THE COLLECTORS

What a week it has been! Iris' fourth birthday on Wednesday, a day spent with Nonna on Thursday, and the 'party' on Saturday.

A couple of weeks ago, I asked Iris what kind of cake she wanted this year, and she said a bunny. She was quite definite about it, a white frosting and the chocolate cake. She added at the time, that she didn't want it to have a body, but she never noticed at the party, that this bunny surely had a body. She was pleased with it!

If you have been following this blog, you might remember my mentioning and perhaps showing pictures of her Zucchini doll(s)...as we've been through several. This prompted me to make her a more permanent zucchini doll, and I must say, much to my surprise, this was such a success...her first words upon opening it were "now I can take it to bed".

If you can't tell, the doll is in the middle...

...and on the left.

Perhaps one of my favorite days of the week, well to be honest there is no perhaps, is Nonnie Day, which this past week was Thursday. Iris is always filled with adventurous things to do, and this day she suggested that we 'do a collection'. I asked her what she meant, and she said we should each take a bucket and go outside to collect things. This was such fun, and she led me all over the yard, the garden and surrounding land to fill our buckets.

After filling them, she wanted to spread them out, so we took them into the garage and spread them on a couple of small tables. I was astounded at the beauty of our collection!


...and at her true devotion and love for all we gathered. She arranged them beautifully, I must say.

This led me to finally do the 'photo collection' I had been itching to do for several days. Just beyond our house is a pine grove planted many years ago by Anne (the former owners' daughter) for a 4 H project. It always seems to have been a wonderful place for mushrooms to grow in the fall, but this year the amount and beauty of the mushrooms is far beyond any I can recall.

And so....My Collection

This is a large and quite stunning blue mushroom...

which when you step on it...reveals this astounding blue color.

Surrounded by such beauty who can help but be enriched?