Easter

 The girls rescued their Easter baskets from the rain outside.

 H, E, L and N exploring the contents of their baskets.

 H with her bubble gum eggs and blue eyes!

 E found the "dollar egg".  L was jealous

H, E, N and H with rock candy from our friend Judy.

A very "Good Friday"

On Friday my friend Nicole, her son Mitch, Emilia, Heidi and I spent the whole morning outside in the sunshine!  We drove south to Seal Rock and explored the tide pools and rocks there. 

 Heidi

Mitch and E

After that we went up to Ona Beach and searched for agates and fossils.  It's amazing at low tide!!!

Later Friday night we dyed eggs and frosted Easter cookies with all the girls and a few friends.

  You may notice the half eaten egg next to Heidi.  This is because it is her first egg that she attempted to dye.  I told her to pick one and put it in a cup.  Well, she THREW it into the cup.  The dye splashed everywhere and the egg was completely cracked.  Needless to say, she got a snack, I got a new painting shirt and my kitchen got a cleaning :)

Donation

 My sweet Leah decided she wanted me to cut her hair so she could donate it to Locks of Love. 

 We cut off nine inches.

Then she came up with a new use for it.  :)

an amazing gift

Ten years ago when Lars and I got married, my sister Stephanie started this quilt for our wedding present.  She finished it last week :)  Over the years this has kind of been a running joke.  I'll talk about wanting to paint my bedroom and buy a new comforter and she will say, "Don't do it!  I'm working on your quilt!"  So I never did.  We have been using Lars's ugly (but very comfy) blanket that he had on his bed all through high school.

My sister Steph in now pregnant with her seventh baby and still managed to finish this quilt.  I was SO excited to get it in the mail today!!!  You can ask anyone, I don't get emotionally attached to many things.  Art work and of course photos are about all I would care to save in a fire...but this blanket is now on the list.  It came with a history!  I could be leaving some places out, but I know that the pieces of this quilt have moved with my sister from Iowa, to Missouri, to New York, back to Missouri, to Colorado and back to Iowa.  Steph has somehow found time and for some reason made it a priority to piece this blanket together amidst home schooling her six children, moving, gardening, cooking, cleaning, traveling, being a mother, daughter, auntie, sister and friend. 

I'm not even coming close to expressing how much love I feel from this gift from my sister whom I love and admire so much.  I am so blessed to have a relationship with such an amazing woman, to know of her love for me, and to have it expressed so beautifully in this quilt. Thank you my sister for sewing all of those feelings, emotions and experiences into my blanket.  I LOVE it and I love you.

Hair Cut...and not mine

My five year old E has beautiful, fine, red hair.  It is silky and smooth...when she lets me brush it.  Which is never.  My constant threat is "brush it or I'll cut it."  E doesn't respond to threats.  She responds more to coercion.  I found some pictures of her with short hair and started raving about how cute she is with short hair, and how much I loved that hair cut.  Her sisters chimed in.  Of course the only one not jumping on board was Daddy who thinks all girls should have long hair. 

The very next morning E had the most amazing bed head I have ever seen with hair as long as hers.  I really should have taken a picture.  It had to have been sticking out a good four inches.  Lars took one look at it and said, "I think she needs her hair cut!"  I told him he had to make a big deal about it because she wasn't going to cut her hair as long as she thought Dad wanted her to have long hair.  So after Lars told her he thought she would look so cute with short hair again, E was super excited to get her hair cut! 

It was kind of a bitter sweet.  Once I actually got it washed and all brushed out, it looked so pretty that I wanted her to keep it long.  Then I remembered that it doesn't ever look like that, so I cut it.

Before

 After

I love it short! 

A SUNNY Weekend!

Although spring break was just two weeks ago, the girls had another five day weekend due to parent/teacher conferences.  This is a whole new dynamic for us since Lars IS a teacher.  He didn't get a break...but we did. :) 
On Friday the sun was shining so the girls and I went with a group of friends down to Cape Perpetua.  It's about a 45 minute drive south from Newport.  WOW!  I have never been there before and it is amazing!!  These pictures don't even do it justice.  I can't wait to go back with Lars and spend more time walking on the trails and enjoying the beauty of this area. 

 Lava rocks and tide pools down below

 the coast line view...

"devil's churn" down below

 Saturday I took the girls down to the beach.  We played around for 2 1/2 hours!  Naomi built an amazing sand castle, Leah expanded her collection of random "beachy" things, and Emilia found one seagull feather that immediately became her prized possession.  Heidi taught me the proper way to build a sand castle.  1. Fill your bucket with sand.  2. Step on the sand in your bucket.  3. Flip the bucket over. 4. Sit on the bucket.  5. Remove bucket.  Clap and squeal with delight.  6. Demolish sand castle.  7. Repeat steps 1-6 until the sun sets or your mother drags you home kicking and screaming...which ever comes first. 

