Time with Ani, Time with Friends

Mondays are choir day; we all look forward to the time together, with Dan, who teaches the class.  Ani was up most of the night (no, not with the flu!), coughing, so we decided she and I would stay home today...we made the best of the morning (Eliza was at her second-ever sleepover!) by making music, just us two...

Do you know about Boomwhackers? They are plastic tubes, cut to varying lengths, that make a note of the scale when you hit them against the heel of your hand, the floor, each other (the tubes, not your fellow musicians...). 

We figured out which ones were higher and lower, noticing that the shorter the tube, the higher the note...it was a total bonus that they come in rainbow colors...

 When Ani stopped in the kitchen to nurse her ginger cold elixir tea, she noticed this trickster hanging out in our bird feeder...she took a few minutes to draw him in her nature journal.

She also drew what he was eating, below, which led to the idea to start another little tray of micro-greens.  More sunflowers...

It was such a good morning together, taking care of things around the house, filling the feeders, folding laundry, pausing to read books together, planting the seeds...it made me wish for more stretches of time like this with each of the girls. In the afternoon we met Eliza and our friends at the park.  After days of rain there were huge puddles, 80 degree weather, and yes, mud.

The girls got very creative, using the mud to draw pictures on the nearby baseball dugout.

There was a long peaceful while of friends sitting with friends, just enjoying the day, sharing oranges (for them) and coffee (for us)...

We are feeling filled with friendship these days, and as luck would have it, these friends all belong to the same family, making it wildly convenient and perfect for us all.  These are our potluckin', tree climbin', wild child runnin', food sharin', endlessly talkin', big huggin', huge hearted friends. Our kids are learning to be friends together (as in what it means to be and have a friend), we are never done, good-byes are difficult and prolonged (for us all!) and we eagerly look to our next visit together...Goodness abounds.