Festival and more

Another fabulously beautiful Saturday in springy Tucson! Evie had the uber kid day: in the morning she went to ballet and then out for a pastry with Patrick and the obligatory stop at a great garage sale to get an entire playmobile collesium for $10, a quick nap with me, trip to Chuck E. Cheese for a birthday party and then straight to the Festival in the Barrio Viejo for some great music. Patrick was the porter for most of the day's activities. I went along for the best part, the festival. (I think Patrick will not volunteer so willingly for the next Chuck E. Cheese b-day, he didn't realize the extent of the garish kidness he was in for.) The festival was great fun, we didn't make it for the full 6+ hours but 3 hours was enough to get in a little chess playing (on a pink board nonetheless), jumping castling (in earshot of the great music), a little disappointment when U of A didn't beat U Conn, some fine hula hooping and of course a bit of dancing to the music. I tried my hand at the hula hooping too thinking the belly would give me an advantage... I was totally wrong.

This was really Evie's first concert (at least the first one we paid to go to where she came too) I think she enjoyed herself.

Zingers: Breastfeeding

The other day Evie asked me "Mommy, why do babies eat boobies?" I repressed a chuckle and explained to her that they aren't eating so much as drinking (although I suppose a good chomp is why many a child is weaned, but I didn't think she needed to know that nuance)

Best Tuesday Ever

I think Evie just had her best Tuesday ever. Tonight my aunt, uncle and youngest cousin came by to pass on the Mott family heirloom... The Castle Bed. This bed was purchased for my little brother when he was about 5 (I think). Here we are over 20 years later and it is still bringing joy to small kids. It has been passed down through many a cousin of mine and now is entering its next life as the prized possession of a Lacroix kid. I am afraid trying to get Evie to sleep tonight may be a lost cause (for many reasons, not the least of which being we don't currently have any mattresses for it :)

Spring Weekend

Hooray for Spring! We are doggedly determined to celebrate all 2 weeks of lovely spring that we will have in Tucson. (Summer, temperatures at least, generally come around mid-April)


This weekend we went out to a great new (to us) nursery called desert survivors and picked up some new plants for the front yard. Patrick has been mulling over/planning what he would do with the front area for a good long time now and I think he was pretty excited to see it start to take shape. Evie was happy to help, especially when she was informed that mud would be involved.


Other spring-like activities involved getting new chickens. All 10 of our chickens were taken in a midnight coyote raid about 3 weeks ago. It was pretty tragic but really they weren't laying much anyway so it was probably about time for them to go. Regardless the new plan is for each neighbor in the coop co-op to pick up three new chicks and sometime in the next few months, when they need more space, we'll expand their coop and make more "indoor" space for them to keep them safe from marauding carnivores. Evie came with me to the feed store to pick out the Lacroix three. We got a leghorn (not so pretty but big layers and I am all about an abundance of eggs), an ameraucana (because blue eggs are just too cool) and a barred-rock (I let Evie pick one and this was her choice, I learned afterward that apparently this breed is the most friendly). Their names are, in order of introduction, Little Crown, Little Polly and Little Fuzz. Evie named them all (I guess she has finally gotten over her obsession with naming all pets Oliver) and informed me that once they are big chickens we can remove the "little" from their names. With the exception of Little Fuzz they are all pretty scared right now and spend most of their time, especially when a human is in the coop all jumbled up behind the roost like this (I can't tell you the names of the other 6...):


I am already looking forward to their laying days... I have become quite an egg snob :)

Invitation

Since oh just about April 7th last year Evie has been looking forward to her birthday this year. Her ultimate compliment or insult, which we hear about at least once a day, is to invite or uninvite you to her birthday party. I can always tell when she is displeased with me because I will be unceremoniously uninvited to the great event. (I once tried to explain to her that if I didn't come there would be likely no cake or jumping castle but my rationality fell on deaf ears) Well now the day is approaching again and so the threats/offers for her birthday are realistic :) The theme this year is going to be fairytale and all are asked to come to our house and the party dressed as their favorite fairytale character... it is a slight stray from the requested princess theme but I just couldn't do it three years in a row. We were in target yesterday picking out a birthday present for Patrick (she bought him the movie Book of Kells... totally random but he was very excited about it... go figure) and she picked out her birthday/easter/daddy's birthday dress too. Now lets just see if I can keep it white until April 10th when we have her party!

International Day

Yesterday was our second official International Day at Evie's school representing Belgium. Last year my waffles, which I tried to cook on the go, didn't work out so well on account of the lack of electricity (or rather reliable electricity). This year I made them all (all 100 of them) last weekend, froze them and then toasted them as needed. Granted I spent a pretty ridiculous amount of time making waffles last weekend but it did make the house smell pretty darn good and by the fourth batch I had the whole recipe and time for the dough to rise down pat. (I would have only had to make 3 batches if it hadn't been for Evie and Patrick constantly dipping into the kitchen and sneaking off with my fresh-made waffles.)


Anyway the waffles were a success and the new game I made, a card guess the Belgian icon game, while not as flashy as the spinning board last year, certainly worked well and didn't fly off in the spring winds. Evie must have spent 2 hours in the jumping castle and really enjoyed running around with all of her class friends. A pretty good way to spend my birthday if I do say so myself!