tiptoe through the tulips

• We had a busy, beautiful, wonderful day today.  Katie, your school choir sang at the Kiwanis Music Festival in Langley this morning.  You had to be at school at 6:45 to catch the bus out there.  Oh wow.  It was really early. The babies and I came out to hear you sing at 9:00.  The traffic was a lot heavier than I expected, and I thought we weren't going to make it, but we managed to get there at the last minute.  The music made me cry.  There's something about a group of people working together to make something beautiful that gets me every time.  I think your music teacher is pretty amazing
• Katie, you and your friends were pretty cute afterward.  It was fun to take some photos of you and see you enjoying their company
• Lila,  you were a ninja this afternoon.  You really want a ninja costume, but I can't seem to find one anywhere.  I looked it up online and saw this method for using a long sleeved t-shirt as the head mask thingy.  You loved it
• Jane, you've had lots of questions about pot and alcohol and parties lately.  We had a long, funny, interesting, heart-breaking, informative conversation about it all after dinner.  Here's the thing.  I love you.  I want you to be safe.  I understand I'm not going to be able to control everything you do, and I may disagree with some things, but in the end, I just hope you keep talking to me. Even if you can't talk about things, I hope that you always feel safe enough with me that you'll be able to trust me to always be there for you.  I love you for YOU, not for your behavior or your choices.  Now, having said that, there are definitely MANY things that would not be my preference for you :)
• Lila, you and I went out to the Bloom Tulip Festival in Abbotsford with my friend Kim and her daughter Camille.  They were good company.  It was beautiful.  You were lovely.  You were on a mission to gather a collection (or a "keywection" as you call it) of broken flowers and petals that you found on the ground, since you knew you weren't supposed to pick the flowers.  You put them in your hat, and by the end you had amassed an impressive amount of tulips.  
• You did an outfit change half way through because you said the denim romper I choose for you was "pretty ugly."  Oh Lila, I enjoy your definite opinions and your flamboyant sense of style
• You brought your collection home and lovingly arranged any of the flowers that had a stem.  You sorted through the rest of it and admired and oohed and aahed and showed Jane everything.  You found flowers for both you and her to wear in your hair