Friday was the last day of school for my kiddos. They seem ready for a break and they get two weeks off for Easter. Lucas has a cold again, with a nasty, nasty cough. It’s slowing him down. We’ll call this photo “aftermath”—this is what happens when Asher is given a little bit of red, blue, and yellow play-dough and then Lucas comes along with a tad of green.

Saturday started with me needle-felting a (spectacular—if I do say so myself) wool Easter egg on the way to brunch in Davis with Mimi and G.G. She’s such an awesome cook. We enjoyed eggs with roasted zucchini and Jarlsburg cheese, blueberry muffins, small sausages that were a huge hit with Asher, roasted potatoes, fruit salad, toast with homemade jam, coffee, and apple juice. Didn’t pull out my camera, though.

The kiddos explored the beautiful yard a bit. Lucas climbed a tree. We watched birds feeding at the birdfeeders. We admired Mimi’s new ceramic sculptures; she’s building an underwater scene in a corner of her yard, complete with sea creatures and seaweed and, soon, mermaids. The kids threw the ball for Maggie Dog. I ended up giving my needle-felted egg to Mimi and G.G. for Easter. (Wish I had taken a photo of it! It had a bunny and flowers and grasses.)

Then we went to the Explorit Science Center. I’ve been wanting to take the kids there for a long time. It’s a pretty great place with all kinds of hands-on science for children. Unfortunately, it’s also in danger of closing due to budget problems. Like all the great, local places to take children:  Effie Yeaw Nature Center, Discovery Museum, etc. We played with centrifugal force, parachutes, topography, water and soil erosion, gears, paper buckyballs, animal life cycles, saw skins of all types, watched live black widows, cichlids, and tarantulas, and learned all sorts of nifty facts. Until Lucas was worn out and I had to go home to meet my father.

Back at home, I opened the mail and found a fat royalty check that was such a good surprise. Feeling great, I kissed my boys goodbye. Dad picked me up and took me to a play at the B Street Theater: Becky’s New Car. It was clever and often laugh-out-loud funny. Such a treat! Afterward, we went out to dinner at the Buckhorn Grill with Roger and Rosemary, longtime friends of my parents. Rose told me all about scrap-booking and making aprons, her one and only sewing pursuit. Roger flies remote-control airplanes. I wonder if retirement will be that much fun for me someday.

And for the boys left at home? Pizza, of course, and some movie about Little Red Riding Hood. I came home later that night and found that Ian had cleaned the playroom (Yay!) and was playing Half-Life. We retired and watched “Friends.” Great day, no question about it.

Sunday began with some much needed house-cleaning. I swept up about a pound of dirt from the floors. Ew! I just can’t keep up with the boys—they bring dirt and sand in constantly. And because it was Sunday and Daddy was home, some Lego fun was in order, of course.

Went out to lunch at Sunflower and ran into Lucas’s classmate’s family. We enjoyed letting the four children play and chase chickens while the four adults chatted. Asher works so hard to keep up and manages too pretty well! And it’s great watching how well Lucas gets along with his chums.

I dragged the family to the nursery where I got some flowers and found a dwarf citrus tree for my giant pot that Ian got me for Christmas. I wanted something that would look pretty all year and ended up with a red valencia orange tree. I was originally looking for a lemon tree, but couldn’t find any that were small enough. They all seemed to want to grow to at least 10 feet. The orange produces “tasty” fruits with deep, dark red flesh and few seeds, and purplish red to orange red skins. It’s supposed to be compact, nice looking, very ornamental, heavy bearing, and hold fruit well. I’m hoping it will do well in the pot, given the tag says it makes excellent indoor plant; “just clip to shape.” Yay for finding nursery gift certificates from 2004!

My wisteria is blooming like mad all over the back fence and to a height of about 20 feet into the air. It looks fantastic. Today I walked out there to listen to the bees; they’re making a huge racket. I caught pics of a honey bee and this big, fat guy taking advantage of the flowers. I really hope the wisteria still looks this beautiful next Saturday when we have friends over!

The other day, grandma came over to help us with our worm farm. She gave it to me last May as a birthday present, and much to my surprise, I’ve managed to keep the worms alive all this time, feeding them kitchen scraps and coffee grounds. I wasn’t too excited about this part, however.

Grandma is less squeamish than me and has years’ worth of experience farming worms. While I worked on an editing project, she and two gleeful boys tackled the job of removing the compost, separating the worms into three groups (one group for the garden, one for the worm farm, and one for a new worm farm for her to take home), and restarting it afresh, returning the not-yet-compost food parts to the farm.

That’s a lot of worms, man! Good stuff!

Then she let the kiddos paint flower pots that she brought them. (Thanks for the pictures, Grandma.)

Unsurprisingly, some wackiness ensued. Lucas likes to impress …

And Asher really enjoys the hose, no matter the weather. In case you’re wondering, yes, they were dressed identically (their choice) but you probably can’t tell with all the mud.

The year has turned a quarter, and I’m loving the open windows and fresh breezes. I’m wearing a sundress! Ian and I had some much-needed time out together this weekend and it was wonderful. Some spring cleaning is in order, but you needn’t worry because we won’t try to do it all at once. We like to ease into these things a little bit each day. My dear hubby is currently tackling his pile of ironing.

I’ve pulled the shorts from older cousins out of the garage for Lucas to wear in the coming weeks and given away a box, a giant bag, and two grocery sacks of toddler clothes to two darling boys we know. Out with the old and too-small!

