lillie's insatiable curiosity

it has been a very busy summer for our princess sea. as always, time flies so quickly, doesn't it? i haven't been gathering much, because she keeps us so busy. here's an update of what's been happening in lillie's world. 

lillie's lost her first tooth! the tooth fairy left $1. she was pretty excited about that. it happened right before her dance class performed in the local old fashioned days talent show. i think that lillie was more excited about all the girls crowding around and looking at the tooth hole than performing!

lillie and her best friend, connor (a weekender) play nonstop, when connor's family comes up to the lake. whether it is pokemon or splashing in the lake, they are one busy pair. we've made chocolate zucchini cake, date bars, french bread, brown rice rice krispy treats, crepes, pretzels, and done any number of projects - tie dying, coloring, webkinz, etc. it is so fun to see them so absorbed in play that nothing (sometimes not even hunger!) distracts them.  do you remember those days? i do, playing outside and only running home when called for dinner....

i started bagpipe lessons this summer, realizing a life-long dream. when you learn the bagpipes, you start on this recorder-type instrument, called a chanter. oh man, i was so surprised to learn HOW much breath you have to have for this. so i practice, and get lots of complaints about the tuning. the deal with the bagpipes (and chanter) is that it is an instrument that is only in tune with itself. it is difficult, since both lillie and i have perfect pitch, but i am getting used to it. now, lillie wants her own chanter and will start with her own lessons. so who knows, in a few years, you might see us perform! life is so much fun.

in keeping with the scottish and bagpipes theme, we went to go see my bagpipe instructor at a local celtic festival a few weekends ago. it was blazing hot, but so lovely to hear the bagpipes and people watch. there was also a spot for medieval sword-fighting, so we learned about that, as well. lillie's always asking questions and wanting to learn more about whatever we're doing.

we usually use trader joe's natural peanut butter, and ran out this weekend. it is a LONG drive of many hours to get to one, so we talked about what to do, and made our own peanut butter yesterday. oh, it was so good! here's the super-easy recipe:

peanuts

salt

peanut oil

if you have unroasted peanuts, roast them in a hot oven. if your peanuts are already roasted and salted, then leave out the salt! put them in a food processor and run it until it makes a paste. add a little bit of oil at a time, until you get the consistency that you want. we had 3 cups of peanuts, 1 t salt, and maybe 1 T of oil. if you want it chunky, leave some peanuts out until you are almost done, and then add them in for just a few quick whirls of the blade. voila! delicious homemade peanut butter.  it is so easy, and kids just love to learn how things are made. now lillie's looking around the kitchen, seeing what else she can make. we already make our own strawberry jam, so many sandwiches were consumed with alacrity yesterday. who knew that a 5 year old could eat 4 sandwiches? wow!!

this weekend was our local danish festival. we went to the street dance of the big band, and lillie danced for hours. she also played for hours on the big puffy slide. climb up, go down, run around and go in the entrance again. i often think that if i could bottle her energy, we'd be zillionaires!!

lillie's taken so many photos this summer - learning from her mom, i guess! she's  so interested in life that i am constantly amazed at her huge capacity for learning, as well as her insatiable curiosity.