What a fun weekend!

Friday, Madeline brought home Easter treats from school.

She shared her plastic eggs with Petey.

Yesterday, we finally started getting birds at our feeder.

At one point there were a cardinal, two chickadees, and one [something else] all at the feeder at the same time!

After admiring the birds, we went to Lea's birthday party.  The little ones played and munched cupcakes and generally had a grand time.

Madeline was especially happy to get a balloon!

We spent the afternoon romping around outside looking for bugs.

This morning, there was more fun in store for Madeline.  She got a lovely Easter basket ...

... complete with toys, stickers, treats, and even a garden tool.

After indulging her childish side a while, Madeline channeled her inner grown-up and read the newspaper (while sporting several of her new hair clips).

The day was so beautiful that we promised Madeline we'd take her to the playground.  And we did.

After Madeline had a nice nap, we dyed Easter eggs.  That was fun too!

And the eggs turned out pretty well.

We closed out the evening with some after-dinner blanket-fort adventures.  What a fun weekend!

Ups and downs

This week has had its ups and downs. Madeline seemed on the verge of an ear infection and spent a fair amount of her week grumpy. On Tuesday it was, "My head's breaking a little bit. I have a headache. I'm ok." On Wednesday it was, "My ear hurts." Everyone's sleep suffered for Madeline's frequent wakeups.  But today the ear pain and grumpiness were just about gone: "Does your ear hurt, Maddie?" "No." "It's ok?" "It's ok. My ear doesn't hurt."

Even during the head-breaking, headache-y, ear-hurty parts of the week, there were plenty of happy times.  Like this one, where Summer is showing Madeline the seeds we got in the mail for this summer's vegetable garden (a minute later, Madeline had a tantrum because we wouldn't open and plant the seeds RIGHT NOW):

And this one, where Summer and Madeline are just generally silly:

Best of all, it's almost the weekend, and Saturday's supposed to be in the 50s and sunny -- perfect!

Growing

Summer and I have spent our last few days still not entirely well.  Yesterday, I got up early with Madeline while Summer slept in a little, then I ended up asleep on the futon in the afternoon.  Today, Summer got up early with Madeline while I slept in a lot, then Summer ended up asleep on the futon.

For her part, Madeline has been full of energy.

Here she is on Friday night, showing off the bus I brought her back from New York.  She's been taking it to bed most nights -- adorable.

Despite our exhaustion, Summer and I have been out and about -- at least a bit.  Yesterday while Summer got some work done in lab, Madeline and I braved a quite cold Brown Street playground.

Then when Summer had finished, we went to look for seals.

There weren't any this week, either.

On the way home from seal-counting, we stopped at our branch library.  We read some books, and Madeline picked two to check out -- a first!

She's been very excited about her library experience.  This makes us happy.

Madeline woke me up from my futon-sleep yesterday by planting a cracker on my head.

Then she sang an appropriate song:


This morning, Madeline and Petey watched a squirrel clean up some seeds I'd spilled refilling our sunflower bird feeder.

And, speaking of seeds, Madeline showed off the grass she's been growing -- she planted the seeds in this little planter and has been excited to check on it multiple times every day and watch the green shoots spring up.

Later, she put on her tiger hat and mittens and prowled around the house.

There's no doubt more to come today, but I've been a little too tired to post the last few evenings, so I figured I'd take advantage of Madeline's naptime today to let you all know what's new.  There you go!