This and That

Helena had a blast doing some watercolor paintings the other day. Afterward she said to Daddy "I love being an artist!"

She and daddy always have a wonderful time. Recently, Daddy taught her the "holy" pokey as she calls it.

Saturday we all saw a wonderful puppet show called "The Little Rice Ball", a Japanese folk tale. Very cute!

Spring Lambs

We are blessed with a nice neighbor with a sheep farm about a mile or so away who lets us go for walks on his 50 acres (even tho he says he doesn't like people). The other night, we couldn't resist his offer to peek at a little newborn lamb. It was soooo cute!! We also got to pet an orphaned lamb - fitting their dumb reputation, no ewe had claimed it as her own. Helena was delighted to let the little waggly tailed lamb suck on her finger - until she felt it's teeth which scared her quite thoroughly. Apparently she was too excited to hear my warning that it might prick just a little but wouldn't hurt her.



This picture doesn't do justice to the smallness of this little lamb. It was maybe 12 inches tall at it's back. Why? Partly because it was only 2 days old and partly because mama Ewe herself was only a yearling and thus only 1/2 grown. Apparently it's unusual for a yearling to get pregnant.

Desire to be Stupid

If you ask Helena what will happen if she watches too much TV she'll reply "I get stubid". So one day she told Daddy: "Daddy I just want to be stubid" because she really wanted to watch a movie. LOL

So Funny!

Helena gave daddy a kiss and hug and then protested about his facial hair in a rather whiney voice "Daddy, you're all scratchy and you have needles on you!"

Pure Poetry

Helena: "Mommy, Christopher Robin and I think that chairs are rather odd."

But this one was my favorite: with leg bent and foot resting on the side of the knee of the supporting leg (better known as tree pose in yoga) Helena comments to me, "Mommy, look! I'm doing poetry!" Tree pose... po-e-tree... Oh did I ever laugh!

Two Cute Pictures

Decorating the Sidewalk

Here's Helena helping me decorate the sidewalk. And the dog staring at me wondering where his Easter present is. He got the crust off the slice of leftover pizza I was eating (which is the real reason why he was staring so intently).

More of our Easter Cutie Pie

Forgot to mention how excited Helena was to see the Easter bunny in the mall. So cute! She waved at him and he'd wave back and she was beaming! "The Easter bunny waved at me!" she'd exclaim. Who says a child can't have fun even when they know it's "just a person dressed up"?

Helena's Place Setting for Easter

Mommy likes to set a beautiful table and she made my spot extra special! i was the only one who got a little bunny placemat under my plate (courtesy of Marshall's for $2).

I'm still too little for a wine glass, but mommy let me drink out of a pretty china cup. She made my napkin into a bunny rabbit and his ears were sticking up from my cup along with an egg with my name on it. Everyone else's napkins were folded like flowers sticking out of their wine glasses, and they had pretty eggs as "name cards" too.

I took all of the eggs from my Easter basket and surprised mommy by putting one at each place setting when she wasn't looking. Mommy thought it looked very pretty and left them there. I love to help her decorate!

Happy Easter!! Hunting for Eggs

Helena was soooo excited to hunt in the yard for Easter eggs which we pretended that the Easter Bunny had hidden even tho she knows that Mommy and Daddy did it.

Daddy set out the eggs to meander across the side yard so Helena would end up behind the little stone wall where she found an Easter basket waiting.

I thought she'd be all excited about the basket, but she just stared at it like "What's this doing in my way? I'm trying to hunt for eggs!" She stopped for a few moments to examine it's contents, tucking the fruit leathers and bubbles into her egg basket and then wanted to look for more eggs. Only thing was, there weren't any more. Note to self: hide lots more eggs next time. lol

Never-the-less she was content and has been enjoying the contents of her Easter basket which included: bubbles, fruit leather, sesame sticks, a bag of about 15 all natural and organic "jolly" beans, a Corduroy Spring sticker book, Go Fish card game, and sidewalk chalk shaped like little Easter critters. Mommy and she both enjoyed the sidewalk chalk, decorating the walkway and entry with Happy Easter stuff.
Hope you all had a very Happy Day!

Country Walk

We headed out with Grammy and Katie up the county road through a neighboring sheep farm for a brisk (almost) spring walk.

Mommy: Helena, where did all of your mittens go?

Helena: I hid them!

Hmm.... I really don't think that could be since I usually put them away in the bins in the top of the closet. Never-the-less no light pairs were to be found, so Helena got the little clown look with mommy's gloves on.

Speaking of "looks" I really do pull of the country hick look quite well don't I? Ha ha! ((scary!))

Helena thought the best place to walk was through all the mud and puddles. She couldn't understand why some would be too deep. Seriously, this is mud season and I have a feeling her little boot would have been left behind and she planted flat on her face. So we stuck to just the littler mud puddles.

More Easter Egg Coloring Pictures

Coloring Easter Eggs with Grammy

No Easter in my family would be complete without the traditional Easter egg coloring. So Grammy came for a visit today bearing a dozen white hard boiled eggs. Helena (and Aunt Kt and Grammy and Mommy) all had our annual fun!

A Rambling of Antidotes From Daily Life with Helena

The other day Helena told me that Christopher Robin had to eat a dead squirrel for breakfast because she didn't have anything in her freezer.

