head that there is nothing new under the sun.

                She's so happy to have constant book readers, singers, dancers and playmates.  August is going to be rough.  

Good bye, kindergraten and second grade!

We've had the best year ever!  It's hard to say good bye.  We're excited about summer though and are leaving for school today feeling light on our feet!

For our traditional last day of school photos Lucy refused to let the girls sit with her.   "Nope, MOOOVe".

If you ever wonder who's in charge around here, I think this picture will fill you in. 

When did they get so big?

Boss Lady finally agreed to a photo!



Summer, here we come!