It's that time

Spring is officially here, although the way the weather has been lately you'd think it's arrival had preceded the real date. My hyacinths came up two weeks ago and my neighbor, Dena, split some of her daffodils and I added those to my collection. Actually, the kids did it for me. I was so impressed.

The kids have also been enjoying some time outside, which I love.  The winter's are usually long with them cooped up in the house.

And Jason's time off from shoulder surgery has come to an end, so we've been enjoying as much time with him as possible.

As well as enjoying some beautiful days.

Hope you're enjoying your Spring, too!

Spring???

Mother Nature teased us this week with a little bit of spring. She can be so mean sometimes. We tried our best to take advantage of it though.

On Sunday Jason and I both had errands to run.....on complete opposite sides of Columbus. So he took Xan and I took Jordis and we went our separate ways for girl/guy time. Jordis and I were at Easton and I was excited about the prospect of lunch, even if she picked McDonald's. Jason isn't a fan of the golden arches, though I am, so occasionally I look forward to eating there. But not my little girl. She wanted a hot dog. There were only two places I could think of to get one, one being Steak N' Shake, and the other being Auntie Anne's. I tried to get her to go to Auntie Anne's and told her how yummy a hot dog would be wrapped up in a hot pretzel, but she wasn't having it. So alas, I ended up at the Steak N' Shake that I've been boycotting since I was pregnant with Xander six years ago. (They should really know better than to deny a pregnant woman some breakfast food five minutes before breakfast hours are officially over). Anyway, it clearly looks like Jordis is about to seriously enjoy this hot dog, doesn't it?

Um, wrong answer. Ate the applesauce and a few fries and declared, "This hot dog is yuck!"

A few days later it was even nicer, so when Xander got home from school I thought it might be nice to have a little picnic. The grass was really wet from all the melting snow, so we decided to sit on the driveway. First picnic I've ever had next to piles of snow.

It was also the quickest picnic I've ever had because someone saw a bee and it was all over.

A little bit later we attempted a bike ride.

That went pretty well. So well, in fact, that I had trouble getting one of them to come home.

One day this week there were two birthdays in Xander's class and Jordis was sad about him getting treats, so on Thursday morning I took her to get a donut. I'm not going to lie, I really needed an excuse to go to Tim Horton's for coffee. Her combination of short sleeved shirt and fleece pants was interesting, but I'll give her credit for matching. She was feeling quite sassy this day.

And then as quickly as it came, it left again. And now we have rain. And more rain tonight. And more rain tomorrow.

Guess that's what you get when you wish for Spring.

Happy Veterans Day

Sunday was our city's Veterans Day parade and it was a gorgeous day, so we decided to take the kids. Typically we don't hear about it until after it's passed, but we finally figured out it's on the Sunday before Veterans Day, and not actually ON Veteran's Day. We made sure to have on our patriotic-colored clothing.

(After looking at this picture I've decided I think Xander's going to have my teeth. If you look at them they're all angled the same as mine. I'd blame my overlapping bottom teeth on the fact that I wasn't so good at wearing my retainers, but my dad had braces too and his bottom teeth look just like mine. So my guess is part of it is hereditary. Sorry, little man. I wouldn't wish my dental history on anyone.)

The kids were excited when the Boy Scouts came by and passed out American flags to everyone.

Jordis, true to form, loved the hundreds of motorcycles that drove by at the beginning. She really enjoyed waving to them. Then when the band came she marched all over the place.

(I secretly loved the new Camaro sitting at the curb.)

Xander kept shouting out "Where's the candy?" and we had a lot of trouble trying to get them to understand what Veterans Day was all about. But they do know that they have veterans (or as they generalize them, "Army people") on both sides of their families. And they sat still for a few minutes.

Oh yeah, they got some candy, too.

Of berries, bikes, bad weather and brides....in no particular order.

I'm starting with weather first because I'm sick of it. I don't know why it's so hard this year for the weather people to tell us if or when we are having severe storms. They're either popping up out of nowhere, or they tell us they're coming and they don't. My personal favorite is that of last Friday and early this morning, where they say things are weakening or just not coming near us at all, and yet I'm awoken by some thunder and lightning only to discover there's a tornado warning nearby. Poor southern Ohio will have been under a tornado watch for about 20 hours straight by the end of the day if the current watch stays in effect. Luckily the weather was able to cooperate for Memorial Day weekend. It was quite lovely and we had a nice cookout at my mom and step-dad's that Sunday.

At any rate, this rain of late is doing wonders for my plants. The strawberries are a little experiment I was trying with Xander, but then I discovered my neighbor Dena gardens and she offered to start some seeds for me. I'm doing all containers this year until I see if I'm successful, as I don't want to rip up my yard to find I'm not good at growing things. I'm horrible with houseplants so I wasn't expecting much from these. The strawberries are looking great though, and it was fun to watch Xander learn how to plant them, then put them in the sun, and he even helped me water them. I discovered, however, that 12 strawberry plants isn't going to put a dent in my kids' consumption of the fruit. Xander is very proud of the strawberries so I took a picture of them yesterday. The other little plants you see are the ones from Dena that I need to re-pot. They're tomatoes, cucumber and green pepper. One of each, just to see how they do.



Xander also just got his first big boy bike. Jason had told him he could use some birthday money to buy it so they went last week and picked it out. Just so happens that it matches the helmet he got last summer at the Safety Fair. Xander loves his bike and is quite good at it, just got on and took off. He's already riding it around the block and we've been leaving the cars in the driveway so he can ride in the garage on days that it rains.



Nomey has a helmet, too, and insists on wearing it even if she's not riding her tricycle. They even wore helmets to help me wash the car on Sunday.



Other than that we've not been doing much. The kids and I have gone on a few playdates with our MOPS (Mother's of Pre-schoolers) group and I went out for Mexican and dancing with some friends last Saturday night. Something about having two kids and turning 30 has reduced my ability to decide what makes for good "going out" clothes, so I let Jason choose my attire on Saturday. He was quite pleased with the end result and even took my picture. He attempted to go fishing with Xander and his dad last Sunday but that didn't go so well.





Our next big adventure is a garage sale at my mom's next weekend. She already sold some of our baby stuff to a girl at her work, but I have tons of clothes and other things here that I hope to get rid of as well. So please pray for me that it doesn't rain next Saturday, so I will not have spent hours pricing all these things for naught.

Also, Jason's cousin is getting married this weekend, so congratulations Nellie!!! All of you family members making the trip to Punta Cana we hope you have a fabulous time.