Sometimes it's an umbrella

And sometimes it's an accident.

This weekend, as we had some rain and things, Ellie learned how to pronounce umbrella, which made me sad.  Gone are the days of the "tut-tut," and gone are the days of the "umbrezza."  Now it's a properly pronounced umbrella, and it kind of makes me sad.

Luckily, she still looks cute with it.

In other news, Margaret has apparently decided that umbrella's are for sissies, and is frolicking about in the rain without one.  And apparently without shoes.  But at least she has her clothes on, so I'm calling this one a win.

Also, my photo-managing software has messed up the order on those pictures, and it's a real pain to reorder them manually, so we're going to leave the impression that she walked up the stairs backwards. It's not great, but you get what you pay for.

Farming

Easter weekend, we spent Saturday at the farm, contributing to the best weekend that Margaret has ever had.

She drove, which is always a winner, and we visited some cows, and then they saw horses.

And after they saw the horses, and Margaret got to pat one, a very, very, very sad Ellie lamented (at great length) that she wasn't going to be allowed to ride the horses, and it was so heart-rending.

Also not pictured in this post, because we don't really have pictures of it, was Margaret's adventure in the creek.  After lunch, she put on her big stomping boots, and walked down to the creek, and waded around.  Unfortunately, what happened was that one of her boots came off in the mud, and her sock got wet, so she sat down to take it off, so her pants got wet, and it all snowballed from there.  When I saw her coming up the hill with Leo after her adventure, she was wearing her shirt (inside out) and her underwear and boots.  It was quite a look.

The Train

There is, in our backyard, a piece of wood that is, for some inexplicable reason, a train.

It has been a train -- nay, the train -- for at least two years now, and I am unclear on how Margaret made this connection or why it has persisted.

But it is the train, and there is no getting around it.

The other night, Ellie decided that the train needed to move from the driveway down to the garage, where it usually lives, to the other part of the driveway.  So she moved it.

After this, Leo moved it back, which meant she had to do it again.  It's a hard life for an Ellie with definite ideas about train placement.

Tut-tut

My indoctrination plan is almost complete.  Both my children, when commenting on atmospheric conditions, preface their remarks on the likelihood of precipitation by saying "tut, tut."

On occasion, Ellie refers to an umbrella as a "tut-tut."

I feel that this is an accomplishment.  Not much of one, but it's something.

Here is a picture of Margaret saying "tut, tut."

Punching

The other night, while I was in the throes of job decisions, Margaret decided that it would be a good plan to have an open house at her school so that she could show me all of her favorite works.

One of the things that she loves is punching, in which a piece of paper with an outline traced on it (in this case countries in South America, because she's making a map) is placed on a carpet square, and then she pushes a push-pin into it over and over and over making her own perforations so that she can tear it out.  Once she has done all the countries, she will paste them together as a map of South America.  She's already done the world and North America.  I shudder to think what Europe is going to be like.  Can you even punch Andorra?

Anyway, she was very focused on it, but also on explaining the process to me, so that was fun.  She even let me make a few punches, and complimented me on how quickly I had gotten the knack of it.

Sometimes I think that my daughter is a mite condescending.

And then she went and fed me kale chips that she wouldn't have touched at all on her own, but she thought would be delicious for me.

The generosity of youth never ceases to amaze me.

Stop and Smell the Flowers

Or "My Mommy Takes Pictures at Inopportune Times and Then Exploits Me for Cheap Laughs."

Ellie was smelling flowers the other day.  She liked the way they smelled.  You can tell.

Easter

Margaret may have had the best weekend in her short life, and luckily, it was all very photogenic, so I will be milking it for the next week (saves on having to come up with new things to do to keep this thing going).

Sunday, obviously, was Easter.  We decided to do the egg hunt in her grandparents' back yard because it is more photogenic, and we could get the maximum number of people entertained that way.

We let Ellie go first, to make certain that she got some eggs, before her rapaciously scavenging sister hove onto the scene.

Margaret waited quite patiently.

Ellie found eggs.

And then we loosed Margaret from her bounds, and she was away on the egg hunt.

Ellie continued to find eggs and pose for pictures.

And Margaret raced about stuffing eggs in her basket.

And then gave Ellie the last egg.

Then they posed together sweetly.

And we went on to the next phase of photo ops, but that's a story for another time.