Anniversary and playtime

Yesterday, William and I celebrated our 6th anniversary. I'm not sure what the standard gift is for that year, but if it's sidewalk chalk or garden soil or hotdogs, we've got it covered.

We had a spectacular weekend with visits from friends that translated into an all day cookout-kid-party-fest here in the yard. We had originally planned to go out to brunch to reward Laura for swimming a mile-long race in Lake Erie. But, when thinking about the logistics of dining out with five children under the age of 4, I broke into a cold sweat, went to the store and bought lots of hot dogs instead. We grilled and chatted and watched the kidlets play in the yard. It was kind of ideal. Lillian even had her first kiss. She and Noah are kindred souls. I've let Laura and Steve know that I'm ready to sign the arranged marriage contract already.

Nana and Papa came up later in the afternoon so that William and I could go out and do our anniversary up in style. That meant the salad bar at Ruby Tuesday's and the Harry Potter movie. Heavenly.

The girls stayed home to take care of Nana and Papa, who'd brought the play kitchen we mentioned before. It was a good decision. They played with it in the driveway for a long while and threw heavy protests at having to let Nana and Papa move it in the house. The grandparents report that Lillian organized the dishes and shouted about the whole process for about an hour. Naomi has been allowed to touch it, too, mostly sneaking farm animals into the oven.

I was entirely too distracted by the mass quantity of fun to take pictures, but here are the girls in their adorable outfits, part of the Pat collection. (Naomi, as usual, is blurry in this. But she did manage to keep those white pants unsullied for most of the day. Don't ask me why, but she's holding a toilet paper roll and Lillian's reading a recipe book for tropical drinks.)




Today, we played outside, putting in some plants and general maintenance. The girls were very helpful Naomi sat down and began weeding the sidewalk all on her own. They were both so thrilled to be allowed to run a three house distance on the sidewalk that I'm not sure anything else mattered. (We had previously tried to set up the corral while we worked out front, but that just ended in a lot of frustration on everyone's part.)

Here are the weeders. I know it's part perspective and part posture here, but this just emphasizes how tiny Naomi is in comparison to her sister. (Lillian may finally be catching on to her size advantage. In a bout over who got to push the buttons on the cable box last week, Lillian grabbed Naomi around the head and very nearly threw her off the footstool. Thankfully the orange nylon tube was there to break the fall.)




For a big portion of our time working outside this morning, Lillian was shouting, "Maow! Maow!", her cat noise. I figured it was random. Until she went tromping through all the plants we'd just put in and grabbed the fuzz at the end of the ornamental grass.