Crashed after Kindergarten!

My baby just crashed in the car after our little shopping trip. I had a hard time carrying her Kindergarten stuff, my work stuff, our bought stuff etc. - and her upstairs. Uff! She's not supposed to take naps during the day (usually she doesn't want to either, it's not like I'm intentionally keeping her awake!). If she naps only 10 minutes during the day, we have trouble when going to bed at night. Usually it's 1 or 2 hours later than usual at night. Which drives me crazy! That's the reason we stay home during the day or just walk places - bc in the car she'll fall asleep 100%... it also happened in the backseat of my bike recently, which means we can't go anywhere by bike either.

By the way, she's wearing her new "working overalls" ("Schaff-Hos" the kids call them) from Engelhard Strauss. Other Kindergarten parents had recommended them and we all ordered together. They're said to be unbreakable! 15 Euros well invested - I hope so.

Our new neighbor(s)

Since we changed the time to summer time last week, it's really light out, when we go to bed. So I decided to reinstall our window cover - some "thing" I sew last summer consisting of several layers of newspaper covered with a fabrique that matches our bedroom and which is attached to our window frame with velcro. While redoing the velcro tape on the frame, I spotted a dove in the rain drain (or whatever it's called). She is having a nest there with eggs (or at least one I saw). We hate those doves on our roof top - or basically always around the windows of our apartment under the roof. Dove poop everywhere. And I'm always scarred one day, I'll find one in my living room, bc I left the window open. Anyway... she was a big attraction to L. I had to put her up in the window spot several times and she almost wouldn't go to bed. I'm hoping we'll see the little birdies also. It would be a fun wild-life-real-life-outdoor-right-outside-of-our-window-project. We hate those doves in general. But we kinda welcome our new neighbor (gotta name her).

 

Our new Bike!!!

I made the kid's seat cover! So proud of myself. If you'd look closely you'd notice the non-professional work. But hey, from far it looks just perfect to me. ;))

Hey... while I was looking for a picture of the old cover (I forgot to take a before and after pic), I found more covers. Seems like I'm not the first with this idea... (surprise, surprise!) - those I found on Dawanda:

Natural exhibition

I spotted this one on someone's yard a while a ago. And yesterday I bought a second hand frame for 2 € somewhat like this one... Simple but beautiful!

More Spring

Of Birds, Woods and Magical Spots

These will be given to our Mini-Club host on Friday. The semester is over. Some of us (including us) won't go back, so we'd like to say "Thank you" (on the little note the bird is holding):



Just realized how nice they would look on Lenara's shelf. Darn:



These went to our friends in Munich last weekend. The birds are matching the kitchen colors perfectly! But it will be placed in a different room. I'm so happy they loved it:




I'm so crazy about collecting branches at the moment. There are so many beautiful surfaces and shapes. Right now is the time for tree cutting, so I find piles of cut branches everywhere. My Mom kept making fun of me last week, as on our walk I spotted all the branch piles from far away. LOL.

[added later]

Mommy in wood heaven! Although we didn't bring home too many. Just a nice selection.




This one will be filled with birdies soon. It just took me 45 minutes to get it tight on the wall. Uff! Hoooorray for me being such a determined Single:


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Today we took the bike into the closest woods, which I have never done so far (don't ask me why). We found a beautiful spot: some fallen trees, which made perfect benches to sit on, a shallow water stream running through that spot, a huge tree and several smaller bushes to play hide and seek. I can just picture that spot in spring and summer. I'm sure we'll go back there many times. You should have seen Lenara's eyes, when we walked from our bike off the little path into the woods - they were shining to say the least! I seriously have to consider the "Waldkindergarten" now. I know she would love it. They take kids aged 3+ and they spend all the time in the woods. For heavy weather conditions they have a little shelter, but the rest takes place outside - peeing, pooping and digging it, playing, building shelters, learning about animals and plants... We returned with cold feet (Lenara had walked straight into the stream, water up to her knees and I wasn't fast enough, or rather I watched her but couldn't believe what she was doing until I finally got myself moving) and our bike trailer full of interesting looking branches...

When I told Lenara to go to bed tonight, she ran through the dark hallway... and soon after I heard some loud noises. The poor thing had tripped over Mommie's stupid branches. She already seems pretty annoyed with my latest passion.

Winter Table Decoration

Since I took down the Christmas decoration, our table looked quite empty with only one "naked" candle. I wanted to do something about it, but didn't quite know yet what. I only wanted to keep the piece of wood and some candle (it's our tradition to light a candle for all meals). On our walk today our goal was to find a snail shell. The snow has gone now and it was extremely fun to stray around, look at all the things on the muddy ground, pick up some stuff, show each other, carry some along (Lenara was determined to carry home a big stone today. Every time she set it down, she made sure, to have it when leaving that place. Some time towards the end of our walk she must have realized that the effort of taking home a random stone - it wasn't even a pretty one - is too big. She left it on the street. I reminded her of the stone, just because I wasn't sure, if she did it on purpose or just forgot to take it along. The first time I asked her about the stone, she went back to get it. She did it another time. I asked her again and she replied "no, Mommy, leave stone" and she seemed very relieved. I thought that was quite interesting to follow her decision making.) Anyway, this was about my table decoration. We couldn't find any snail shells and I seriously started wondering, if there can be found any at all at this time of the year. I never paid attention to things like that. So we were close to giving up our search. But at one little yard - wow - suddenly hundreds of them! This might have been bc I had sent a wish to the universe (Law of Attraction) or just coincidence - but to us it seemed like a true miracle after we had spent so much time looking for only one. What a treasure we had found!

I didn't have any container to put them in, but I had an emergency diaper in my bag. So we put our 15+ snail shells in there to carry them home. Lenara thought that was weird. She kept starring at the diaper. Hehe.

So this is what our rest-of-winter-decoration ended up looking like: a new candle glass (with thready white transparent paper), some stones we had found at Lake Constance two summers ago (all with one white line) and some of our snail shells. I added a white line to them which matches the stones somewhat.




Please note our temperature thingy in the background. It's not an iPad (yet), but it's digital with radio communication! ;)

Sledding!

Outdoor Time

Since its been cold and wet we have not changed the rhythm of our days much. Yesterday and today we went to two of our favorite outdoor spots; Hilltop Park and the sports field across the street. Olivia usually looks for flowers but they have been decreasing now for months.

Today, she threw her arms up in the air and looked all around at the leaves. She isn't talking yet but it was as if she was saying, "There are leaves everywhere!" She had been looking through the window and banging on the door so I thought we would go and play in the rain. Olivia in her snow clothes and boots which are waterproof and me in my scarf and coat. The voice of Nina was haunting me for letting Olivia play in the rain and puddles. But, we went across the street with the dog, too. First, Olivia discovered the Cheerios we dropped the other day. I thought birds would have eaten them so I didntbother picking the five of them, up, but i did today. Olivia kept pointing to them. I know she remembered.
Olivia found a puddle and stomped in it immediately. How is it that she knew exactly what to do!? Then sat in it and started splashing. She had the best time. Squeals. Laughs. I splashed my hands in it too, because she convinced me, "This is so much fun, Mommy! "
I kept feeling her hands and they were cold so i warmed them up with my hands. She is obsessed with being outside,and close to the earth. I loved today. (The before and after pictures are on my 'big camera' and will post them as soon as they are downloaded).

These photos are from our time yesterday at Hilltop,which is a serene place. We built a gnome home and walked on logs, and chewed on sticks. It was a lovely time with my girl. And her doggy.




















All of this outdoor fun makes me excited for our first "schnee'!!!


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Location:Maryland