we had a sweet day. i didn't get home until around 7 pm and we still had a good hour and a half of sunshine. i LOVE this time of year.

we had a "picnic" in the front yard, on an old quilt. it's a lovely quilt, that looks very worn and loved, but i have no clue how we got it. i just know that when dustin and i left for our honeymoon, we came home to a house full of wedding gifts and a bed made with this quilt, as though somebody found it in our house and assumed it was ours. weird.

our "picnic" consisted of "Kashi" honey sesame crackers, my favorite. Bella calls them "Power crackers", because they are full of good healthy stuff. we also split 6 monterey jack/cheddar cheese cubes. it was one of the best picnics we've had in a long time.

the kids found a pile of rocks in some bushes, and tried to drag them all onto the sidewalk, building what started out to be a "rock train" and ended up a misshapen "balentime heart". After the heart was finished, Annabelle smiled big and told us all "Happy balentimes day, here's a heart for you". super sweet.

a kind older man kept riding his bicycle close to our spot, smiling at Annabelle's incessant talking. He finally stopped and Julian ran to him, hands out, wanting to see his bike up close. This boy loves anything with wheels attached.

The mans name was Vincent. He is from Louisiana, about 25 miles from New Orleans. He lost his home in the hurricane, along with all of his grown children's homes. He has 8 children, and all but two of them now live here in our area. He had a strong accent (italian? no idea) and smiley eyes. He seemed very kind, although he was positive that Julian was a girl. (time for another haircut) He let Julian ride on his bicycle and tried to get a few words out of him. He said Annabelle was obviously the talker in the family.

(all the while, Annabelle is in the background chattering constantly, "my name is annabelle, my daddy is dustin and he's inside the house playing the guitar, i'm 4 years old and just had my birthday and this is juju and this is my momma, but her name is mindi, we live in apartment number one...." and on and on and on.)

he rode on his way, and promised to come visit soon with his little grandson.

the sun finally set and we cleaned up our messes and headed inside for dinner.
although autumn is my favorite season, tonight made me hopeful for a long spring.


kids working hard on their "train"













annabelle waving to an airplane in the sky
("mama, i bet that airplane is going to florida, like you did")



























Juju always had to pick up the biggest rocks.
the overalls that he is wearing belonged to me and CJ when we were kids.
they are a bit too short for him now, but i just needed a picture of him in them before he outgrew them completely. as Bella says, "mama, we're growin up."

posted by mindi11 @ 4/09/2006 11:54:00 PM