Spring Fever

Yesterday it hit 64 degrees. The average is 39. Needless to say, we got outside! The kids have been cooped up too long!

We still have some snow in the yard, although it's disappearing fast. It's weird to see the kids in short sleeves with piles of snow all around them.

Marlo especially loved jumping in the puddles and picking up chunks of dirty ice and snow. Needless to say, she needed a bath after playing outside!

Hayden got to dust off the scooter and bike and ride around the cul-de-sac.

Even Dexter got into it, jumping for snowballs.
We know winter's not over, but we'll take what we can get.

Outside Time

We've actually had some warm days. Shorts weather, even. The day documented here was borderline--not quite summery, but warm enough to play indefinitely in the sunshine. The backyard playset (which will make the move to our new house) is the outside toy of choice. For Hayden, the playset is a fort, rocket, machine, ship, and planet. Marlo pretty much only uses the swings. She likes to be pushed, but she's also happy to literally hang in the swing and look at her toes (see picture above).


We're all very happy to get outside again. Both kids come in from outside appropriately messy. It's been dry and dusty, so the dirt gets kicked up easily. And we have a lot of dirt patches, thanks to the resident mutt. Marlo will crawl through and touch anything, so she always has dirt caked under her fingernails and stains on her knees. It's not unusual to see some specks of leaves on her lips after she snacked on them.



When we move, we'll have a nice big backyard. Our yard now is decent for a city lot, but our new house has a big sloping yard with adjacent woods and wetlands. The property itself has a decorative pond (a "water feature"). The current homeowner told us it's a favorite spot to catch frogs. So, I imagine I'll have a lot of outdoor adventures to blog about this summer once we are settled in. When we visited the new house on Saturday, Hayden took off running through the yard, thrilled with all the space and already imagining sledding down the little hill. The playset will have some competition at the new house, but I think it will still be a family favorite.

False...but happy...spring

After a brutally cold winter, and less than a week after single digit highs, we were treated to 55-65 degree weather. Hayden's been stir-crazy inside, and so have I. I'm not entirely sure if Marlo noticed.

So when the weather broke, so to speak, we headed outside. The bike came out of the garage. The shiny new scooter from Christmas finally made it out of the living room. We've spent the last few days rediscovering the yard (and all the leaves that never got raked) and creek.

Hayden loves all things on wheels so he was thrilled to play with his "outside things." Unfortunately, he couldn't bring all of them out (he likes to line them all up) because some are in storage. And, his helmet is also in storage so he was instructed "not to go fast."

This was Marlo's first venture outside since her newly aquired mobility.


She's always liked being outside...but now she can get down and dirty. Literally. She puts everything in her mouth. Everything. To date I have fished out a screw, a rock, a lot of pieces of paper, bits of pinecone, and one of those wooden screw covers on furniture. So, outside gave her a lot of new things to taste. Leaves were the biggest temptation. I'm pretty sure she ate a few. She's fast, and I also had to keep an eye on Hayden.

When Hayden was a new crawler, he didn't like the grass. He wouldn't crawl on it. He just sort of sat there and looked at me like, "what IS this?" Marlo...she's off. Right into the muddy yard. So she ate some dirt too.

And yesterday, I even saw a butterfly. In March!

Of course, it snows here in April. And even May, so it's not really spring. But for a little while it feels like it.