We’re at the time of year that I really do love (even if the pollen does make me a bit sneezy). There are pretty flowers, interesting insects (and things that eat insects, haha), and the weather is warm but not yet oppressively hot. We had a decent week. Abigail was fully better, and Paul was as well (for the most part). Joseph seemed better, but then Wednesday he had a bit of a set back (after school, thankfully). I kept him home on Thursday and he has been so much better since then. I guess it was the virus’s last push. Consequently, we didn’t do much out of the ordinary.
I almost stepped on this guy when I was finishing one of my walks. Those are some impressive antennae!I love seeing the wildflowers growing everywhere.I’ve started walking/jogging to the park in our subdivision and back. One of my favorite parts of the park is the path that winds its way through these big trees. The shade is much appreciated on warm days!I love it when the grass greens up again. My flowers are looking especially awesome right now, too!My roses are beginning to bloom, too. Normally they bloom before now, but we’ve had a kind of chilly start to spring.I pulled up what I thought was weeds…only to realize they were baby oak trees (see the acorns at the bottom?). It was cool to see (I think I’ve only seen diagrams in textbooks). I didn’t think about it until it was too late, but I suppose I could have planted these in pots (I’m not too sure what I would have done with them once they got bigger, though) just to see what happened. They ended up in the compost with the weeds that I’d pulled.I found this anole lizard while I was unwinding my hose.I kept gently shaking the hose to see if it would jump off, but it essentially dug in its heels, haha.It finally did jump off and run into the mint.The cool thing about anoles are they can change color, from brown to green. I sat there and actually watched the change happening for a bit…I wish I could have watched until it was completely green, but I didn’t want to freak it out.Abigail’s teacher made them bunnies out of pudding containers. It was so cute!Abigail was pretending to be an explorer. She’s wearing my dad’s old hat (there was one time we were visiting Mom and Paul needed a hat, so he borrowed that one and Mom told him to hang onto it) and borrowing Joseph’s binoculars. She told Joseph he needed to be a wild animal that she could look at. He asked her if he could be a sloth, haha. She agreed. 🙂I was grabbing some food for dinner last night and I got caught in commuting traffic. As I came to a standstill and sat there for a bit, I couldn’t help but snap a quick picture of my view. This is about a mile from home. 🙂One of the things that has been a bit of a struggle is that even with some pretty hefty weather stripping, water will still get into Paul’s office (under the door) whenever we get a big storm. Instead of dropping some serious change on a storm door, Paul bought a screen door (because we feel that we really just need an additional layer in front of the door along the bottom to stop the water from coming in) and gave it a quick coat of white paint. While the screen is obviously not solid, it should slow down the water enough to keep it from coming in. If that doesn’t work, then Paul has plans to get plexiglass and replace the screen with that…which still would be cheaper than a storm door. I love that he thinks outside the box!Joseph created a blanket and pillow fort in his room. He has a loft bed, so it was easy to tuck the blanket into his bed frame and then drape another part of the blanket across his desk chair and I think he closed some of the blanket into a drawer of his dresser. He then used some of his bins to prop up his pillows. The Christmas lights were already up (since we wanted to add more light to the underside of his bed because his desk is under there). I love this kid’s creativity!
Easter 2022 was pretty great! The kids really enjoyed getting to see what was in their Easter baskets, we got new church clothes for Easter, we went to church, and then when we got home, the kids dyed Easter eggs, and we enjoyed an easy-to-pull-together Easter dinner: a ham slice (browned up in my skillet), rice, green beans, and rolls (I did make those from scratch). We’re going to have strawberry shortcake for dessert. 🙂
Checking out their baskets.Joseph got some candy, a new video game, a new book, and a popper toy.Abigail got some candy, a new book, a new play doctor’s kit, and a popper toy.Checking out her chocolate bunny.She was ridiculously excited to see those pink chicks.Showing me her candy carrot.The girls got matching dresses……and the boys got matching ties!It made for a good family picture opportunity.Her doctor’s kit came with some bandaid stickers. I came into her room to find out that several of her stuffed animals had “ouchies”. Apparently Wish Bear got the worst of it. It took way longer than I thought to peel off all those stickers, though…so I’m not sad they’re all used up, haha.Dyeing Easter eggs. I realized that I’ve never had the kids do this. It’s one of those things that always got put on the back burner. I made sure to make time for it this year, though…next year, Joseph might not want to do it!Abigail was ridiculously excited to do it. This is me trying to make sure she didn’t splatter it everywhere, haha.Their eggs. Joseph was more patient in letting his eggs sit, so his colors are a little more vibrant. Abigail wanted hers out right away…it’s kind of similar to how they live life, haha.
It was quite a week for us. It took Abigail quite a bit longer to get better than I anticipated (she finally went back to school on Wednesday). Joseph also got sick (and so did I, but it wasn’t as bad as the kids). He went to school on Wednesday, but missed Thursday. Both kids were feeling better by Friday, which was a holiday from school (Good Friday…I think the district has realized that a lot of kids either go to church on Good Friday or they leave to visit family for the Easter holiday, so they just made it a day off). Paul took both of the kids to the movies on Friday. They went to see the new Sonic movie. It was Abigail’s first time in a theater and she did really well! Paul has been fighting a bit of an upset stomach today (I was hoping it would miss him, but it looks like it won’t), so I took the kids to Old Town Helotes to walk around. We also went to one of the more kid-friendly antique stores (read: they have nice, wide aisles, have all their breakable stuff organized in a way that it won’t easily get bumped off a shelf, and sometimes have newer toys that the kids might like that aren’t especially expensive). Joseph found a wooden toy sword and Abigail found a jump rope. I found a really cool antique butter mold and a neat looking agate. The owner of the store was impressed with the kids’ behavior (Abigail actually did really well and listened to me when I told her to be careful) and let them both pick a few rocks out of her big bin of small polished rocks to take home. It was a fun morning. Weather-wise, it’s been…interesting. It’s been rather hot and humid (I think we kind of skipped real spring weather…we went from being cooler than normal right to being warmer than normal). We even had a surprise hail storm. Not much rain fell…mostly just hail. Luckily it was pretty small and the storm was rather short, so nothing got damaged.
The hail that fell. I took a video, but because of how I recorded it, it can’t be embedded. If you reeeallly want to see it, here’s the link:
Ten minutes later, it was like nothing happened.Spring is kind of my favorite.She made me banana pie for me to eat.About thirty seconds before I took this picture, I told her not to make a huge mess because we had to leave for school soon. I guess we have different definitions of “big mess”. 🙂We added a bird feeder to the yard. Now the birds have both a place to eat and a place to drink.In Old Town Helotes.Abigail really liked this little wagon.This was a fun sign.On a bridge in Old Town. I loved the area behind them.They liked finding this bench (I think they’re both still a little tired from being sick earlier in the week). You can see the bridge in the background.My antique butter mold.I think it’s a really cool design. I also think it’s cool that people would go out of the way to make their butter look pretty.My $1.00 agate.I set it on my console table with these other items. I really like the grouping.I think my new additions fit in perfectly.Look at it in the light! 😍A little brown bird thoroughly enjoying the bird bath.A female cardinal (can you see her red head?) also stopped in for a drink.
