Froggie friends and fairy houses

The end of the school year and our summer so far has been so full of activity and travel.  Everyone finished school with flying colors.  Joel loved his first year in seminary and received top marks for his work.  I managed to not just survive our first year here but really enjoyed our first year homeschooling.  Since the school year ended Joel has traveled three different weeks for work (we are so thankful for his job - contracting with his former boss/company), I've sent the big girls to three different VBSs, and we've traveled to Illinois and North Carolina for family reunions.  We are looking forward to having about of month with minimum travel now to actually rest before school starts again!  

We are still liking our apartment and love having our backyard - Elsa still considers it a "wonderful and wild" despite its tiny size and my continued attempts to "tame" it into a submissive garden.  Two frogs have frequented our backyard despite Tabitha Twitchit's watchful eye - a four inch brown toad and this little tree frog.  The tree frog has been caught and released so many times I'm surprised he still sticks around!

We think the frogs like our yard because they are friends with the fairies who live at the base of the poplar tree in our yard.  Elsa has taken it upon herself to do regular house cleaning and yard work for them.

New china from GG...

...means it is time for another tea party with a neighbor:

Beatrice was very eager to get in on the action,

So I set up her own place with her cheerios and she was very happy to be by the Big Girls:

To Grandma's house

We spent about a week at my grandma's house near Chicago.  My parents drove the big girls up and we followed with the baby (the minivan's transmission is about dead and we're selling it for parts :(  we're getting used to just having the car, but it can get tight on long trips with all three in the back, so it was great to let the big girls ride with Oma and Opa!).  Anyway, I was glad the girls actually remembered being at GG's house two years ago!  This time GG got our one of her "junk jars" - a giant pickle jar full of odds and ends that had been collected over the years - from antique toys to broken bit of jewelry and all sorts of other knicknacks that intrigued the girls as they asked about each piece. 

GG got the girls into the kitchen again.  This time Elsa could help a bit more and was in charge of the pancakes.

Nora took care of the bananas.

Beatrice didn't help cook but she happily ate or tried to eat most of what we put in front of her.  Grandma tries to get a picture of each grandkid and great-grand in Great-Grandpa's highchair:

Four generations:

And a few more of Beatrice and Great Grandma because I'll never have too many:

Family reunion

While at GG's house we saw a lot of cousins and we all met up a few times for a reunion that weekend.  Aunt Colleen showed up to GG's house with little pools, squirt guns, and other water toys and immediately became Favorite Person Number 1.  

I really enjoyed getting to see my extended family and introducing the girls to many of them for the first time.

Beatrice warmed up to Aunt Colleen pretty quickly:

And how many Banisters does it take to cut a watermelon?

More cousins and more pools!

GG and her siblings:

Now as "See no evil, speak no evil, hear no evil... smell no evil?"  Ha!

Visiting the boat

While we were at GG's house we made a day trip into Chicago.  We swung through Lincoln Park Zoo (visiting the reptile house, of course) before visiting Navy Pier, where my family used to run public cruises and charters on tall ships.  One of the ships is still there under a new owner, and we got to go aboard to show the girls where I used to work with Oma and Opa.  It was a pretty chilly day for summer, but we managed to get a nice family photo before the girls wanted to go inside again.

Frog babies

My mother had a few days with the girls in June, and she sent them home with two buckets of tadpoles!

We enlarged their habitat, did a quick study of a frog's lifecycle, and soon became completely enthralled with watching them grow legs.

Elsa's mothering instincts come out best when a reptile or amphibian is involved.  She was out there first thing every morning to sing to them and make sure they were not too hot.

She was completely delighted when we had our first frog!

And soon there was another!

And then even more!  The singing must have worked!

Strawberries

Strawberry season snuck up on us in May, but we were able to get out once with some friends to go picking.  Even though we went early in the morning, it go so hot so soon that we were content to just buy from the farmers markets and stores for the rest of the season, especially for the kids and baby!

SEVEN!

Elsa is now seven.  This year she has learned to read, can easily add up double and triple digits, and can sing most of the periodic table.  She loves all bugs (and is still curious about why I will pick up a shiny June bug in the parking lot for her but I won't let her keep cockroaches) and reptiles, and will listen to Daddy's funny British accent read any book from the Rainbow Magic Fairy series whenever she gets the chance.  (I think the books are complete twaddle, but they have inspired her to illustrate and write her own fairy adventure stories so I've stopped complaining about them!).  

I loved working with her to plan her Chameleon birthday last year, and we had so much fun planning her Rainbow Magic Fairy party this year.  It ended up being a bit of a production, but almost everything we used was stuff we already had or could make together.  She did much of the decorating herself:

These are not generic fairies and goblins - each one has a name and designation: e.g. Georgia the Guinea Pig Fairy and Ally the Dolphin Fairy:

We made rock candy to be the Fairy Wand party favors so of course I was sneaky and turned this into a bit of a science activity since we had just studied and grown crystals earlier in the year.  We had several big flops until we found a successful method, but the ones that did turn out were so pretty I kept taking pictures of them!

We helped each guest turn into a fairy (or gobin, in the case of our friend Sam) when they arrived with facepaint, various wings, and a few fancy face masks.  King Oberon and Queen Titania (my father and mother) were also in attendance, much to the delight of all the little fairies!

Of course, Jack Frost couldn't help but poke his nose into the fun and disrupt the party...

He was jealous so he hid the rainbow key to the cupcakes!

The girls had to find the pieces of the rainbow while Jack Frost and his goblin sidekick played freeze tag with them.

He also hid the party favors and the Fairy Wands!  Thankfully King Oberon had scroll with a riddle full of clues that led them to the gift bag high up in a tree...

Which also had another scroll that led them to the Fairy wands!  The final scroll explained that goblins hate the "Happy Birthday" song, so they all sang really loud to Elsa, which caused the goblins to run off shrieking,

leaving the the box of rock candy wands behind!

We had so much fun, and it was especially neat to celebrate with the new friends we've made this year.  Even Nora had a good time, though I'm learning that she prefers simpler, quieter parties for herself (she remarked at the end of the day that for her birthday she wanted a "quiet love party at home with just our family").

Queen Titania and the girls:

Seven years!  She's growing and changing everyday and we work hard to keep up with her and stay connected.  I am thankful that for now she still is not too self-conscience that she still enjoys dancing among the trees and singing to herself.