Gabby's Haircut

I cut Gabby's very long hair today. It is now just a tiny bit below her shoulders. We will be sending the hair to The Little Princess Trust to help create wigs for children with cancer.





For an idea of just how long her hair was before, here are some photos of her last October on her 7th birthday. Her hair has not been cut since.

Connor & The Singing Trees

I had to do some grocery shopping today as we were completely out of fruit. Connor insisted on coming with me, even though his teenage sister Angelica was home so he could have stayed at home. The walk to the store was 2 1/2 miles each way.

Fortunately, the sun was out. It would have been hot, but there was a strong, cool breeze that kept the temperature from feeling too warm. It was beautiful out.

Like our last walk, there were butterflies fluttering and spiraling all around us. They kept flying really close to us, so Connor exclaimed, "Mommy! The butterflies LIKE us! They like us, Mommy!"

I was surprised that we didn't see as many dogs out as usual. It was a gorgeous day and perfect for dog-walking, yet we only saw about four dogs being walked compared to the usual twenty or so we see on most walks. Connor got to pet most of the dogs we saw. He loves to pet them, and he is really gentle with them. I've taught him never to just run up to the dogs though; he is supposed to always ask the owner before he approaches the dog.

On one of our previous walks, it had been a bit breezy and Connor had heard the leaves in the trees making noise as they blew against each other and wanted to know what the sound was. I told him then that it was the trees talking to each other. He wanted to know what they were saying, so I told them they were welcoming us to the park and saying what a beautiful day it was. Ever since then, every time the wind blows in the trees and he hears the leaves as they blow against each other, he asks me what the trees are saying.

Today, the trees were especially noisy as it was a strong wind blowing. As usual, Connor wanted to know what the trees were saying. We were the only two souls in sight, so I told him that the trees were singing today, and they were singing a song asking us to come and dance with them. Then I sang him a little song (supposedly the one that the trees were singing) that went like,

"Come dance with us;
It will be so much fun.
Come dance with us
In the bright morning sun.
Come dance with us,
Every boy and girl.
Come dance with us;
Feel the joy as you twirl."

And as I sang it, he and I held hands and danced, spinning and twisting and stepping. I could see how happy he was as we danced, and it was so completely worth feeling a little bit silly.

I'll have to come up with something new for the trees to be "saying" next time.

When we got home, he was so tired that he fell asleep on the couch within minutes of sitting down.

Happy 4th Of July 2010!!!

Happy Independence Day!

Here in England, as you can imagine, there is not much celebrating going on for Independence Day. But I think it is important to keep certain traditions alive for my children, so I try and find ways to make the day special for them.

Usually, we buy fireworks at another time of year when they are available here and save them for today, but we didn't do that this year. There isn't really anywhere that sells fireworks at this time of year. Robert bought some red, white and blue streamers though, and I had to think of a way to use them.

I am not a very craft-y person, but I did my best. I used the streamers to make a ribbon that I hung on the front door. It wasn't very good, but I tried to make it look good, and the children seemed to like it.



I also tied some streamer-ribbons on our stairway.



Then I remembered that I had four bamboo sticks, so I tied (and used some tape to make sure they stayed on) streamers to the ends of the bamboo sticks. When the children came home from visiting their grandparents with their daddy, I showed them the streamer-sticks and told them that they were going to get to "decorate the dog" and have a little parade at the park. They didn't really understand the idea of a parade, but they had fun waving the streamers around and Gabby even made up a song to sing which repeated the phrase, "We're having an American Independence Day parade!"











Mercury kept trying to eat the ribbon of streamers that was tied around his collar, so it started to look scruffy very quickly.

















One really cute thing was that our cat Pagan followed us to the park and tried to join in with the "parade."





When we got home, Kayla put some of the streamers on Pagan and then held him for some photos.







We also gave the children some red, white and blue glow sticks to play with when it got dark.

I hope everyone had a wonderful 4th of July. I know my family did!