Lovely weather!

And you know what lovely (but windy) weather means!
Banishment to the backyard!
Aaron was good enough to watch the kids yesterday afternoon so that I could get some work done. Fion was in her element: climbing, running, digging.

Adrian spent a great deal of time building sand castles in TWO sand/water tables, with a little help from Dad.

Amazing pooch strikes again!

When you is a dog, lifes can be hard sometimes....

Last night around 1 AM, there was a growl & bark from the living room, where the pups usually sleeps soundly. Then there was a jingling of tags and really quiet barking while she ran to the back door.
This behavior is totally out of sorts for the dog who sleeps in when it rains, so I let her out to see what was what. I didn't see anything unusual but Rhianna-belle spent a good 5 minutes barking & growling into the dark.
Then when she came back in, I caught a whiff of a musky animal scent on the breeze.
She paced & grumbled for a while before settling back down for the night. And I was quietly amazed that this 50 pound pooch decided she needed to protect her home & family from animals that go stink in the night.

Photos for you!

These loaded backwards, so bear with me!
First the awesome climby tower in the backyard which recieves 4 small thumbs up. (And 4 big thumbs up, although we don't actually climb the thing)

And then there are gifts from the elusive but generous spiring time bunny. Adrian has it in his head that the Easter Bunny looks and is the size of your average pet rabbit. Which gives us questions like: How can he reach the gate lock to get in the backyard?

And here we are Easter morning prior to getting dressed & hunting eggs. The bunny was very into eyewear this year.

And the night before:

Nina cooks 2 dozen carrot cake cupcakes. We have run out of counter space, top of the fridge space, and table space to put them to cool. The solution: put them on the front step to cool.

Turns out we have theiving squirrels!

Mom! Come & gone.

My mom was here!
(Hi how are you, how was your easter, ours was quite nice, thanks)

She arrived on the 7:30 train Sunday night. Adrian & I picked her up and drove her to Chez Flecker-DeCarlo, where she was fed and entertained and sent to bed at a reasonable hour.

Monday morning, doom struck.
Fion woke up crying at 6:30 (early for her), because she had thrown up in her bed. She spent the next 10 hours being sad & listless and throwing up once more. Thankfully, Adrian took Granma to play and to the grocery store and they had a lovely time. We ordered pizza for dinner, by which time Fion was approaching her old self.

Tuesday, Fion still on the mend--problems out the other end this time. She is mostly cheery, but quite disgruntled that I won't let her have her favorite snack from the fridge (prunes). Dinner rolls around & it's french onion soup for the grown ups and chicken noodle soup for the kids. Fion has 2 helpings, while Adrian lays on the couch & brews a small fever. Sniffling & coughing ensue.

Wednesday: I am exhausted. I was up 3 times with the kids and 3 times with the animals. We can our plans of a trip to the zoo & opt for a trip to the pet store instead. Then I take the cats to the vet, spend more money than I see on a regular basis and come home to make dinner. My mom walks the dog (god love her). We have dinner, I get the kids to bed by 8 and colapse on the couch like something what colapses--lawn furniture, maybe?

Thursday: ANOTHER SLEEPLESS NIGHT. I contemplate nyquil for babies....Mom leaves at 8:30.

And we have done zero of 3 activities we had planned. And I have no pictures from this visit (just like the last time), and she didn't get to see the kids climb on their brand new super awesome backyard tower of fun.
I feel like the worst hostess ever:
welcome to my house! have some germs!

Sorry, Mom. Please come back. I'll have the kids on quarantine the week before.

Sunday, and why my house has a peanut butter surplus

Ok! So the snow has mostly melted and I am ready to stop crying into my Cheerios and tell you about our fun Sunday.

The first and third Sunday of every month, Adrian has scouts. Not cub scouts, but Spiral Scouts. Since he is wee, he is in the first age bracket, known as Fireflies. This is for kids aged 3-8, and anyone who has spent any ammount of time with children of this age will tell you: they are not known for their lengthy attention spans. To that end, we meet in each other's homes, and we keep the meetings short.

This past Sunday wasn't our turn to host, but the host family had their sump pump fail (doom!) so we had everybody here instead. We were working on our birding badge: we made nesting bags out of old mesh onion bags which we stuffed with dryer lint, yarn, twine and twigs. Then we made pinecone birdfeeders by smearing peanut butter on pinecones and then rolling that in birdseed. I had 6 children under the age of 9 with peanut butter fingers in my house and somehow I do not have peanut butter walls. (Will wonders never cease?)

Adrian loves scouts. I love that his group is a mix of boys and girls of various ages. I love that he can do projects to achieve a goal (a badge) and that he is gaining an understanding of his world in a fun & interactive way. It's also nice to be around a group of creative & fun adults on a regular basis.

Our next goal for the birding badge is to identify some of the birds that live in our neighborhood. We have robins, sparrows, a woodpecker, crows, cardinals...we'll see who else in the coming weeks!

Whhhhhhy?

Firstly; Fion says "cheese". She's so cute you want to just pinch her.

Secondly, it snowed last night. I hate this place.