calm afternoons

Max is so handsome with his new haircut! I think he looks a lot younger and sweeter, probably because more of his plump face is showing. He's peeking through a playhouse window, where he and his big sister were playing Dr. Who (Azalea is always The Dr., I'm always a monster and Max is the alien baby who needs to be rescued).

Here's my girl, caught up in her game with Max. I love watching my babies play. I remember the excitement and sense of adventure a few hours in the backyard could yield. We lived on a sizeable piece of property growing up, some of it wild and overgrown, with huge trees to climb and a tangerine grove to hide in. That was the perfect hideout since it was cool under the shade
of the twisty limbs and the tangerines were sweet and tart and peeled easier than bananas.

This is a drawing Azalea made of our day at Disney, showing everyone that was there that day

(from left: Azalea, my brother Andrew,my sister Sheila, her boyfriend Steve and myself and Max). Don't you just love the bun on my head, the pink shoes and the little detail that she drew me taller than my sis (since Sheila is just a hair taller!). My girl is so talented. I save her drawings and plan on making a book of them one day, starting from her earliest doodles to her more polished pieces.