It has been very summerlike here of late...more like June than February. The interesting part is that there's still snow on the ground, so it looks a bit incongruous.

 But Q and I have been taking advantage of the weather to hit as many playgrounds as possible this week.

 btw, I have to address the elephant in the room and say that she's killing me with this gigantic bow that she's wearing everywhere right now. She usually loathes hair accessories, and I can't get her to wear so much as a clip or tie in her hair. But she found this bow on a St. Paddy's Day display the other day, and for some curious reason she just adores it.

 

 Greeting a miniature husky. Who knew there was such a thing as a miniature husky?

 I mean, does this bow not kill you??

 Seriously, she is such a ham sometimes.

 This is not a pose, however. She's indicating that she wants to go climb the giant butterfly...

 This is the giant butterfly. She is quite the natural climber, our three-year-old. Climbing classes at the rec center don't take kids this young, and it's too bad, because she's just a ringer at it. But as my husband pointed out, it's not like you want them running off to scale a wall every time you're not looking, not at this age!

 A big thumbs-up at the top.

 Isn't it odd, this much snow on the ground, and bare feet? But it really is that warm out!

 She's so graceful, I just love to watch her move.

And here's the cake-topper: building snowmen in a tank dress and sandals. In February. 

Only in Colorado!

New in my shop...the dancing bear series! 

Read about them here.

 Jumping back to Woodstock for a bit...my mum thought a good snowy-day activity would be to hire the ArtBus for an afternoon.

 The ArtBus comes to your home (or school, or event) complete with a full armory of arts and crafts supplies and several specially-catered projects ready to go.

 Q's first project was to learn watercolor wash techniques while painting a printed image of her own face on watercolor paper.

 Next came dollmaking...

 ...and then decorating linen tote bags with paint and jewels.

Finally, as the afternoon grew late, we  made fairy boxes decorated with butteflies, and milkweed wishes inside ready to release. 

What a great service! Wish we had one of these in Denver!

 Remember how I was just saying that motherhood is the best thing pretty much ever in the entire world?

 Well, this sequence of photos is a good case in point. 

This evening, my husband went to the opera house with his dad to see Rusalka, which left Q and I to find a way to occupy our evening in the most entertaining way possible (so as to prevent her from missing her daddy too much).

 Let's just say that it involved the craft store (for Valentine supplies), the nextdoor Old Navy (she calls it "the ball store" because they always have bins of balls in the kids section, and balls are basically her favorite thing in the entire world).
As we left the store, she stopped on the doormat with its oversized "Old Navy" logo, and pronounced very deliberately: "O-L-D-N-A-V...."
She got stuck on the "Y", but I was blown away. Every once in a while I am bowled over by one of Q's brand new advancements. I'd never heard her spell like that before. Don't forget, she's just three and a half.

Next on our agenda was a trip to the icecream parlour, which was curiously PACKED with teenagers dressed in prom-like getup (Is it prom season already?)

 I had been talking up this trip to the icecream parlour for days, since I knew I would have to come up with something good for daddy's night out. She was not very happy about having to wait behind a line of ten or twelve highschoolers ordering banana splits and sundaes, and wished aloud that she had brought her freeze ray ;)

 Happy at last with her double chocolate brownie frogurt (her own choice) topped with rainbow sprinkles!

 Once she had her icecream, she wanted to sit at one of the sidewalk tables (in spite of the evening cold) and eat like big girls out for a girl's night out. Who can blame the kid?

 Once the teenagers moved on to greener pastures, she deigned to take an indoor seat at Jamba Juice, where mommy ordered a smoothie...

 ...and Q proceeded to set up a well-appointed tea party, during which she poured me imaginary tea and hand-fed me Pirate Booty from a spoon.

The girl is serious about her tea-party etiquette. You've gotta hand it to her.

In between tea ceremonies, she would stand up and dance for a while to the soundtrack on the speakers, because that's just the kind of joy she lives with each and every day.

And that's a girl's night out with mommy and Q.

While we were up in Vail, we ran into a friend from our days in the Valley. Now, the Vail Valley is a bit of an anomaly when it comes to lifestyle. There are a lot of "Peter Pans", both male and female, and I would not be able to honestly say that one could never have counted my husband and I among those. But this particular friend was one of the more grounded and down-to-earth people that we knew while there. Perhaps for that reason, when we ran into her with our three-year-old in tow, my husband asked her if she and her partner had any plans to have children. She responded with the requisite amount of cringing, but said that, yes, they had considered it. 

"I just don't know," she said, wincing a little. "I mean, I'd like to. But at the same time, I get to thinking, and there are so many factors involved. I mean...I like my sleep!"

And here's the thing: we like our sleep too. Neither my husband nor I are naturally early risers.

Also, you've got to factor in the fact that both my husband and I believed for much of our lives that we would never have children. It was on neither of our to-do lists for life. Both of us progressed well into adulthood believing that we had no intention of settling down and raising a family. 

AND YET, two and a half years into motherhood, I felt compelled to stop this girl, take her by the shoulders, look deep into her eyes, and tell her the following things: 

YOU. 

HAVE NO. 

IDEA. 

Parenthood is the greatest romance of your life. 

Parenthood is the greatest adventure of your life. 

Every waking moment of parenthood will afford you more giddy  infatuation than any highschool prom or first declaration of love that you can imagine, more thrills and chills than the highest rollercoaster you could ever hope to ride, more vicarious glamour than the Oscars, more dramedy than the Royal Shakespeare Company, more vicarious glee than ten seasons of the Housewives of Orange County, and more contentment that 30 ounces of dark Italian chocolate, a foot massage, and a shot of Courvoisier. 

Basically, I'm speechless. I'm going to have to defer here to Cole Porter and say: 

You're the top!
You're the Colloseum.
You're the top!
You're the Louvre Museum.
You're a melody from a symphony by Strauss
You're a Bendel bonnet,
A Shakespeare's sonnet,
You're Mickey Mouse.
You're the Nile,
You're the Tower of Pisa,
You're the smile on the Mona Lisa
I'm a worthless check, a total wreck, a flop,
But if, baby, I'm the bottom you're the top! 

Here's to you, Q. 

 So, we went to the opening of new exhibitions at MCA (Denver's wonderful contemporary art museum...how often do I mention how much I adore this place?) on a recent night.

 We don't usually go to the openings, because it's so nice to go on a quiet weekday when it feels like we have the whole place to ourselves. BUT, this time we knew that there would be a paper flower cutting room, and a photo booth installation to go with it, so we figured we couldn't miss it.

 Q and daddy had a great time making flowers, although we somehow missed the part about tying a secret message inside...which is sort of the best part, so next time we'll be sure to do it right.

 Though it was crowded, this event was made for photos, and we did the best we could.

 Q with the creator of the photobooth installation, who was awfully nice.

 Showing off our creations. Can you believe how tall Q is these days? When you look at this photo, please realize that I myself am almost six feet tall.
This is no ordinary toddler!

 Q hard at work.

 Event the hors d'oeuvres were artful...have I mentioned how much I love this place? Abstract cookies.

 The night was too short, but we will be back for more paper flower-making soon!

THIS WEEKEND ONLY (through Valentine's Day): Printable digital downloads of some of my best-loved illustrations, turned into Valentine's Day prints, for your enjoyment! And, they're customizable! I'm happy to add a name if you so desire. Available as 8"x10" or 4"x 6" formats. At $7 a download, you can print as many times as you wish for your personal use! Visit The Voyagers Shop for details!