Spring is ON!

We really enjoyed the nice spring weather this week! So many warm days meant being able to enjoy ourselves outdoors! We had a few bike rides, some tree climbing, gardening, bbqing and sometimes sleepy kids at night!

Sweetie & Love did some weeding to flesh out their laptop fund a bit! Five dollars an hour (rate set by "Yes Man" not Mumma!) accumulates a little better than $0.50 per compost run! I think they have almost $90 now. Should have that laptop to share just about the same time they'll be at each other's throats over borrowing clothes but we'll worry about that when we come to it!

They're still reading the Secret Garden. Lovey was reading it on her own for quite awhile and got most of the way through so isn't very interested in story time lately but once they catch up to her, she'll be reclaiming her turn snuggled up to daddy!

Chasing Waterfalls

Another photographer and I went to check out a waterfall she knew of this morning. I was expecting a  small cascade of rocks with a bit of water, maybe a good run of water with all the snow melting lately. When we parked the car, I could hear the roaring and knew it was going to be a very impressive trickle! We had to slip and slide our way over the terrain but got to the site without incident (and by incident I mean me tumbling down a rocky hillside!). I loved the site!!! I'd like to go back sometime with a tripod and try some long exposures and different lighting for fun! This was a quick snap today and trying to keep the camera steady in my hands to get some water blur. Not too bad but I didn't spend much time on it. This would be such a nice location for portraits! I'll have to find some unsuspecting family to drag out here when the weather improves and the ground dries up a bit.

The weather was beautiful for the first day of spring! It was so nice in fact, I even felt like taking down my  winter decorations off the bannister (ok Mum? happy???). The girls wanted to play outside after school and then after supper we went downtown to bike the trails. We didn't have much time and they were disappointed to come home so soon. We'll have to go back another time! They've been a bit tired lately, especially Honey. When I go to wake her up in the morning, she cries and doesn't want to get up. Since she's so fast, I can let her sleep an extra 15 minutes and she's still the first one out the door!

It's Violin Season!

Lovey is working hard on her violin pieces as she gets ready for violin week coming up in April. Her teacher has her performing FIVE different pieces and I think I got a slight look of disapproval when I didn't sign her up for MORE! Lovey has almost all of them memorized and is now mostly working on posture, bowing technique and watching her finger placement on the strings. All the boring stuff! She just wants to tear into the songs and have at 'er! She practices without complaint or even hesitation every single day and loves the songs more and more as she learns them.

Misty had a practice concert for some of the students last night so we had Mum & Dad at our house for dinner for a change and they brought GG over too. GG then accompanied us to the concert to see Lovey play we made sure she was awake for the important parts but let her rest up in between. She's almost 94 and it was a pretty full day. I say sleep when you can GG <3   :))) Lovey enjoyed listening to all the other students' music and she & her sisters got quite excited at one piece. I didn't recognize it but they all did! It was from one of the Harry Potter movies, Hedwig's Theme! Lovey's got her eye on that piece! Maybe I should write that down for a birthday idea!

Also want to send Happy Birthday greetings to Nanny! Today's her official birthday and her last one as a teacher! This time next year she's planning to be an official beach bum!

Lep Prep

Here are some photos of the girls preparing to trap their little leprechaun so they can get his gold! Unfortunately I don't think the leprechaun dared come inside as we were home most of the day and so he just snuck inside the door, stole a candy and ran off!

 Lovey shows how her sword set up would tip and cause the leprechaun to fall into the box and get trapped in there (because he wouldn't be tall enough to climb out). They left a little light for him so he wouldn't be too scared in there during the night! Thoughtful kidnappers huh?

 Honey's yo yo trap was quite a set up. The yo yo was sitting on the music stand and would come rolling off when he got too close and tangle him up in all the string I guess?

 and the final station, the sticky trap! They left a mini treasure chest full of leprechaun gold to lure him in. Once in the box, he'd get fouled up because all the gold had loops of scotch tape on it that he'd become stuck to!

They were quite disappointed and annoyed that he didn't even spring any of the traps!