Backyard days...

Cari has a great theme this week, "Girls" (it's my daily theme)

You all know me and "pictures"... I take a ton.  I have to tell you that partly is because our house/apartment burned down when I was 13 (later that year my grandmother died.  Yes... we were VERY close).  It was a tough year.  Day after Valentine's day our house burned down (we were lucky to make it out alive) Finished Junior high.  Later that year I started High school and after moving at least 5 more times as we struggled to pick up the pieces (yes... in one year) my beloved Grandmother died.  Tough year.

When our house burned down we lost ALL of our photographs.  Baby pictures... everything.  Since then we have had some returned through family members, but I still remember losing all of the originals and there are whole periods of my life where there are no photo records of (some would think this a GOOD thing I suppose).  I think that even though I always loved pictures... this is one of the reasons I REALLY love to record my days.  I know all too well how frail my memory is and how quickly time goes by and don't want to miss it or forget one bit.

Yesterday I went out quickly to water our little garden and took some pictures of the girls while we were outside on a beautiful June afternoon.  The temperature was just right, the breeze was blowing the laundry on the line and it was all together lovely. 

Because we live in the city for now we have almost NO bugs here.  No mosquitos.  No ticks in our backyard.  So little Clara was placed down on the soft grass as Ava ran round her in bare feet (much to the distress of my Portuguese neighbors who get very concerned when they see me outside in bare feet ALL the time.  I hate to tell them that I've always been a toes in the grass kind of girl...allllwaaays ...and it's probably not going to change) and I watered our vegetables. 

Just a lovely memory and some beautiful faces that I simply had to capture!

My Mother's day gift from Shaun (there are two!)

Look at that little one in the background...

 

 See her?  What's she doing?

Her new favorite thing...

Picking flowers!

(On any of the night's Shaun comes home early, he takes Ava for a walk through the neighborhood while I make dinner.  It's one of their special times together.  When she returns she comes clutching stems and heads of flowers she's collected along the way in her little fingers.  We give them a "drink" of water, place their straggly heads plucked so lovingly into a small vase and they who would have bloomed and perished without ever being noticed at all ...become our bouquet for dinner ...more beautiful to me than the most exquisite arrangement.)

 

 See Clara on the grass?

 

(The baby stroller was a gift from a neighbor...)

Barefoot in the grass!

The scooter was a recent gift from a friend who's girls outgrew it

 

(Hand-me-downs are great reminders of how fast they grow)

We would have never seen this little flower, but it's importance did not escape her...

Can't you just hear the squeals of laughter!?

 

How's it going baby?

Doing good, big Sis!

Here's a hug for the road...

Everything is new.  She was mesmerized by the sound of the birds and airplanes and blue sky and laundry flapping and Ava laughing and grass beneath her... ALL becomes new in the eyes of a child...

Enjoy your summer days!