Loving our Tuesdays.

Helmeted and ready for action.  It's really cool living on a cul-de-sac with fun kids in all directions.  This pavement is our playground.

As is this Farmers' Market and Inlet.  

And this Six-Mile Creek beach.

Boy, is it wonderful to have the Tillepikes here for a visit.  This woman's been knitted into my life for over 30 years and now we get to throw rocks and splash with our babies in Ithaca streams.

Yeeaaahhh!

Uncle Tobias takes her out a little deeper.

Haven Mae surveying the aquaduct system.  

We hit the Sciencenter with Big J, her sis, KP, Murielle, and all the little ones.

Holy Bernoulli!!

Elliott and Haven spent some quality time with the super water table. 

Though she wasn't so sure about sitting on the triceratops, it was decidedly an excellent day with friends. 

Stale baguette, sporty toddler, beloved friends, and misshapen wieners.

She kept at this for 45 minutes.

Beautiful Aurora dinner after a Port Byron Friday. 

Tuckered out after our Strawberry Festival run this morning. 

Loving her protective gear. 

Welcoming our guests.

The birthday girl is here!

Carter and Haven and Emma triangulation puts the photographer solidly in the koi pond.

What a bash!

Please move here.

Piggery employee bin dinner: Too-tall-T'Burger, ruptured chorizo, and hot Italian triplets.  Yum. 

Happy Solstice!

It all just clicked.

Walking, running, climbing stairs... it all came together this week and it's really fun!

My mom had given her finger paints and we hadn't tried them yet so I figured Fathers' Day was a good time for the experiment.  I stripped her down to a disposable diaper and plopped her on some taped-down packing paper (still have lots of that...).  As you can see the concept just started to dawn on her.  I think what we ended up with was a visual rendering of her struggle against what she perceived as a pointless mess but I didn't spell it out that way for my dad and Elliott who received her "first artistic gift" with grace and gratitude.

Looks pretty fun here, right?

Elliott was hocking meat Sunday (no metaphor there) so we girls went out to Aurora a few hours before he did and showed off our walking and throwing skills,



tickled some ivories, 

hung out on car hoods with Uncle Nick, 

and pointed at things for a while.

We ate some amazing local New York Strip (thanks again, Piggery) and loved each other up.

What a crew.  

Next party: Saturday we get to host Haven's 2nd birthday party and see our beloved old Ithacan friends KP and Tobias visiting from Seattle.  We have 2 weeks to convince them to move here...

Let's stay put a while!

This poor kid has lived in 4 houses in a year!  

But we are finally IN the house, the REAL house where we will stay, where we will fully unpack.  

Now that we found the Christmas present for my dad that I packed in early January and then lost AND the redneck jam-jar champagne flutes from cousins Fred and Ellin, AND Elliott's silver christening bowl.  We're unpacked.  

In the mean time we've been hanging at other people's houses and feeling right at home.  

Wednesday nights are Mizrahi nights.  

They often involve singing MusicTogether songs and trying to keep banana off the piano.

Ain't adulthood classy?!

Haha!

Fiona is here playing a birthday fanfare for Saia.  I didn't manage to get my camera out again amidst the hot coffee and pre-k-ers with Poison Playdoh Pancakes but it was wonderful.  And Fiona has said "'Aia" a bunch of times now so it almost seems intentional.  

Grammy's back deck rocks. 

This is just before she turned to look at me lovingly, turned red, and dropped three little turds in the pool.  Scoop-n-chuck.  Fertilizer. 

Friday Grammy dropped the lucky Squirt out in Aurora for some triple grandparent overlap time.  

The robin is nesting above the porch window again and it was reportedly a big hit.  

Grandpa Rick taught her whatever she's doing here.  It's been evolving over the last few days and cracks her up.  

Another neighbor hand-me-down!  Score.  For the parental backs. 

And a new shade tent for the sunny back deck.

Phew, I caught up.  

xo

Another darned doggy departure, and delightful days of dirt and dandelions.

Good ol' Gus gave us all enthusiasm and joy for 10 years but went off on Friday to the eternal land of butt rubs.  Fiona had been pointing at his magnetic fridge image and saying, "'Us, 'Us" in the days leading up.  

Photo credit to Phil from the Gussy Puppy days. 

Otherwise things have been wonderful and springy, nay, summery!

(Knock on wood:) Thursday we're closing on the house next door to Grammy.  

Our neighbors-to-be handed down this awesome water table that's now on her back deck.  

This is what our girl looks like when she's at Kerry and Ross' house an hour past her bedtime with her finger in her Pop's bellybutton.  Being 1 is hilarious!  

I remember laughing like this with Kerry in high school every night we had a sleepover.  Or a Saxy Four rehearsal.  Or took out the garbage.  I think everything was funny in high school.

Confession: we don't yet pay Kerry for music lessons.

 With May Flowers come lessons about which senses are fun for exploring beauty.  

"Don't lick the white dandelions" is this week's lesson.  

Farmer's Market tree to herself.  

And some Stewart Park swinging after a good stroller nap. 

She got Junior Firefighter status at Station 9 as I walked off my pizza with her Sunday night. 

Thanks, Lieutenant Eaton!

Monday we went for a drive up the Lake and stopped into Bellweather Cider's tasting room.  Tasty!

When we got back we did pretty much nothing. 

Until Fiona got together with Thomson and Thompson and got dirtier than ever in her life.  After a sticky base layer of sunscreen we applied copious snot, a few coats of dandelion, well-earned sweat, and ample organic topsoil.  

Ain't she a vision?!

I'm so proud. 

Triple Thompsons.

Gardening skills. 

She could barely hold her head up from joyous exhaustion but made an exception to feed Morgan spinach.  The asparagus risotto is intentionally included in the foreground.  So good, Big J!  As was the Piggery NY Strip and rhubarb pie.  Lordy.  I like these job benefits. 

I had a lunch meeting today and Elliott was with the Pigs so my dad and Catherine came over for a few hours of fun.  Note the new Demon Decon romper courtesy of a trip to Winston-Salem for Catherine's nephew's graduation last week.  Congrats, Brooks!  

The nearly unimaginable may happen soon: the boxes we packed in January may be unpacked.  Don't hold your breath but we might find our shorts.  Hopefully we won't find cold cuts.