November 2, 2009

These girls love to see their dad waving back to them on his way to work.

Kate loves looking through books.

You know how much Suki loves her bracelets.

Kate is such a little daredevil -- she loves trying out new positions on chairs.

My little rosie posie and her ducks.

Grace saw my new manicure for the first time this morning and it was much darker than usual. It was enough to make her ask me for her first nail polish -- and of course, she chose red.

Suki enjoyed these picture tiles so much today.

Hello? Hello!

These eggs are such a huge hit around here -- Grandma gave them to us two years ago and their popularity will not wane.

The treat this morning was multigrain Cheerios -- having the box at their disposal was so unusual for them. They filled the teapot and poured cereal tea, they fed each other with spoons, they shared them liberally.

So proud to be putting the pieces on their posts.

Wrestling!

Puppies on their leash.

Cheerios!

A package came in the mail for Suki, she was so excited to open it!

Her birthday doll from Granny!

She loved it!

Playing with milkweed seeds in our entryway.

We made little chocolate skulls to celebrate the Day of the Dead today. Grace seemed old enough to appreciate it and so this seemed like a good year to start.

We put up pictures of our grandparents (the girls' great grandparents) and lit candles.

Then we ate a dinner of some of the foods we associate with the people we've loved who've died and related stories about them so the girls could start feeling some connection with them.

It is important to us that the girls know that we still love the people we know who have died, that we remember them after they've died and still cherish the memories we have of them. They thought it was hilarious to hear about an ancestor who pushed his knife through the peas and into the mashed potatoes and about a great grandfather who wouldn't obey traffic laws but was just gently encouraged by the authorities to be more careful. Afterward we heard Grace saying "go on with ya!" just like my grandfather used to. Adorable.

A shot of Kate after her chocolate skull.

They also loved that we had a chocolate set aside for people who had died. We left our candles beside it until they burned out.