The Swing

How do you like to go up in a swing,
Up in the air so blue?
Oh, I do think it the pleasantest thing
Ever a child can do!

Up in the air and over the wall,
Till I can see so wide,
River and trees and cattle and all
Over the countryside--

Till I look down on the garden green,
Down on the roof so brown--
Up in the air I go flying again,
Up in the air and down!

 

That's one of the poems, written by Robert Louis Stevenson, that I memorized 'way back when.  It's what came to mind today as John put in this marvelous swing for Luci. 

And, I recited it as the kids swang  swung  went up in the air and down.  (Oh, Mom!  Do you have to do that?!   Yes.  Yes, I do.)

It's right next to Luci's tree house, and sails out over the hill and meadow below.  The ropes are 20 feet long!  A good, wonderful swing.

And, of course, the neighbor's dopey dog, Gator, joined us.  He had just played in the creek and came over, all smelly and wet.  (oh joy)

I found this on the swing tree!  Love it.  I had no idea that John carved this a few months ago:

Heard Today

Anakin:  not the familiar character from the Star Wars trilogy (the cute kid who eventually grows     up to be Dark Vader, uh, I mean Darth Vader) --an Anakin is a person-sized doll at a clothing store.  You might know it as a Mannequin.

 The Ryan's Belt:  More familiarly known as Orion's Belt.  We had a great field trip to a planetarium (Von Braun Astronomical Society) on Friday.  Luci finally got to spot The Ryan's Belt in the sky tonight.  But she missed Betelgeuse!  (did you know that if you type in "Betelgeuse" into Google's search engine, Beetlejuice the movie pops up?  That disappoints me.)

Behemoth:  Ok, so she pronounces this correctly and knows what it is!

Is it you?

Right after Luci lost that tooth, she asked me this question:

Is there really a Tooth Fairy?  Is it you?

If it's me, then you don't get a dollar.

without skipping a beat...

Okay, there's a Tooth Fairy!

Lost another one!

Doesn't she look happy?

Luci won't let me touch her loose teeth after the great "Dental Floss Incident" of last Spring, in which I tried to pull a tooth that wasn't quite ready.

She pulled out this one all by herself!

2:25

in the AFTERNOON.

Rainy, rainy day!

and, wanting to copy this most-favorite photo for use elsewhere:

Chinese New Year--Year of the Dragon!

Luci and I made a dragon cake for Chinese New Year.

It's a scary dragon!

We got the idea from the Do They Have Salsa in China? blog.  M3 (the author) and her friend made a very intricate cake for her twin daughters' birthday party, and it is gorgeous!  For directions on how to make this cake, please see her blog post.  And when you look at her cake, don't judge mine for the poser it is.  Please.  Ours tastes fantastic, and the main person it's for (Luci) is very happy with it.

Luci and I made a simple version, and as you can see from the second photo, Luci is plenty happy with it--It's scary, Mom!   :)   We also made ours gluten free, with no artificial colors in the frosting (used turmeric for the yellow).  I got the recipe for the bundt cake from Allrecipes.com plus I made these changes:  I used Pamela's Bread Baking Mix (gluten free) for the flour, and I added some extra instant coffee, and used the chocolate syrup mentioned in the heading of the recipe instead of the coffee liqueur.

She's at it again!

Last night Luci and I were watching TV.


What she says was "an old man" (he was my age!!) said, "I used to be cute."


He shouldn't say that--it's naughty to brag.


Me:  What if it's true?  I used to be cute!


Luci looked at me from the corners of her eyes, and said,

You sure?

Oh, yeah:

I bet you didn't know...

According to Luci, there are three kinds of tea.

She figured this out as she prepared a tea party for us for lunch today:

There are three kinds of tea.

Hot Tea.

Sweet Tea.

T-T.

Happiness!

It was coming down horizontally for a while!

Luci's tree house is back there, somewhere.  Can you see the pink?

A few minutes later, there was so much more.  Any snow here is a treat!

JT and Luci made this Mickey!