Two Books

I have been reading these two books as part of my "Retrain your Brain" plight in life.  They are spectacular! 
I enthusiastically recommend them to anyone wanting a better understanding of brain processes and how it effects EVERY part of your life and health.

Painting

Here's a pict. of the painting I just finished.  It is acrylic on canvas.  The birds and trees are newspaper that I collaged onto it and painted over. Unfortunately the lighting up here is very blue.  The picture is much warmer than it looks.  I'll see if I can manipulate the image a bit to make it look more true to itself.  Anyway, it's my first time back with my paints since before H was born.  It's nice to have that outlet again!

Deep Thoughts-by Leah Wight

"If I lived in the jungle and I needed to take a shower, I would first make a bar of soap.  Then I would tie a huge leaf to two vines, and hopefully not a snake, so it could fill up and pour out on me.  I would probably need to make shampoo too..."

Brunch Observations

This morning I made cinnamon rolls.  I remembered why I rarely make them.  I like to eat them.  ALL of them.  Anyway, I was nice and shared with the girls and while we were eating this conversation took place.

E- I still have a lot of my cinnamon roll left.  Yours is almost gone!
N- No.  I have more left than Mom does.
E- Mom just eats really fast.
N- No.  She just has a HUGE mouth.

Thank you my daughters.  I'll remember this when I'm writing out my will.

It's a bird. It's a plane. It's...my child?

Nye Creek, on Nye Beach

This story deserves to be told.  Last month we decided to seize the day and take a walk in the sunshine.  Lars, the girls and I headed down to the beach access at the end of our street.  As it is set up, we can go down that way, walk up the beach and come back to the road a couple blocks north and head home again.  Between the two beach access points, there is a large pipe that drains the rain water back into the ocean.  It runs perpendicular from beneath the parking lot to the ocean.  Now depending on the amount of rain, "Nye Creek" can be non-existent or quite an obstacle to cross.  As it happened that it had been raining for the previous...I don't know...46 days or so, the water flow was quite ample.

I had my suspicions that this would be the case and was intending to turn around and go back the way we came, but Lars wasn't going to be stopped by a little water. :)   He had walked ahead with the older three girls and I was quite a ways behind with Heidi.  She tends to get rather distracted in the sand and likes to run all over the place like a crazy person.  When I decided to just pick her up and was able refocus my attention on other things, I looked ahead and saw Leah literally flying through the air over Nye Creek.  She landed safe and dry on the other side.  Then I watched as Lars picked up Naomi, swung her twice and then launched her over the creek.  I caught up to them as he was hoisting Emilia up for the same fate as her sisters.  I suggested maybe finding another way across...one that didn't look life threatening, for instance.  Lars reassured me they were fine and tossed E across the creek and then hopped over himself.

This left me standing on the south side with Heidi and Lars on the north side with the other girls.  You can bet I wasn't going to chuck my two year old across a creek, no matter how shallow it was!  So I walked up to the wall where the pipe was and had Heidi walk across the cement ledge over the pipe.  Lars took her down, I hopped over the water and we continued our little walk as if it was a completely normal part of our day to catapult red headed children over small bodies of water.

Unhealthy Attachments?

I'm beginning to think the miss Heidi may have some serious attachment disorders. 

First of all, she sucks her thumb. 

Secondly, she carries "Pink Blankie" with her everywhere.  Yes, she named her blanket. 

Third, she has recently started carrying "Berry Pillow" with her as well.  And yes, she also named her pillow with the Strawberry Shortcake pillowcase (which I am never allowed to remove). 

Fourth, she will ONLY sleep in her "Green Bed" which is a port-a-crib that she's been in since birth.  Her head now touches one end and her feet hit the other so I packed it up and put it under her big girl bed.  She refuses to sleep in another bed and now sleeps on the floor, next to "green bed". 

Fifth, Heidi will only wear ONE dress.  It is her pink dress with flowers on it.  She calls is "Blue Dress."  I call it her "Skins" because it is like removing part of her body if I ever want to wash it.  And clearly, as the picture above demonstrates, she REALLY doesn't like it when I wash her dress.  Today I had to open the washing machine lid twice to reassure her it was still in there and pull it out of the dryer three different times so she would be at ease about the whole process.

Should I be worried?

Serenade

I took Heidi and Emilia to the library.  As we were playing in the kid's section, the girls noticed some free bookmarks sitting on a desk, so naturally they helped themselves to one each.  Then I hauled them over to the cook book section.  (Somehow we always end up there...)  As we were standing in the aisle, I looked down and noticed Heidi was holding the bookmark horizontally across her mid section and strumming it like a guitar.  Unprompted H and E burst into a rousing verse of "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star."  I didn't have the heart to "shush" them...being in the library and all.  Plus, it took all of my will power not to fall on the floor laughing.  It was SO adorable!