We went hiking with the youth group on Saturday. Grace and Jasmin stayed with NiNi. It was supposed to be hot and sunny, but turned out to be cloudy and hot. This was good as no one had yet bought sun screen. As it was, we all didn't bring enough water. It also was not good, as it was because of an approaching storm... no, we didn't get wet! But it meant that we heard and saw hardly any wildlife at all...
I was pretty excited to see these things though:

a new beaver dam pond...
newly worked on trees...
and the only wildlife of the 5 km hike:
We saw a number of plants and even already blooming flowers, but the camera was too often in the wrong hands to get pictures of them :o(

It was our wedding anniversary on the 23rd. Four years! Seems like forever and no time at all at the same time. Rather typically for us, the most we celebrated was to eat out as a family - at Joey's seafood restaurant for which we had a coupon. We decided it was special enough after some discussion since we realized the last time we went out just our family was in Cambodia... now over a year ago! We didn't get much talking done though, as the girls were more interested in the fish tank and the things hanging from the ceiling than eating food! Grace decided she had to have a proper conversation with the hammerhead shark...

For the first time ever (can you believe it?!), the girls emptied our container cupboard and played with the contents almost all afternoon. Which pleased Mommy immensely - until they decided they were dogs and had to pour water into/onto various containers and lids to lap up! Unfortunately they began this play on the livingroom carpet while Mommy and Daddy were occupied with a Skype call... not too much damage though! We are exchanging the carpet for laminate soon - this poor carpet has been through so much already!

Both Grace and Jasmin have become fascinated by umbrellas... this last weekend NiNi bought them little girl umbrellas. Today it began raining as they were eating breakfast. immediately Grace begins: "Look! Mommy! It's raining! Get rainboots and coat and hat and umbrella go in the rain..." So Mommy dressed them all up and sent them out. Jasmin immediately turned around and came in again. Definitely not Mommy's outdoor girl, I guess. Grace went out into the yard and just stood there under the umbrella for a good 10 minutes!
We finally have found a good naturopath for Jasmin. We had her at the first appointment last Wednesday. It was very encouraging just to have someonr knowledgeable listen to our concerns... as well as have some ideas of what else we can do to help her. Now we are keeping a detailed diet diary, and then next appointment we will talk through diet and nutrition.

Spring weather has us delirious...
Mornings have us playing in the backyard -
Mommy has transferred the wash line from the basement to outside (Oh, it is SO good to look out and see clean clothes blowing in the wind in the sunshine!) ...
and put up the tent for the girls to giggle in (and pretend all sorts, of course!)...
Grace and Jasmin have industriously "painted" rocks with chalk to ring our lone tree in the front...

And afternoons we have ventured out in the now fixed, almost better than when we bought it, stroller. Yesterday we entered the "deep,dark woods" again, tracked down the woodpecker again and listened through the tree trunk (thanks for the brilliant suggestion Phyllis!). Jasmin was alseep on my back in an improvised coat sling, so she wasn't in on this discovery. But Grace... she was captivated! She looked at Mommy like she thought Mommy was crazy, but she trusted enough to try it too. And then listened for the next 10 minutes! Unfortunately, Mommy's back was not strong enough to carry Jasmin any longer than that.

Today we went to the park. The girls were so excited! The mere mention precipitated a flurry of activity resulting in two very excited ready girls before Mommy had even finished her must-finish-before-we-go task!
Yet another sign of fast growing up:Grace, who has never liked swinging, and Jasmin not yet two wanting to be a big girl! Mommy had to stand between and swing them (holding Grace's hand) though. Jasmin amazed Mommy with the understanding that leaning backwards and forwards makes the swing move, though Mommy wasn't quite ready to let her do that too much!

On the way home we met a neighborhood cat. Very friendly! Grace made Mommy laugh with her commands: "Cat, stand up!" "Cat, lie down!" Cat, high five!" And Jasmin's commentary: a highly contented murmur of "cat, cat, cat!"

Easter activities...

We finally got to the cross and the tomb on our wall! Grace's favorite circle was the one for Palm Sunday - she learned the song ever so quickly and loved singing it any time any where. Jasmin's favorite was the empty tomb: she really enjoyed wrapping and hiding a doll in a "cave" and coming back to find it empty! Whuch triggered a long play session with KaRen and JuEn as Grace began to explain everything she could remember to them over a snack... And, of course, they both enjoyed hunting the eggs with the symbols of the stories inside today.

We also got to the park near NiNi's home today in the sunshine and cool wind. The girls were thrilled to be at a park again, and endured cold hands much longer than mommy expected. Jasmin surely has grown up as she voluntarily left her beloved swing to join Grace on the slides - and went down on her own first time!

We began an Emmaus walk ( on whick you talk about all God has done in the last year) which turned into a nature exploration...
...stalking robins to watch them catch worms...

...stopping to play Poohsticks, learning about running water... and getting too wet st stay and discover any more!