picnic

We had a lovely lovely lovely picnic today.  It was a little humid but not too hot.  Lazy daisy day.  There was a slip & slide involved (not pictured), yummy food, painting, and cloud gazing.  I began the day with wonder and excitement.  We had a busy slow moving morning (installing a washer/dryer & re-arranging the girls bedroom).  Then we went out for supplies.  All I wanted was to go to Michaels to get a metal ringed sketch book to use as an art journal.  I have a million notebooks that would have worked.  I even have a nice Moleskine journal.  But I wanted one that could expand if I did some mixed-media in it.  Anyway, I made the mistake of bringing the girls to the craft store with me.  I get plenty distracted on my own, let alone the girls asking for stickers and stamps and their own art journals.  We walked out of Michaels with 3 art journals, paint, watercolors, oil pastels, paintbrushes, scrapbook paper, stamps, stickers, and rhinestones.  Um.  Yeah.  Then we went to the grocery store to get picnicy food, picking up every sample they offered because by then it was nearly 3 and I'm pretty sure the girls ate real food, but I ate chips for breakfast.  So starving I frantically threw together this picnic for the front yard so we could eat.  I guess Pumpkin was hungry too, cause he wanted what we were having!  After our bellies were full we got lazy again and life got slow.  That's the best thing about picnics I think.  They seem to go on forever.  It reminds me of summertime when you were a kid and you had the whole summer to do nothing and everything.  We should picnic more often.  It's a nice change of pace.

bright eyed and bushy tailed

Tears started flowing out of my eyes when I took pictures of squirrels yesterday morning.  Not because I was moved, but because the harsh early morning sunlight was too bright for my vampire eyes.  I am so proud of this photo!  I took it with my new toy, a Canon PowerShot SX120 IS.  I love this camera!  Messing around with digital SLRs in the store made me realize they were way out of my league.  Who needs a dslr when you can buy a great point and shoot camera for around $250, complete with 10.0 mega pixels and a 10x  optical zoom?! It even has sepia and black & white modes!   I haven't played around with it much, but it has already helped an amateur like me take some pretty impressive photos. I am very excited about better pictures, spring cleaning, and warmer weather.  What are you excited about?

go out and play

Round up the nearest little one and take them to the park.  Set them free and follow them around.  Crouch down so you can really see the world through their eyes.  Try out as many pieces of equipment as possible.  Play with them.  Get dirty.  Find some sand, take off your shoes, and sink your feet in deep.  Build castles.  Climb mountains.  Be a troll under the bridge.  Run until it hurts your heart, and just try to wipe that smile off your face!