Sunny Days Are Here

I feel guilty posting this given the wintery weather that the rest of the country is experiencing. In California, it's been lovely and balmy all week. Maddie and I took a walk this afternoon to Starbucks for a juice and a coffee. We couldn't get over how "springtime" it is right now...65 degrees and sunny!

These pics are from the backyard. Keep in mind I'm not a photographer or a gardener, but all of our plants seemed to have seasonal confusion as well. I'm not complaining.

 

 

Rock On!

Kelsey and Maddie have been a bit under the weather. I've had to think of interesting things to do (inside) the house that are fun and (hopefully) teach us a little something. Lucky us, I found these instructions for growing your own rock candy lollipops! The girls had a great time picking out flavors and colors. Kelsey decided to make green mint lollipops, and Maddie made a batch of blue vanilla.

We've let them grow for about a week, and they are getting pretty big. We actually added closer to about five and a half cups of sugar. :P  (I don't think we are going to be doing this activity too many times!)  I'm not sure how long we will end up letting them grow. The girls want to see how big they will actually get, and I think they look kind of cool in the glasses.

Sunbread

Kelsey was sick today so we had a quiet day at home and made one of our favorite recipes. It comes from Elisa Klevan's book Sunbread. The girls love the gorgeous illustrations, and while we considered making some animals from the dough, in the end we made our usual sun loaf. 

The house smelled like wonderful baking bread!  I think freshly baked bread is one of my favorite things to eat ever.

Silly me, I forgot to take a picture of the actual loaf of sunbread.  That afternoon Maddie had the brilliant idea to make our own butter, so guess what we had for dinner tonight?

Winter Wonderland

It is that time of year again, when we have to take down all of the Christmas decorations. Maddie was so incredibly sad that the holidays were over and that our tree had to come down. I can't blame her. I really don't like that part either. I talked to her about all the holidays that are coming in the next couple of months when I remembered what I used to do with Kelsey right after Christmas. Right after the last of our holiday cheer had been packed away, Kelsey and I would cut out snowflakes and tape them to the windows. (Being in California, this is the closest we can get to a winter wonderland!) 

Maddie and I pulled out some white tissue that we saved from the presents (we save all that kinds of stuff around here--old tissue gets repurposed into flowers so that we don't have to use bows, etc.). We spent an hour cutting out shapes and taping all our snowflakes to the windows. She felt happier about celebrating winter with pretty decorations, and I was so glad that we found a happy solution!

 

Another one of my favorite parts of the week: Maddie and I were searching for some tunes to use during her next Girl Scout meeting, and she put on her favorite dress up outfit and put on a show.  Maddie's little moments of spontaneity remind me to just enjoy the moment. Sometimes I forget to do this, and this can be such a good thing.