Lucas and I have planted some seeds straight into the ground, which is something I’ve never had much luck with before. We figure it’s unlikely we’ll have anymore frost, and since we’ll probably get several more rains we’ll take advantage of the free water. We planted some beans, red chard, spinach, poppies, nasturtiums, and morning glories, all from seed packets I had lying around. I don’t know if we’ll get lucky and get some shoots, but it was worth a shot and better than discarding seeds from past years.

We have gathered together some of our spring books to enjoy. Here are some favorites that we own.

• Spring: Poems, Songs and Stories, Winstones Press
• The Spring Equinox: Celebrating the Greening of the Earth, by Ellen Jackson
• When the Earth Wakes, by Ani Rucki
• Too Many Rabbits and Other Fingerplays About Animals, Nature, Weather, and the Universe, by Kay Cooper
• The Lion and the Little Red Bird, by Elisa Kleven
• The Country Bunny and the Little Gold Shoes, by DuBose Heyward
• The Golden Egg Book, by Margaret Wise Brown
• Selected spring poems from The Chidren’s Hour Best Loved Poems, vol 5
• Flower Fairies of the Spring, by Cecily Mary Barker
• Best Hikes with Children Around Sacramento, Bill McMillon

Hope you”re enjoying spring weather, spring cleaning, and spring reading, too!

The day started with blueberry smoothies

and Lego construction of video game hardware

Like Wii and DS

That’s all he needs, really—little Lego devices on which he can pin his imaginary games

The boys left to play at our friends’ house and indulge in a little real Wii Sports

Then for me, some light reading: a fundamentals of nursing textbook

I was lured outside for some photography

Gotta catch these plum blossoms before they’re gone

See the little star?

An unexpected visit from Mom and a cup of coffee

More nursing reading on topics of theories of caring, cultural sensitivity, and the ADPIE nursing process

I jogged through the sunshiny neighborhood to pick up the kids from their play date—oh boy, am I out of shape!

Walking/running home with one son in fast, new white trainers and the other wearing the jumpiest pair of firefighter galoshes you’ve ever seen

Second lunch of meat for Baby Asher Dragon

Lunch of leftover vegetable soup for me

A little planting of primroses, which will probably do fine where we put them until it gets too warm

Finding a worm

Watering plants lead to spraying children who cavorted with great glee and got soaking wet

In February!

High of 65° F

Ahhh!

We met a garden foefriend

Who couldn’t find his way off this plate

Dry clothes for everyone

Then a cuddle and some stories; the children are into playing Monkey and Dragon these days, so we read books with, what else?

Monkeys and dragons

Hug (Thanks, Auntie NoNo and Uncle Mars!)

Sky Castle

and—what the hay—a Japanese fairy tale called “Kuzma and the Fox”

Sweet afternoon slumber for the wee one

Lucas and I headed back outdoors for some Winter Olympic Games

Like speed skating, long track

Figure skating

and ice hockey

On the lawn with bare feet!

More work reading

A few moments of  “DragonFly TV” and “Fetch with Ruff Ruffman” on PBS Kids for Lucas

Asher wandered out, crawled into my lap and slept on

So sweet

Cuddling sleeping boys is just about the best thing in the world (unless you have to pee)

“Wake up, Asher, or you’ll never sleep tonight!”

A shower for me

Pretend video games for Lucas

Daddy’s home!

Lucas reading Jamberry to Asher!

Just a tad of stream-of-consciousness blogging

Sounds of some kind of Dragon and Monkey game with lots of sound effects and shouting

Soon, dinner and bedtime

Then project prep

More work reading, like the Roy Adaptation Model

G’night

Sleep tight.

This little plant doesn’t seem to know what color it wants to be. It’s not supposed to be growing here, being a weed and all. But who am I to hold a grudge against something so vivacious and mixed-up?

Aren’t they beautiful? So humble and ordinary, and yet so perfectly formed. Asher has learned to associate mushrooms with Uncle Teeve, thanks to our walk in the Santa Cruz woodland last November.

The golds and oranges of autumn are gone now. This calendula plant grows in my backyard. I don’t know why it decided to bloom in January, but I’m grateful to see its sunny face.

I have hopes that it will spread far and wide this spring and summer.

These Nandina (also known as “heavenly bamboo”) berries greet me as I arrive at my front door.

Wake up, don your superhero cape over your pajamas, and go outside to dig.

Last year for my birthday, NoNoSays gave me a beautiful pink hydrangea in a 4-inch pot. I planted it in my front yard in a partly shady spot and it has easily quadrupled in size. Its leaves are a charming light green and it’s just beginning to bloom in time for my birthday again.

When I was a little girl, we had a clump of irises in the front yard near our mean neighbors’ house. I rarely visited that side of our yard because the neighbors had big, mean dogs, teenaged mean boys, and a pinched, mean mommy. Every year, though, right around my birthday in May, those irises would burst into the most magnificent purple you ever saw. My mother called them my birthday flower, and over the years, whenever I would begin to get antsy and excited about my impending birthday, she would say, “Go check your birthday flower and see how it’s doing. If it’s blooming it’s your birthday.” For several weeks of the year, I would brave daily visits to that side of the yard to check the progress of the buds.

I’m very happy to have a beautiful birthday flower again. Next week, the day after my birthday, NoNo graduates from CSU Sacramento with a coveted and hard-won design degree. I know that pink hydrangea is blooming for both of us. Thank you, NoNo, and congratulations!