Spring, baked goods and Russians

Spring has sprung in Veyrier! The weather here has been fantastic. I have even seen some old friends on my face that I normally don't glimpse till June in Seattle... no not acne, freckles! I think I even got a slight sunburn today. Sorry to rub it in to the rained out Seattle-ites.

Anyway, Lucia and I have been busy planting lots of flowers in our yard. Whenever she has a day off from school, I tell her that it's our special day and that we can do whatever we want. So now she wakes up on those days saying "We can do WHATEVER WE WANT Mama!". Lately when I ask her what she wants to do, she sighs and says Ma, I think I need to plant some more flowers.

Picture of the proud laborer

And yes, there is a gnome playing the flute in our yard (thank you Susan!). When we got our furniture delivered here after moving, one of the moving men was unpacking our outside stuff, unwrapped the gnome and looked at me with a smirk like and held it up like - really? you brought a gnome with you? I looked back at him like yeah fool, did you think I was going to leave my gnome in Seattle? Gosh.

Note that Ma Turtle has a bandaid on because she was burned after being set on a lamp. She is recovering nicely.

And what is this?

If you guessed that it is a baked butterfly filled with nuts made by a three year old at preschool, you would be correct. I don't think I mentioned that Lucia also presented me with a beautiful loaf of french bread a couple of months ago when I picked her up from preschool as well. She seems far ahead of me in the baking department and I am old enough to read directions!

And speaking of preschool, we got a note the other day saying that there is going to be a "Dances of the world" performance by all the schools around here in mid April and Lucia's class will be - that's right - performing a Russian dance. We have to buy her black pants, black boots and a white shirt for her dancing debut. I literally cannot wait to see her and a bunch of other three year olds do a Russian dance. I can't even think about it without laughing... we will be sure to take some video. Jaime and I had noticed (prior to the note about the dance) that she had been jumping around the house kicking her heels out a lot - so now it all makes sense.

In other news, Jaime is in Prague for two weeks for work. I know he has been working hard, but I can't help but be a little jealous that he has some minutes to himself. Twelve hours solid with a three year old who has stopped napping is a bit much sometimes. But, aside from occasional arguments and standoffs, we have been having a very nice time. We went to the beach over the weekend and had a great time.

Lucia also took her first carousel ride.

I took this photo as she was saying "I'm a little bit nervous I'm a little bit nervous!" I told her how proud I was of her for trying something that she was nervous about though and she said "I'm so PROUD of myself!"

We have visitors coming for most of April and also part of May. We are looking forward to showing our friends and family around Switzerland and hopefully doing some traveling as well.