SPRING!!!

Yeah! We are finally starting to see signs of spring in the yard. We were able to get outside this past week with the kiddos and play on the swing set, crunch up some old dried up leaves, and poke around in the garden. (Gabe and Grayson are both very good at finding little rocks and putting them in the bucket for Daddy.)

We lost LOTS of branches during the record snow over the last two months. It looks like over half of a huge cedar tree is gone and enough of our magnolias came down to make a pretty substantial third tree. We are pretty bummed about loosing so much off the big old magnolias. We would like to replace the cedar with something else, but it is so big and blocks a nice part of the yard from the parking lot - so we hesitate to take down what is left. I think we are going to have to finish cleaning it all up and survey the overall damage more so than we have thus far.

The boys are so happy to be able to go outside again. There are still a few spots with snow, but it has finally started to warm up enough that we can get outside with them. Unfortunately, they are calling for several inches of rain over the weekend, so we will be trapped inside again instead of getting to play outside with them, which is kind of bites.

We have been talking about fencing in a part of the yard as a play area so the boys can kind of 'run free' when I am with them this summer. They always want to go in two directions and it is pretty dangerous in our yard, given it is a 6+ foot drop off on all sides (we are an odd high island amongst the concrete.) We are thinking about fencing around a play set in the shade somewhere. I hope we manage to actually get it done. I they will really like the freedom of not having me chasing after them saying - stop, stop, stop!