She asked me yesterday what "phlegm" started with. She's all of a sudden into what letters and sounds are for what objects since learning that H is for Helena. She is constantly asking me, but the phlegm one was my favorite. And btw, I just told her it began with the sound "fffff". That was an easy question. A few days prior, she wanted to know how thunder and lightening are made. As I hemmed and hawed trying to remember all the way back almost 19 years to Earth Science (aging myself here) trying to remember the proper answer and figure out how to put it in toddler terms, she changed her question to "where are they?" Phewf.... I know the answer to that one! "In the sky" of course. :)

She is just full of questions lately! After heading out the farmer's market in the rain on Saturday (with her singing "It's raining, it's pouring" the entire way out to the garage and car) she proceeded to ask me things like "Mommy, do foxes like rain? Do doctors like rain? Do ladybugs like rain" and on and on - mostly all animals. So my brain got a workout thinking if that sort of animal would like rain and how much rain they would like before they would curl up in their den or whatever.

Yesterday Helena climbed up in my lap after her nap and started immediately to tell me about her dreams. "I dweamed all about cows and sheepies and sorsies (horses) and Chwistophuh Wobin and Pooh and Eyore and everybody. Cwistophuh Wobin was sleeping and a big wolf came in his woom. I heard him cwying and I went to see him. I wescued him and chased the bad wolf away because I was very bwave!" Or maybe that was a story she told me before her nap and I'm confusing it with what she dreamed.... Either way she did tell me all of that yesterday. She cracks me up, just rattles these things off out of the blue with hardly a pause for breathe between sentences. Her imagination is most definitely full!

Daddy's back has been bothering him for a while. So recently Helena says to me all seriously "Mommy, I very be-cerned (concerned) for Cwistophuh Wobin. His back is hurting him vewy bad and he has to lie down on the couch with ice on it and he has been stwetching a lot on the living woom floor, but it's not getting better. I very be-cerned" So we have been trying to continually emphasize that daddy's back will indeed get better if we keep praying for it.

This morning Helena says to me "Mommy... I think you're special" :) Awwww..... "I know you are special!" I told her.

Spring Yard Work

Helena and I ventured out into the muddy muddy pre-spring world the other day and cleaned up all the sticks and branches littering the yard. She wanted to haul a big branch like mommy did. I'm proud to say she dragged it all the way from the front of the yard to the pile in the middle. And she was mighty proud of herself as evident in the last picture.

Recent Questions and Comments from Helena

"How does the dark come?"
"What do Eyores drink?"
"Mommy, where does Jesus go potty?"
and last but not least.... "Mommy, do you fart like daddy?"

Today she had a little bunny lying down to sleep. By pushing his tail into the bed I could slip my finger inconspicuously beneath him (or so I thought) and make him pop up standing. Helena kept telling me to leave him alone because he was sleeping and I kept saying watch, I'm not doing anything. She can't see me moving my fingers, but she can see my hand on the rabbits "tail" area. So all of a sudden she says to me "Mommy! Don't touch his tail. That's disgusting mommy!" in the most disgusted 2 yr old voice she could muster. Oh my did I laugh. She's too smart! That's what I tell her when she tries to play with our dog's very short tail.

She's just too smart! You should see her play the game Memory. As I'm writing, she just tied Daddy!

Yesterday I was mimicking a bird's call hoping to lure it close enough to see. Finally Helena got tired of hearing me I guess, because after a few minutes of my silence she pipes up with "Mommy, you just need to leave that frickin bird alone. Just leave that frickin bird alone mommy and maybe then it will come over here." Yes, I'm ashamed to say, but Joe and I do say frickin sometimes - not in a bad way, but still not a good thing to say around a 2 yr old. But I'm just unproper enough to think it's hysterical to hear her say it - as long as it's only once in a while.

More of Our Little Chippy

More Lessons in Nature

We found a huge hole in the ground, obviously some critter's home. Helena stuck a stick down it to see how deep it was. It went pretty far before it curved off under the ground.

The next picture is her sitting down to rest next to a "squirrel picnic" that she found. Notice all the empty nut shellls? You will also notice she's rubbing her ear, a cute habit she has when she's tired. All that fresh air and mommy making her walk all the way made her very tired. She'll have a good nap today!

Lastly, our nature lessons were rounded out by noting fungus on fallen logs and trees.

Scat (ie animal doo-doo -Weak of Stomach Beware)

Here is Helena pointing out some "deer poopy". We also found some great horned owl droppings and pellets. That's the stuff that looks like white paint and the pellet is what the stick is pointing too. If you find a big enough pellet you can break it apart and find bones and fur and see what the owl ate, but this was only a little one. Yes, we did break it apart, but we couldn't tell what was in it.

Now before you call me crazy, I would prefer my child know about what creatures live in her backyard rather than what ones run around on the daily cartoons. OK, so maybe that does make me crazy. :) I like being crazy!

Bona-fide Tree Hugger

Isn't this cute! And I love the towering tree (tho it's not actually the same one she's sitting on.)

Exploring Chippy's Home

After at least 10 minutes of patiently waiting (don't think my dog has ever held so still) I finally let the two little ones explore Chippy's home. Both thought it was great fun!