October 8

It's my mom's birthday today, but she is halfway across the country, enjoying a visit with her sister. Caleb really wanted to have a celebration today anyway, but I vetoed that. I'm pretty sure he just wanted cake.

It was such a beautiful day today that Lily and I packed a lunch, and after we picked Daisy up from preschool, we headed to the beach for a sand picnic.

I know she has a weird expression on her face, but I adore this picture of Lily. It's so her.

Daisy took this picture of me. I think it's a fair likeness - I look tired, a bit bedraggled, and I am clearly humoring the person behind the camera. Lily was livid that she didn't get a turn with the camera.

Eli army crawled over to the lunch box and helped himself to some treats.

"Clementine? Don't mind if I do!"

I wasn't thinking about how excited the girls would be to be at the beach; I really thought they would eat their lunch. But what they really wanted was to play. We were on a tight timeline because of naptime, so I required that the girls eat something before they play in the sand. When they had finally eaten a few bites of food, I turned them loose.

They were so happy! (Daisy was already happy; the firemen visited her school today, and she spent the whole drive telling me all kinds of fire safety facts. "The firefighters said that we should have a meeting place in case our house is ever on fire. Do we have a meeting place? I think it should be the pond."

This girl. 

They didn't need me at all. Each girl had a bucket and several shovels, and they were happy, happy, happy.

Eventually, I pulled Eli's shoes and socks off, strapped his sun hat on, and put him in the warm, sunshiny sand.

After he got over his annoyance with the sunhat, he was fascinated.

It actually took quite a while before he tried to eat any sand, which was pretty impressive to me.

Sandy toes.

*sigh*

He began eating sand just after this.

At the end of the day, I asked Lily what we did today. She thought for a while, and then her face lit up as she shouted, "BEACH!"

What did you do at the beach?

"Um... bucket. Fuh-shul. (Shovel)"

What did you do with the bucket and the shovel?

"Dip water. DUMP!"

Sweet sisters.

At some point I heard Daisy ask Lily, "Do you want to dig the biggest hole ever?"

Of course Lily agreed. Who could pass up that opportunity?

And then it was time to go.

Eli went down for his nap, Lily went down for hers, and even Daisy needed a nap today.

Unfortunately, I made the mistake of peeking my head in Lily's room before I heard her making noise, and I interrupted her nap.

Big mistake. HUGE.

Between screaming fits, she managed to tell me that she was grouchy. So I wrapped her up on my back. Obviously it didn't make her any less grouchy, but it did stop the screaming. I'll call that a win.