Happy May Day! Or Workers (Labor) Day!

A popular activity on May Day is to decorate a pole with brightly colored ribbon or paper streamers. Some also add flowers and balloons. The pole is usually carried in a parade and then placed in the ground at a designated area. People then dance around the May pole, holding the ends of the streamers or ribbon in their hands.

In London, May Day is celebrated with the children going from house to house. They bring flowers and get pennies in return. The pennies are then thrown into a wishing well. The pennies are then donated to charity.

In South Africa, today is Worker's Day (or Labor Day). The first time it was declared a holiday was in 1994.

The girls playing in Holly's garden (yard).



Holly blows out her 5 candles with all her friends around.

YUM! Love cupcakes and birthday parties!!!!

Holly's 5th Birthday Party today.

The girls had a grand time at Holly's house today. All their friends from school were there. Lots of fun (and sweets!)

Little brother's birthday

Today is my little brother's birthday. Happy Birthday, Boo! 32 years old. Sofia is worried that since it is your birthday that you will grow some more and break Nonna's ceiling.

I got news yesterday that Sal's citizenship ceremony is May 21st! Yay! He is almost there! After 17 years of living in the US, he is now a US citizen (and will always be an Italian as well!). Wish we could be there to celebrate with you and see you take the oath!

Glad it is the weekend! Even though it was a short week at work, it still felt long because all the work happening. Tomorrow, the girls have been invited to Holly's 5th birthday party. Holly is one of their good friends at school. I am sure we will have fun.

So cute!

I always mean to capture some of the cute things that Sienna and Sofia say on a daily basis but I always get so busy. I am going to try and make a point of it so that I capture these fleeting moments for later.

Sienna-
After seeing our neighbors Siberian Husky who has one blue eye and one brown eys, she looks at me and says "I wish I had one purple eye and one green eye". I asked her why she thought his eyes were different colors and she said because one flopped out and he had to get a different one!

Sofia-
Here women tend to carry anything and everything on their heads as you will see in the picture below. And the girls love to point out when someone is carrying something on their heads along the road. Yesterday I asked Sofia if when she got big she would carry things on her head and she said "No, mamma, I'm not brown and my hair is slick". She is very bright- one of the main reasons why a caucasian can't carry things on their heads is because the hair is slick and the item will slide off!

Chased by the waves

They loved playing in the waves today. The water stays very shallow for a long ways out so they could walk way out and then run back when the waves would come in.

At UShaka Beach

Today, I took the girls to UShaka Sea World. We spent the day there and outside at the beach. At lunch, we had a picnic on the beach and then went back in to visit the aquarium. This aquarium is the 5th largest in the world. And we watched the hour long dolphin show. Saw penguins, seals and had a good day. Afterwards, we went back out to play on the beach and in the water. The girls had the best time on the beach. The nice thing about the beach outside of UShaka is that it is very shallow for a long ways and there are lots of waves. It was a nice warm day so the girls put on their "cozzies" (costumes/bathing suits) and played until almost dark. I don't know the roads well still so I made the come back a little earlier than they would have liked.

Petting the goat

Here the girls are petting on the goats that was roaming around. He was interested in Sienna's little sack of food.

Pony Rides! Duck and Deck Animal Farm

Here is Sienna riding the pony and Sofia making sure everything is okay. The rode the pony as much as they could- at least several times each throughout the day. You pay about 80 cents per child and then they can ride as much as they want- as long as other children also get a turn.



Yesterday, we went to an animal farm nearby. The girls rode ponies, donkey carts and played with the animals. Here Sofia is petting the pony.