More photos from that lovely day at the very end of March at the Effie Yeaw Nature Center preserve.

I don’t know what this tree is, but it has pretty red chains of blossoms.

He is so brave and adventuresome now. His eighth birthday is only three weeks away.

A Zen moment, relaxing and watching the American River drifting by.

Aren’t they stunning? Tiny white stars twinkle on this vine. I couldn’t get enough of these darlings.

Sometimes the brightest colors of the day are found closest to the ground!

Climbing and chilling on a fallen tree. They both bravely walked along this giant (Asher held my hand while doing so).

I’m behind in my blogging. My experiences and photos are stacking up and waiting in line to be showed and kept here. I think this secretly means that life is full these days.

We took this lovely walk on the first day of the kids’ Spring Break. Lucas had a morning class about bird-watching at Effie Yeaw Nature Center in Carmichael, and when Asher and I arrived to pick him up, we all walked through the preserve along the American River for a while. (Somehow I managed to get Asher only half dressed this day.) The day was overcast but comfortable and the preserve was glorious in every way.

Glory in the green, green grass, particularly inviting for this little “lello” bunny.

Glory in the purple vinca major (AKA periwinkle), which is not a California native plant but has naturalized. (I love it.)

Glory in the group of deer we patiently watched while they grazed, especially this mama and fawn.

Glory in the tiny pink wildflowers, only an inch or so tall, and in the great oak trees.

Glory in boys being free, courageous, goofy, and happy in wild places.

My heart swells when I see my children in places like this, where we are safe and comfortable, and free to ramble on down the trail, or to pause to savor a vista or follow the erratic flight of a butterfly. I love coming here because we are guaranteed to see and hear wildlife, no matter the season. And I love how I feel when I’m here with my family—like maybe for once I’m doing something JUST RIGHT, that maybe I’ve found a perfect moment of happy calm for them and for me. I love the great big sky, whatever its color, and the intricacies of the natural world—the turn of a leaf, the texture of the bark, the smell of the air.

This nature walk was so tremendous, I’m going to post more pictures in a “Part 2.” I can’t help it. They make me feel tranquil.

Spring is unfurling all around us. Aren’t we lucky?

The day is not yet done, but the festivities are. We are tired and happy, and the rain is coming down. More later. For now, we wish you a Happy Easter!

We are expecting about 30 friends to come tomorrow and celebrate Easter with a day-long brunch. I can’t wait to see their smiling faces! Today has been for Easter projects. Banana bread is baking in the oven right now and making the whole house smell divine.

Ian and I are going to make a bunch of food:

• Barbecued salmon fillet
• Vegetarian quinoa with roasted red and yellow peppers and shallots
• Vegetarian butternut squash casserole
• Banana bread
• Pumpkin bread with tiny chocolate chips
• Chicken apple sausages
• Big bowl of fruit
• And maybe hot cross buns, if I have time …

We decorated and hung felt eggs today on our (somewhat neglected) ficus tree. These were made with crummy, 20¢ craft felt and scrap pieces of 100% wool felt. The boys were quite taken with the stars, so they focused on creating eggs with stars. Asher really loved using the scissors!

We’ve been dying Easter eggs too. We had to compromise. The boys wanted to use the pearlescent commercial dye kit that Grandma gave them. The eggs were both easy to color and are also quite beautiful, in lovely pastel shades.

I, on the other hand, was hankering to do some natural dying again, like we did in 2008. I’ve seen some gorgeous eggs online and in one of our craft books that use leaves and flowers to make a negative image on the egg. We did the yellow and red onion skin dyes today, and this is what we came up with. Not quite a perfect result, but two of them look really great. We’re supposed to shine them up with oil.

The dark brown eggs were dyed with the red onion skins. Three of them didn’t get the leaf technique. The lightest egg was dyed just by wrapping the boiled yellow onion skins around the egg and leaving it overnight. If we have time tonight, we’ll do some with red cabbage and hopefully make some pretty blue eggs, too.

OK. Gotta run to the grocery store! Happy Easter!

Inspired by SouleMama {this moment} – A Friday ritual. A single photo – no words – capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.

Little bits of beauty I found in my backyard.

Inspired by SouleMama {this moment} – A Friday ritual. A single photo – no words – capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.

Lucas played the roles of a cricket and a villager in last night’s second-grade play, St. Francis and the Wolf of Gubbio. The short story about St. Francis of Assisi can be found here and here.

The play was wonderful and the children were on it! I was so impressed. Lucas made an adorable cricket with his Brrr-brrrr sounds.

I love this school. I love that my kid is hearing rich stories every day, learning songs and poems, performing plays, wearing costumes, dancing eurhythmy. (I also love that he does all this stuff while learning maths and reading.)

Lucas was so excited about this play happening at school that he somehow wrangled his 3-year-old brother into performing a play of the Hare and the Tortoise at home for Ian and me the other night.

I’ve been doing a lot of needle-felting in the evenings after the children go to bed. I’m finding that my capacity for intense mental concentration (as I would need for editing) is just no longer there after about 9 p.m. I’m enough of a worrywart that I have trouble relaxing and find that having something to occupy my hands helps. I can’t really explain why the stabby-stabby motion of needle-felting is soothing to me, but there you go.

Here’s my new blue bird friend. Somehow, making spring art (art? can I call it that?) seems appropriate. This mama bird will live on our nature table for a while.

I just wasn’t satisfied with the eyes I tried out. I kind of like her without eyes, but maybe I’ll add some later.

These three blue eggs are only about an inch long.

However, these Easter eggs I’ve been needle-felting are two and a half inches long and fit nicely in the palm of my hand.