Rain and Holidays

 It rained yesterday. Beautiful, down-pouring awesomeness like I used to crave in Utah.  Growing up in a desert has made the sound of the storm magical.

Apparently I am not the only one in my family who finds it so.  We had just finished up a grueling five and a half hours of choir and acting rehearsal and I had called it good for the evening.  We did a quick straighten up while I put the finishing touches on dinner, we ate and then I declared the evening free.  

"Maybe we could watch a movie or something," I mentioned casually, to the delight of the kids.  

During dinner, the rain started coming down even harder, beckoning.  The older kids asked if the little ones needed a bath tonight.

"If so, can we do it outside in the rain? You know, just leave their clothes on but let the rain clean them off?" they queried.

Brilliant.

So that is what we did on our evening off...let the rain pour down.

Piper and Lily both commented yesterday about how it is like everything all of a sudden turned green.  The birds are out in choruses and everything feels alive. The sound of the distant freeway have receded even further, masked by the unfurling of all the leaves in our little woods.

I love to listen to the birds outside my window, particularly this morning when I lay there snuggling with my baby, trying to get her back to sleep in my favorite way possible...nestled up against my body. There is something equally magical about snuggling a sleeping baby so the combination of bird song, rain and sleeping baby has really set a wonderful tone for my day :D.

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Lily has started a new tradition of reading off all the holidays for the day.  This week we have celebrated:

-"Minimize Food Waste Day"--leftovers for dinner!

-"Blueberry Pie Day"--particularly delicious.

-"National Kids and Pets Day"--every day, right??

-"National Pretzel Day"--another yummy one with homemade pretzels

-"National Tell a Story Day"

-"National Prime Rib Day"--sadly, missed celebrating this one

-"National Devil Dog Day"--won't mention how applicable this one was

-"National Great Poetry Reading Day"--every day!

-"National Zipper Day"--or as Liesl puts it, "beezer" ("Mommy, will you do my beezer?"

It's been a riot!  Maia was sad that we didn't celebrate "National Hug a Plumber Day" last Sunday until she realized that Quinn had done a lot of plumbing work, so we felt that qualified him.  Oh, and we forgot to get out the shrimp last night for "National Shrimp Scampi" day because we got so caught up in the rain and beauty of the evening.  I am great celebrating that one a day late ;).