On Fairies and Camping

Seis de Morgen! Morgen begged and begged for this candle. Oh jeez, it's the least I can do for that sweet little sweetheart sweetykins.

All the kids helped make our birthday banner. (Ignore the mossy basketball net on our front porch.)

A happy girl blowing out her birthday candle.

What beautiful girls! They don't sit side-by-side like this often, so it's amazing to see how alike they look. Hmmm...I look at these two pretty fairy girls and what I see is a ying and yang of joy. They are both so different, and give me a giddy feeling of joy in such different ways. It's inexplicable, but together, it feels like wholeness. I hope they are always friends, the years only drawing them closer.

Present time! Fairies get really cool gifts...like a wooden star wand and felted art and other neat things I couldn't see because the whole event looked like this:

A whirling dervish of fluttering fairy wings! A blurry blizzard of magicalness!
If it weren't for her brother, who gave her a nickle wrapped in half a roll of tape, the whole thing would've lasted a mere 2.5 minutes.

Our campy indoor banner; should be good for the whole birthday season...

ACK!!

One of the traditions at the kids' school is to have the parent come in and tell a story about their child or about their birth. It seemed mortifying at first, but I really quite like it. It's fun to brag on your child in front of her class. And because it's expected and anticipated, they are not dying of embarassment. All the kids love it! So anyway, I got to go in and tell a little story I wrote in the hospital when Morgen was born about the day she was born and why she was given her name. In this story there is a castle on a hill overlooking a lush kingdom of forests and streams, and a king and a queen who are much in love, and a duty to war and a duty to labor... But I shall save that story for another birthday.

Because.... also this day we had the epic event of a VACATION! Or something close to it. After vacuuming up the last of the cupcake crumbs and putting away the last teacup (ha--if you know us at all, you know we left it all there), we threw all our tents and sleeping bags and hotdogs and marshmallows and...well, what else do you need?....into the car and took off for Oxbow Park for a weekend of camping with some of the families from Korah's class. Taylor and I had done a Mother-Son campout there a few weeks prior and I fell in love! There were deer everywhere, a beautiful river and forests to explore...mere minutes from civilization! It's killing me that we've never in our 12 years here, taken advantage of this oasis. We even used to live a scant 15 minutes away! So we came, we relaxed... we didn't see Korah the entire time because she was off exploring the forest with her classmates sans grown-ups (creating some important milestones for sure!). It was fantastic! But frick, was it ever COLD! I was NOT prepared for that, and after the first night we went home for a long, hot shower and then snuggling under many covers in a soft, soft bed!! I have never loved my bed so much!

Because of the amount of pictures I have, I'm going to start a new post. Read on or click here.