Could it be? Is Spring really here?

Well, it might just be true that Spring is here! I hope so, at least! This has been one of Ellie's favorite passtimes this week:

You'll notice there is very little sand left in the sandbox after a summer of playing in it and a winter of it sitting more or less vacant! But she has fun anyway. I would love to build a sandbox under her swingset (well, not under the swings!) for her to play in instead of this inflatable baby pool. Anyone want to take on that project for me???

Snow Cones

When your yard looks like this on April 24:

I am pretty sure this is the best response:

Snowcones! Made with real snow... It's a pretty good way to make a little girl happy!

When life gives you lemons, make lemonade. But when Spring gives you snow, make snowcones!

Spring Barbecue

So about a week ago, Leif and I had this conversation on google chat:

Leif: BBQ tonight?

6:15.

OK?

I've invited 10 people.

me: What?

Did you mean to send that to me?

Leif: Yesh.

Do we have plans tonight?

Let's pretend that conversation happened in reverse order.

At first I thought it was a joke. You know, the, "Hi, Honey! I'm home and I brought the boss home for dinner!" sort of thing. But it wasn't a joke. I also didn't have to make dinner. Leif did all the grilling (he makes the BEST hamburgers) and everyone brought side dishes, or rather, side desserts. It was great.

The reason for the spontaneous celebratory barbecue? It was the first day that the sun was shining and we didn't wake up to snow. You just can't let a day like that go by without a barbecue!

(and we learned that you can actually fit four small children in our sandbox, but they can't move much once they're in there!)

There's no end to the fun...

... you can have with a little food coloring, some water, and a squirt bottle. This is what Ellie and Mommy did yesterday morning for about an hour...



And no, there wasn't a massacre. Just a lot of food coloring mixed with a lot of snow. Ellie thought it was great. Until her water bottle ran out of squirt. Then...



"More please. Water empty."

And indeed, it was.



So I'd refill it and she'd go out and empty it on the deck again. We went through this about a dozen times. She thought it was great. So did I.

She did a few other things, too, like filling a bucket with colorful snow, dumping it out, and stomping on the resultant snow castle. She also watered the compost buckets for us. And I heard myself saying, as I watched my daughter head toward the compost bucket with a shovel in her hand, "No no, Honey, we don't play in the compost." Those sure weren't the words I was thinking when I imagined all the the things I'd say to my daughter one day. Oh well.

Does this look like a beautiful Spring day to you?

Me either. But this is what we woke up to this morning.