wow. I did not mean to disappear for most of the week. We've been doing nothing and anything around here. Case and point, I just sat down to unload the pictures from my camera and there were 109. Although eighty-five percent of them were secretly clicked by another little member of this family. I vaguely remember allowing her to take my camera out on the porch to take "one or two pictures". Only to discover pictures on the camera from the porch, the garden, the stream and thirty plus of Elizabeth playing on her horrible ugly, but terribly useful playmat. I have to give her credit for some good mirror work here, though.

I walked around the house with my camera on Tuesday in awe of the "trails of play" that my girls were leaving behind me. The phrase, "leave no footprints..." was going in circles through my brain but for some reason the mess didn't bother me. They were just lost in activity, acitivity with each other. And it was was lovely to watch as the flittered from one important project to the next:

this is how I found the kitchen, fridge door open, their fresh watercolor paintings clipped to the door and dripping on the floor