Where have the days gone?

They seem to whir by and get stuck together like the pages of a well-loved book in the sticky hands of a toddler...some days are torn a bit, some are scribbled on with colorful gusto, and some have something unidentifiable in the corner that should probably have gone in a tissue, but oh well, you know just keeping it real...
And then that book which was new begins to look like it's always been with you, toted around and drooled on, definitely not as new as it once was, but better for the reading.
So seem the past days of our first year.  We are worn a bit and no longer new new, we've definitely acquired some wear and tear and, ahem, character, but we are, on a whole, the better for it and hopefully we've made thus far for an interesting read.
Happy (belated) one year anniversary little blog of ours--I think we'll keep you.

Happy Birthday little Imp

Oh Imp, we love you.  You have the world caught up in your smile and bubbly laugh.  You say things like "eewniform" and "froed up" and "comftuby."  You squeeze our faces and kiss us.  You demand cold baths and then jeans and long-sleeved shirts (in 115 degree heat).  You love shoes, and have more clothes than the rest of us combined.  At age three you informed me that you needed to see a shirt in the light (as in natural light) to see if it was really pink.  You love to draw and paint.  You love to drink hot tea and eat sticky sweet dates rolled into balls--you are a lot of fun to take along when we visit local friends.  You can throw a tantrum with great feeling and force, and the next minute crawl into our arms and hug us with equal penitent sweetness.  Sometimes you play the baby, but often you want to be independent and do your own thing.  And today you are four.  I can hardly wrap my mind around it--I want so much to keep you as you are, and equally to see who you will become--our bundle of sweetness and sass, thank you for being our own.

Winter is gone

And this is what window gels look like after a few days of summer heat in our neck of the woods.  I cannot get past the irony of the desert sun melting away our futile attempt at keeping winter just a little longer...

The brown "slime" looking part used to actually be a branch of sorts--I like how in the bottom it's just sort of eaten a little white snow flake...

The kids did still have a lot of fun sticking their fingers in the melting gels.

And on a happier note, some of the gels were saved from this fate a month or so earlier by Imp.  That was when she decided to take them and stand on her bed and throw them up at the ceiling (these ceilings are like 12 feet high).  So now we have random gels stuck over her bed.  I discovered what she had done after I heard all three of them trying to "unstick" the gels from the ceiling by hitting them off with every stuffed animal we owned (which resulted in several animals dangling from the curtains near Imp's bed).  Husband dear and I had a time trying to sound firm without laughing about (or sounding overly impressed by) their general ingenuity in both getting the gels stuck and their efforts to "unstick" them.  I also took note of both their desire to help each other, and the fact that it took several minutes to actually get the culprit to confess.  Hmm, teamwork--this may not bode well for us in the future...