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

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.

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 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!

This was Lucas’s entertainment for last Friday evening: a homemade, hand-sewn blank notebook with a felt cover. His idea. His supplies. His execution. All his.

While I sat watching with my mouth agape and he confidently stitched the cover on, he reminded me that he already had loads of experience with this sort of thing because he went to a bookmaking day camp last summer, where he made two different styles of books.

He then ruled the pages and proceeded to fill them up with fantastical water creatures chaotically drawn in classic, blue ball-point pen ink.

Did you catch that sky last night? After the rain, my little corner of the world was ablaze with the sunset spilling over every wet surface it could find.

And someone I know just had to splash about in the lava.

Beauty sometimes washes over even my suburban, sidewalk-lacking street. All you have to do is notice.

I sewed a thing! I made this pillowcase for Asher’s birthday at the end of January, but of course, a pillowcase doesn’t get top billing when it comes time to celebrate turning 3, either for him or for me, so I’m only getting around to gloating about it now. I used an online tutorial that I found here, to help me with the french seams, which were entirely new to me. The tutorial is great! Much thanks to its creator!

I can’t quite explain it, but I’m really digging this pale, spring green with the dark red. This color combination is all over the boys’ bedroom now. I hope they like it as much as I do. (The green rug is new from Ikea and we all love it, especially the price.)

I have supplies for a pillowcase for Lucas, too. Which I hope to make sometime soon.

Asher, my sweet 3-year-old, has really taken to making up songs lately. He’s been doing it more and more often, and just today, his preschool teacher, T, mentioned that he was singing nonstop. I thought I’d share two of his recent impromptu songs. I think the lyrics should probably suggest the tunes pretty adequately, especially for the first one.

Choo choo choo robot
Choo choo choo robot
Choo choo choo robots are gooood!
Choo choo choo robots are gooood!
Choo choo choo robots are baaad!
Choo choo choo robots are baaad!
Choo choo robots have powers!
Choo choo choo robot
Choo choo choo robot

And here’s another song that I think some punk band should pay him for:

Vampires suck people’s blood.
Vampires suck people’s blood.
Vampires suck people’s blood.
Vampires suck people’s blood.
Vampires suck blooood.
One two three four five
I’m gonna suck your blood!
One two three four five
I’m gonna suck your blood
Blood blood blood blood!