Serve it yourself night is usually a hit around here. Sometimes I do it because dinner is a mish mash of random foods, like this. Sometimes I do it because Erika asks for it. And other times it is my tricky way of getting them to eat something that they don't usually love. Mexican night used to be a staple of our weekly diet until these little kiddos started protesting. Who doesn't love Mexican food?! So, I had to be sneaky.

I gave them tortillas, beans, ground beef, cheese, and sour cream. Start them off with the simple stuff before moving on to grilled veggies and such at a later date.

They started off by filling their tortillas.



And folding them up.



But then they kept losing their ingredients, so they just ate with spoons.



Until I remembered that I had hard taco shells and they transfered all their ingredients to those.



But most importantly- they ate it all! Well, most of it. A lot ends up on the floor on serve it yourself night.

Over the weekend the girls requested to share a room. Their rooms were directly across from each other before and they played in both rooms, but they wanted to sleep in the same room and we couldn't see why not. Erika said it was the best day of her life and Audrey jumped up and down yelling, "Yay!"

So here is their new shared sleeping room.



I have been drawn to the Montessori philosophy for a long time and have been subtly using it's ideas with the girls. With the change in rooms, I decided to incorporate the ideas for fully. This is definitely just a start using what we already had in the home, but I wanted to share it now so that you can see the process as it unfolds.

This reading nook isn't really Montessori inspired, I guess, but it gives the girls a small, calm place to get away and be alone. I placed it next to a bookshelf where I want to create a small nature center. Right now there is a bird's nest, magnifying glass, and binoculars. I also want to add some math materials here.



To the left of the shelf is a desk which I was ecstatic to find at a garage sale last week. I wanted this to be a desk and self care station in one, so I added a mirror, hairbrushes, and clips for each of the girls. I would love some kind of narrow organization center to keep scissors, markers, glue and such here too. The beloved typewriter is next to the desk, though Erika still needs help setting it up because it's so heavy. That basket of stuffed animals and babies to the left of the bed really needs to go, but both of the girls like playing with the babies, so I will have to set up an organized pretending area for them somewhere.





On the wall next to the desk I put the doll house with all the furniture and dolls in a bin on the bottom shelf. I saw this great room on Ohdeedoh and remembered that I had nature cards similar to the ones used in that room, so I placed them around the girls' new space. The ones next to the doll house are all about space. I put some calming ones in the reading nook, a few around the mirror, and some more above the table on the other side of the room.



This table is a great for so many things and we get a lot of use out of it. I wish that our dining room was larger so that it could be the girls' dining table, but it serves well as a work space too. Other things I tried to do was place the art work at the kids' level, remove clutter, and create centers that were simple and easy to clean. These rooms both still need a lot of work and I will update as the work gets done.

Inspired by SouleMama

There is a campus near us that I think is magical. The grounds are filled with gardens, a huge lake, sculptures, fountains, and awesome secret pathways. Cranbrook boasts a science center, art museum, and library too, but we just go for the amazing grounds.

Today was our first visit this spring and the girls just loved it. Erika remembered her favorite spots and forged ahead.



While Audrey stuck close to me, "Hold hand, Mommy."



I suggested they bring notebooks and draw things that inspired them, so they drew the rocks that they had climbed over.



And a pond.



We climbed a tree.





And crossed lots of little bridges.





Had a lovely picnic.



And flew a kite.



Really, I think it may have been a perfect morning.

Erika was asking me a lot of questions about my childhood today. "Tell me a story about when you were little," she kept asking. It started with breakfast and I was on the spot. It's amazing how little I remember, to be honest. I don't know about the rest of you, but my memories are very few in relation to the time passed. I really had to think about it because everything I remembered seemed so mundane. A snippet of clovers, the texture of sweaters, the smell of chlorine.

"I remember laying in the grass of the high school across from our house and looking for four leaf clovers with Omi," I told her. Her eyes lit up. I told her about playing with my Cabbage Patch Kid, Jamie, who sits in Erika's toy basket now. When I told her about swimming with my friends in the pool of our apartments, she became very interested in the details of what it was like to live in an apartment, never having lived in one herself. I could see all the details of the kitchen, the hall and staircase, but couldn't confirm how much was actual recall and how much was my mind filling in the blanks with nostalgia.

When she asked me again at dinner to tell her a story, I was suddenly hit by the realization of how little of their childhood our girls will actually recall as adults. What will stay with them? The birthday party that you spent weeks preparing for or the music you were listening to on the way to the grocery store night? Every single second suddenly seems so profoundly important, because it could be one they remember forever.

The last few days have been a little taste of summer with really warm weather and thunderstorms galore. Literally overnight my lettuce, carrots, basil, and cilantro all sprouted. Our Irises are about to pop, too.



This weekend I extended the garden that goes around our yard. Pulling out grass is much harder than I had anticipated, but it's done and I'm ready to plant! Today Audrey and I got a poppy plant and our cherry tomatoes planted. I bought a few plant supports and planted morning and evening glory seeds under them. I also transplanted a rose bush, though my roses have yet to flower. The idea is to cover the fence and distract from the neighbor's garage behind it. I'm still a novice to this gardening business, but luckily my mother in law is also a master gardener and full of ideas when I draw blanks.





Since these pictures were taken I've moved the pots and things around a handful of times and I'm sure they will move many more times before I find the perfect place for everything. For now it's nice to look around the yard and just see things green and growing.

In addition to gardening, there was some bird watching.



And some bike washing.



And some general digging for no particular reason.

Can you guess what I'm up to? Wednesday is Cinco de Mayo and we're having a party! The girls had so much fun making pinatas last month at MOCA that I thought it was the perfect project for this party. So I've been up to my armpits in paper mache. This is my first time with it, so it's a little slow going. But, it seems to be coming together.

For the paste I mixed flour and water until it was sort of creamy and glue like. Having a lot of different shaped pieces of newspaper seems to work best- larger square pieces for the top, wide strips for the sides, and short strips for the bottom. I'm doing two layers of newspaper, letting it dry overnight, and putting a layer of sheet paper on top.

In other news, my fingers are sore from working in the garden. I was out there until the rain was soaking me, so picture will come tomorrow.