"The Most Specialist Weekend Ever!" -Maysie

I'm not sure what I did to be blessed so immeasurably. We got to spend this weekend with a very special someone for the first time in six and a half years. We've been in close contact over the course of those years but decided recently that we were all ready to get together in person. We were all really excited about this upcoming event, especially Maysie! I was so nervous, not quite as nervous as the first time, but still. Once again though, Heavenly Father proved to me that He knows exactly what He is doing; He has a perfect plan laid out for us and we just need to be faithful enough to follow Him.

This right here makes me deliriously happy.

I don't think it's any mystery what Maysie is going to look like when she's 24 :)

 Elise was a little sad that I wouldn't let her ride in the box car with Maysie (it had no doors!) but sitting next to Mandy was an acceptable alternative.

 Mandy and her sweet husband, Brent got Maysie a beautiful horse necklace. Maysie has instructed me to keep it safe in my room at night and bring it out to her each morning so she can wear it <3 I can't even begin to explain how happy this makes me for both Maysie and Mandy. Open adoption is a beautiful thing that I hope to see more and more families embracing. We love our girls and the beautiful women who have given us an opportunity to be a part of their lives. Thank you will never be enough.

Butterflies, Silly Hair, Sad Hair, and Rabbit Legs

We got to release our butterflies on Sunday! We had one chrysalis that was a dud, but the rest of them were beautiful and ready to fly. So ready in fact, I wasn't fast enough to snap a single picture of the girls releasing them! I did get a cute video though. It was really a cool experience for them. 

This girl always has the cutest bed head :)

But when your piggy tail gets wound up in your My Little Pony Mobile it is very sad. Poor girl, I couldn't help but take a quick picture of her predicament though. She usually has several predicaments a day, but this one took the cake. Luckily you can't tell that I had to chop a good-sized chunk of her hair off .

My girls LOVE meat!! It's always the first thing polished off on their dinner plate. Maysie incorporated a science lesson into this meal, showing her sister how the leg could bend at the joint and making it "hop" on her plate.

Field Trip

We had two free tickets to the Sacramento Zoo to use so we took advantage of the beautiful day today and went to see the animals. Brainless wonder that I am, I left one of the free tickets at home, but it would have cost more in gas to go back and get it than it would have saved me. Oh well, we'll just have to go back.

This little fella was pretty sure we were going to share some PB sandwiches with him. At one point he was even rubbing his tummy with his tiny hands like he was signing "please"! I wish I would have had it on video.

Elise with her favorite zoo animal :) I need to try and get there at feeding time one day. She would go nuts to get to feed a giraffe!

Maysie wanted her picture with the real leopard but it wasn't being very photogenic so she settled for a ride on a snow leopard.

Mother's Day Miracle

I was bummed out when Poppy's due date passed by with no babies again. She's such a sweet rabbit I was really hoping to get some babies from her. Mark was convinced she was holding out til Mother's Day and was going to give me a "Mother's Day miracle" as he called it :) Lo and behold Sunday morning she had three little babies in her box. It's a small litter but I'll take that over nothing. The colors we ended up with out of a red rabbit and a white rabbit were not what we expected, but it was a fun surprise!

Of course someone is hoping the broken black baby (the black and white one) is a girl so maybe we can keep it ;) I think the black ones will be gold tipped steel when they mature.

A very good mama, checking to make sure her buns are ok.

And this beauty!!

Scrapbooks

Mark pulled out his baby book to look at with the girls the other day. I'm not sure what question Maysie asked to spark that idea but it sure was cute watching them go through it together.

Daddy Days

Mark and I attended a relationship survival class for emergency responders a few weeks ago. They talked about how people in high stress/potentially dangerous jobs have a tendency to disconnect when they come home because they have forgotten how to function in a normal/safe environment. In order to avoid that kind of cycle we were counseled to make sure we carve out time to do fun things as a family, things that we could look forward to each month. We have been enjoying our "daddy days" as the girls call them. This week we took a ride down to the ranch to catch tadpoles and play.

We shooed this big guy off the road (just a gopher snake). He was hissing like crazy at me!

Daddy took us to frozen yogurt at the new yogurt place in town. Nice set up! And they even had sorbet for me!

I think Elise was experiencing a partial brain freeze in this picture :)

I brought some lupine home from the beautiful field where we last played with our Scout. I'm hoping I got enough root to transplant or at least get the seeds to grow in our yard.

Working on a painting project while sister was sleeping.

A Smattering of Springtime

Family Play Day!

The garden is coming along. We just planted more cucumbers, two butternut squash, two cantaloupe, oregano, and a strawberry patch today! Here's to hoping this is going to be our best gardening year so far! 

Our caterpillars are getting big! Maysie wasn't too sure about having it crawling on her :) As per the instructions we were supposed to leave them inside their little tiny containers til they formed a chrysalis, but we felt sorry for them not being able to climb around on twigs and leaves so we let them out to play on an apple branch in their big cage. They look happier.

We've been practicing on our new bikes! Elise is getting really good at zooming around. Maysie is continuing to work on her balance. She had training wheels on her last bike but Mark doesn't want them to handicap her improvement. We'd been trying to practice a bit each day, but then I tweaked my silly knee so daddy will have to take over for a couple days..

Maysie grew a bunch of flowers from seed this year. We took a few pony packs to Grama and Grampa Varozza today and planted them. I planted a cucumber and basil and will pick up one more tomato for Grampa, because you can't have a cucumber salad without tomatoes! We had a very nice visit. Grama gave the girls way too many cookies ;)

First homemade popsicles of the season. Fresh-squeezed orange with mango and coconut milk.