Nina's been singing this song all day:

Click here for the video

We have the same taste in music! I think I've fallen in love with her all over again.

Other mutual favorites include "I don't like Mondays" by the Boomtown Rats and "Common People" by Pulp. I think her crush on Jarvis Cocker might even be bigger than mine.

Can you blame us?

(I accidentally dragged up a current picture of him while searching the web for this. Wow, the fantasy shattered.)

Nina's first non-family sleepover...

... was a smashing success! She stayed over at her friend Hannah's house along with another girl Ava. According to Hannah's mom, the girls didn't fall asleep until almost 1 am! But they had a blast, and no middle-of-the-night phone call to go get her either.

Today we met her at the Gray Wildlife Park, where we had cupcakes with the birthday girl and some more party guests, then saw the animals. There happened to be a Norwegian festival going on, put on by a local "Sons of Norway" chapter, so we got to try some neat Norwegian food too. Turns out Norwegian the language is Germanic, so it was fun for the girls to see some of the similarities. Like, their traditional flower paintings are called "rosemalen," which means "flower painting." The German word for painting is mahlen, and is pronounced the same. Also the traditional dresses are very similar to  dirndls (but way more expensive! A nice dirndl starts at about 300 Euros and can go who knows how high, but a nice bunad starts at about three thousand dollars. Holy moly!) But they do the same thing with their bunads that Austrians do with a nice dirndl--they have a huge seam allowance, plus laces, so you can pretty much wear the same one your whole life.

We stopped at Dairy Queen on our way home, have you been to one of those lately? It's now our fast food place of choice. For $4.79, you can get a kid's meal including: a choice of 5 entrees, choice of fries, salad, or something else... I stopped reading at fries, choice of beverage including a smoothie, AND a choice of dilly bar, DQ sandwich, or cone. Wow. I got myself a kids' meal and could barely finish it even though I was starving. Well, I also helped Maggie and Nina finish their ice cream, but still. It was a ton of food. I went with the turkey wrap for my entree. Delicious. Happy meal, you have some catching up to do!

Now we're exhausted. Maggie is writing a book called "The Truth of Dead," which I don't know, I'll probably be discussing with the school psychologist on Monday. Nina is drawing cheerful pictures of our smiling family.

The hills are alive...

The girls have been watching The Sound of Music non-stop. (Thank you for the boxed set Tante Vanessa!)

Nina keeps forgetting Captain von Trapp's first name (Georg) and calling him Gay-wog. Gay-wog! It's the funniest thing. Maggie said, "I like Captain better than Gay-wog."

Like, she thought it was "captain" in English and "Gay-wog" in German. Ha!

Happy Mother's Day to me!

Look at my lovely gifts!

 This is our family, in snowmen

 Nina made them. Adorable! That is, from left to right: Maggie, Nina, Me, and Nick

 Plus Maggie made one

 Maggie made this in pre-K. The photo's a bit washed out, but her face is in the middle of a flower. Aw!

 And here's a poem Nina wrote me. I love it!!

Plus, the girls and I made mom two dozen hand-dipped, hand-sprinkled strawberries. Of course, we gave her a lot of help eating them too.

Yesterday we had breakfast at church and then a late lunch/early dinner at Sarah's Pizza. I didn't touch a dish all day!

Last post for today, I promise.

But my amazing mini-golf score deserves its own post. Behold:

Click to enlarge if you can't see the scores, but I'll cut right to the chase. I scored a 42; eight below par and a personal record. Woo hoo!!

It was the first day that they opened, and ice cream and mini golf were free. Free! I'm trying to use fewer exclamation points, but I needed that one there. Mom, the girls, and I ate ice cream and then played an entire 18 holes without anyone sending a ball into the street. It was a perfect afternoon.

New stairs reveal!

For safety reasons, we've decided to carpet the stairs. I wasn't expecting to love the look, softness, and reduced stair creakiness so much!

Behold, my new stairs!

 They really brighten up the space!

 Also, I might have told you (or even posted photos already? Who can remember...) about Maggie's new jammie-jeans that I made her for school. Well, here's a front/side view. You can see the pocket and side-seam detailing. Note that they're also hemmed with yellow thread, and that there's a mock "fly" in the front.

And here's the back. Faux pockets! She loves them. Everyone loves them! Sweatpants that look like jeans, it's utterly brilliant. I want some!

More pictures!

Here are some more Plum Island pics from my camera (the others were from Erik's):

 All of us, crowded in the car. We weren't being so lazy as to drive the 500 feet to the beach here--we were going the 2500 feet to the playground and other side of the island. That's so not lazy.

 This was back at the beach closest to Erik's. I love how the girls are sitting in the exact same way in this photo.

 Nina with her most favorite things in the world: Chester, the beach, and a piece of string.

Maggie, livin' life, beach-bum style.

Good thing it's a rainy weekend, or else we might have gone back already!