Spring Has Sprung

I went around our yard to take some pictures of the new blossoms and flowers that were just emerging.  I love this time of year, especially when the weather is nice and the kids can play outside.  I love watching everything come back to life again after a long, cold winter. 

And, yes, for those of you who are wondering, I am ready to have this baby.  Caleb told me today that he wouldn’t push on my stomach so the baby wouldn’t pop out.  Maybe I should go ahead and let him.  It might get things started!  This is about as good as it is going to get of me while pregnant.  Enjoy.

MIA

Whew!  These last few weeks have gone by so fast here that I have barely had enough time to catch my breath, let alone blog.  Here’s a quick report of what has been going on here in our little corner of the world.

We officially have a “tween” living with us now.  We celebrated Kelsie’s birthday with a small family party this year.  And it rained most of the day.  Bummer.  She loves being another year older and got (almost) everything she wanted.

Wally spent a week away from us in Europe and had a fabulous time.  He enjoyed the time he had to play tourist in Amsterdam and Maastricht, but in the end decided that there really is no place like home.

The day after Wally got home from Europe, his brother and his family came for a visit from Iowa.  We had so much fun hanging out and playing with them.  It’s always fun to have cousins around and Caleb couldn’t get enough of his new favorite cousin, Caroline.  I also just have to mention how much more fun Chicago is in the summertime.  So.much.fun.

Since strawberry picking is on our list of things to do this summer, and since it is such a short season, we decided to drive up to Wisconsin just before the 4th of July and picked 12 quarts of strawberries.  Caleb ate the berries faster than we could pick them and everyone ended up with juice stains all over their shorts, but we had a great time and had lots of fun together.  We were even excited to get a $0.49 ice cream cone at McDonald’s before we headed home.

 

Then came the 4th of July.  It is one of my most favorite holidays, so we went to just about everything we could.  The parade was fun, even in the rain, and the fireworks on the beach were great (it stopped raining by then).  The kids had fun with sparklers, glow sticks, friends, and fireworks at the end of the day. 

 

A few days later, Wally’s parents came out to visit and watch our kids while we went down into Chicago for a couple of nights to celebrate our 10th wedding anniversary.  We had a great time together, without any kids and they had tons of fun without the parents.  They were able to eat as much chocolate, donuts, and chips as they wanted and play as much video and computer games to their hearts content.  Just the way it should be when Grandma and Grandpa are in charge!  I have tons of pictures from our little jaunt into the city—I’ll have to post those later.

In between all of this we have also been doing a little bit of:

reading:

crafting:

taking care of bumps, bruises, and boils:

and getting as much play time in as we can!

Warm Weekend

We had some amazingly beautiful weather this past weekend. It was so nice to have some warm weather and be able to go outside without a coat--Caleb doesn't realize that you can actually go outside without one! The kids and I had a lot of fun playing together and talking to our neighbor. We got out the balls, bubbles, bikes, scooters, and sidewalk chalk. Kelsie, our artist, couldn't wait to cover the sidewalk with original artwork.

We went on our first family bike ride of the season over to the YMCA to celebrate Healthy Kids Day on Saturday. We had lots of fun running around and answering questions to win prizes. They each got a new water bottle, a couple of balls, frisbees and new balloons. We came home a while later and planted our garden. Wally was kind enough to prepare the soil for us the night before, and Kelsie did all the planting this year. We were able to plant peas, radishes, and lettuce growing in the garden. We're going to plant some carrots and flowers later this week. We're so excited for our crop to come in! Brandon and Caleb had more fun digging in the dirt and throwing it at each other. Boys will be boys I guess!

It truly is amazing the difference it makes to have a couple of nice days thrown into all these not-so-nice-days we've been having. We are excited and ready for summer! We were outside all day on Friday and Saturday throwing balls, playing frisbee, and planting the garden. I can't think of a better way to spend a warm weekend!

Spring Break: Day 3

I know it's hard to believe, but we had a really nice spring day today and so we took advantage of it! We rode bikes, went to the park, ate lunch outside, and had fun just being in the sunshine! This is what Spring Break is supposed to be like, right?!?!