Little Treasures

Nearly every day that Gamma Rita was here this past summer she and/or I would take Nate and Seth for a walk and come home with handfuls of "little treasures". The boys just loved to stop and pick foxtails, dandelions, "alligators" and other curbside weeds on a stroll around the neighborhood – and after the first couple of trips we knew where to find all the best ones. Eventually we ended up taking a bag along to collect the treasures since hands could no longer contain our bounty as summer went on. When we'd get home, we'd dump the bag and the boys would spend the rest of the afternoon enjoying all their free loot. It made a terrible mess in the backyard at times, but they loved it (in fact, I'm sure the mess was the best part).

Yesterday we got a surprise package in the mail with a whole lot of little treasures from Gamma Rita's backyard. Since she lives on the West Coast, many of them were backyard treasures you can't find around these parts.

I think it goes without saying that it was a big hit!

Gamma Rita sent a box filled with some very nice rocks, knobbly sticks, chestnuts, pressed fall leaves and dandelions. There was even a piece of fir tree (AKA "prickly pineapple").

Unfortunately the last one ended up as a casualty of a 6 day trip through the mail, but that hardly mattered because there was this:

I can already hear Gamma Rita having a good laugh over the look on Nate's face in that picture. I also decided to take a picture of whatever is it before it got completely demolished by the boys:

The sticks and rocks were the real show-stoppers though. The boys were having a contest to see who could hold their stick up the highest*:

We also heeded Gamma Rita's advice to hold the leaves up against a window to really see all the pretty colors, and the boys were suitably impressed.

Of course, there were a couple more things in the box aside from rocks and sticks, etc.

The bag in the background is what I like to call Mommy's "little treasures", and like all treasures that are truly prized I've done my best to keep them out of sight of any and all who would like to steal them.

- L.


*Every time I look at that picture all I can see are the boys auditioning to play Harry and Ron in a pre-school production of Harry Potter.