Celebrating with Miranda

Miranda had her second birthday last week and we celebrated with a bunny party with close family and friends. The best part was seeing Miranda get so excited about the cake, seeing her friends and cousins, the singing, the games and
wearing her party dresses (she had to change her clothes as new dresses appeared in the gift bags). She led the toddlers in the hopping contest and all of the kids loved hunting for marshmallow bunnies in the backyard. Miranda provided the entertainment by showing off her newly acquired bilingual counting skills (she skips the number two in both languages!!).

The funniest moments of the party were when the kids found Jove's costumes and all dressed up and when the kids found the kazoos in their goody bags and played them very loudly for a very long time. For some of the kids, it was their first kazoo. Imagine the excitement...

I truly enjoy the birthday parties we have for Jove and Miranda at the house and I have done enough of them now that I am pretty relaxed as they happen, although I still marvel at the amount of work they involve in preparation. One year, I called people and sent evites instead of paper invitations and I got a few good-natured complaints from the older cousins that they didn't get invitations in the mail and I realized that the magic of life is in the details.

I have a month or so before I need to start planning for Jove's and he has big ideas about it which change every week. Should be interesting.

Inspiration

I found a link to this in a favorite blog and had to share it. Jove and I spent the afternoon painting after watching it and we also used permanent markers to draw and then filled in our drawings with watercolor paint. So much fun. I really, really want to paint more and be much, much better at it.

Mom, you're going to have to give me a lesson this summer.

in like a lion, out like a lamb

So, last Monday, the 2nd of March, we had a snowstorm that blanketed us in white and got Jup a much appreciated snow day. We frolicked outside and sledded a couple of days later. I contemplated Miranda's snow pants thinking that it will probably be the last time she wears them and next year she can wear the pair that is too small on Jove and causes frozen ankle-itis.

Fast forward five days and it was a balmy 65 degrees with sunshine and warm breezes. Mud abounds and small flowers are showing themselves. We spent the day at the Botanical Garden with our good friends hunting for signs of Spring. We saw a few patches of crocus and many had bees on them from a nearby nest in a tree hollow. The Japanese Witch Hazel was in full bloom with its small chartreuse flowers (pictured above). The American variety usually blooms earlier in the winter. We had a serendipitous encounter with Dino (i.e. the bird whisperer) who gets black-capped chickadees to feed on seeds and nuts out of his hand. He taught Jove and his friend how to do it and both were successful. I was too embarrassed to ask for some nuts for me to try it. We followed a red-tailed hawk as it flew from branch to branch in the forest along the path. It felt wondrous to be outside and see so much life.
The Spring equinox is March 20th; also the day Miranda will be two years old. Such an exciting time... to be continued