It's great to be 2

This is the summer box Auntie put together for Anna. I think it was born out of my lamenting that I wish I could send the kids outside for, well, all day. I like the illustration of me pouring goldfish crackers on them in the sandbox.

Godmama brought a cake to church for miss Anna.


And Godmama embroidered this beautiful head scarf for Anna and Anna loves to wear it. She looks like a little matroshka doll in church.

crafts

Both of our moms have birthdays in May and last year I made these two patio side tables for them. It was relatively easy since we had so much tile and grout left over. I glued the tiles onto squares of wood before grouting them and then Ben screwed them onto iron stands we found around town. I have my eye out for a slightly larger stand that I could use to make more of a picnic table for our house. The colors aren't quite right in the pictures of the second table, but you get the idea.


Last year for Christmas two of Joachim's friends made him a shooting star shirt and it's been his favorite shirt all year, the only drawback is that it was white. I told my friend I was thinking about dying it to hide the stains and she sent me home with a jar of blue dye from her cupboard. Here they are stirring the shirt in the dye.


Unfortunately the dye also dyed the paint on the stars so we repainted them and added another one for fun and so the shirt was revived.

As long as we had the dye out I remembered a white turtle neck my mom bought Joachim for a buck at Old Navy. He dislikes turtlenecks and I dislike white so it sat in the drawer. I wondered if we tie-dyed it if he would want to wear it and maybe he could wear it under tee-shirts to cover up the actual tie-dyed part.

He loved the magic of taking the rubber bands off and he's worn it all winter as often as it's been clean in the drawer (and sometimes out of the dirty clothes). It's quite the conversation piece when we go out, but not too tacky I don't think.

a few outings from last spring

The first three pictures are from around Delta and the above one is in Arches National Park. Our anniversary is May 28 which can still be cold here. Last year for our 5th my parents came to watch the kids overnight so we could get away and I was determined to wear a summer skirt where we went. Someone suggested Moab and guaranteed it would be hot so I was sold. We will definitely return to- lots to explore and lots of good food to eat.

brother and sister

Yes, I took advantage of Bloggers post-dating option and threw in a whole bunch of back posts. Over the years some of the personal blogs I've enjoyed following have left the blogging scene for various reasons- some privacy, others new technology like facebook and pinterest, yet I've still not figured out where I stand with it. I just can't get into the facebook world, I'm not that fond of it yet, but I'm still not sure how I feel about putting my family out on the internet even if I only have a dozen friends reading.

As I've said before, Joachim loves looking at pictures and remembering stories. It was wonderful to get off the phone with great-grandmommy and easily find pictures and stories of visiting her. I figured out what I really want to do is make those shutterfly books, or whatever, so I can have them on the shelf where the kids can access them easily. The idea of dropping my pictures into a digital file and typing a few words about them and then being sent a real bound book is attractive, so until then, I figure I'll keep weeding through the pictures and posting them here so I can easily collect them for my book... someday. I just don't trust technology as much as a physical book in my hand, the internet is an awesome resource but, ya know.










I take a lot of pictures and Anna has picked up on it.

blessing of water at the divide

My first three years in Colorado I made it to the blessing of the water on the great divide. This is a service held near Theophony (Epiphany) where Orthodox Christian from across Colorado meet on Monarch pass and bless the snowpack that will subsequently melt and run to the Pacific and Atlantic oceans. We've missed the last three years due to weather and Anna's birth, but this year the day worked out perfectly. We drove up under blue skies and while it's normally below 0 there this time of year, the sun was out and if it weren't for a light breeze we'd almost not need the winter parkas.



We walk to each side of the mountain and toss a cross of ice over the edge to melt and bless the land.

And then as tradition holds, we drive into Salida for pizza, beer and a chance to visit with friends from the other side of the mountains. Here Joachim is munching with friends from the Springs. Each of the kids get a dough ball to shape and play with while they wait. Below Joachim's dough is baking in the oven... too bad I didn't take a picture of his finished product, he'd shaped it into letters.