Lots of Sunshine and Spring Cleaning...

We've been busy lately! Here are the kids w/ the chickens...

William finally caught it!






...a few Easter pix from G-ma Janeen's...


(my batteries ran out before the egg hunt)


Good Friday Potato Planting (Justin thinks I'm silly to always have to take pictures...so this is him posing for me--note the forced smile:)


...my sweet very-exacting hubby...yes, that's a tape measure. If you look at the garden, you can easily tell which rows I planted--my onions rows are rather wavy. :)

I'm so thankful I have a child old enough to dress himself. However, as I've been going through my pictures to print, my goodness, I need to teach him about matching. :) His outfits make me smile. Day to day, when we're around the house, I don't really notice what he has on. The pictures I've taken have captured it, though. :)

The kids are following in my footsteps and going through a horse stage. Samuel and William like to pretend they're knights riding mighty steeds. :) William's battle horse is named "Goblin" (just like Johnny Tremain's) Samuel informed me that his horse's name is "Kyle" I'm not sure if anyone else thinks this is funny, but I laughed so hard I think my kids wondered what was so funny. We have a good friend named Kyle and for Samuel's war horse to be named in his honor, just struck me funny. Sometimes it's not so much what my kids say but how they say it that makes it hilarious. I love this stage that they're in. They aren't embarassed to express themselves and most things in their pretend world are very serious and real-life to them. I love their honesty and sincerity. :)



They love their swings!~


We've had playdates w/ friends, but I haven't taken very many pictures. Here's some of one of my childhood friends, Britta, and her little munchkins. It's so funny to me that we're grown up and have children of our own. My childhood memories are so vivid and happy, I don't feel old enough to be 27 and have 3 children!

Fun times w/ friends...


Last week was my spring cleaning week. I neglected our usual routinue and focused on painting the rest of my trim, cleaning the kitchen cabinets, touching up the laundry room paint and washing all the windows, screens, and curtains, inside and out. I still have spring cleaning inside to do, but I've decided to go room by room, and throughly clean. This is my last week of orchestra and I need to use nap time to practice, but next week, hopefully I'll finish up the deep cleaning. I went through the kids' clothes for the next season and de-junked our clothes closet. It takes TIME to do these things! Doing these activities w/ children throws a curve ball at me! Creativity and strategy is key, I've decided. :) I bought little squirt bottles and had them help me w/ some of the projects. Samuel is getting old enough to be able to work on a job for more than 30 seconds--yay! I can already tell that Madeline will be a big helper, as well. In some ways, she amazes me. W/ the boys, I have to instruct them that their pj's don't belong on the floor, they go in the hamper. Before they have a chance, she's already picked them up and put them away. :) Yes, I'm going to need her! :)
I did find, that getting up several hours before the kids, was key to getting the jobs accomplished. My paint looks, oh, so much better! Now I really need to touch up the walls. From 3 ft. and down looks very rough in the high traffic areas!
While my kids were "helping" me spring clean, I consoled myself that things usually get worse before they get better. My house is back in general order---I like it that way. I love my sparkly windows and I'm amazed w/ myself for living w/ such dirty ones. :)
The kids were outside w/ my while I was washing windows. They love to swing, so I'd quick run and give them each a big underdog, then run and scrub away at the windows. Then by the time they were asking plllllleease for another underdog, I'd run quick and do that again and get back to drying/scrubbing. That was my exercise last week. :)
I'm so glad that the kids and I can do this kind of stuff together,even if it takes twice as long and gets dirty again in less that 2 minutes. I have to remind myself that someday I'll really miss this stage.