Spring Happenings

March was a bit of a rough month, but Spring Break was really nice - full of low key fun. We got started early and painted some little wooden craft projects the girls got in their Easter baskets out on the patio after school Friday. General Conference, our traditional cinnamon rolls, coloring... I was amazed how much the girls were listening - even 3 year old Sierra. Monday it rained but the girls got creative and built a pretty awesome fort and had so much fun playing at home together.

Sierra the unicorn

Lily spring cleaning her treasures

Hair Salon in their fort

Sierra deciding who to marry - Ken or Daddy?

Girl on bike by Lily

The next day I felt kind of randomly sick and just wanted to go back to bed, so their Grandma offered to take them for the day. McDonald's Play place, the park, visiting their uncle at his barbershop, Baskin Robbins, & picking out and planting flowers at Grandma's house. Lily told me it was the best day! They had so much fun!

The following day I was feeling like myself again luckily and we had a fun playdate with Lily's friend from school and her little sister who is almost the same age as Sierra. We need to get together with them more - they played so cute together. It was nice to see Sierra have a little friend of her own! We don't have enough little girls her age around here.

(First time I dared to let them try to paint their own)

We planned the warmest day for Mike to take off and spend with us and took the family to a big beautiful park downtown. It is huge, has several playgrounds, and different areas with different things to see. An English rose garden with an old sun dial, a conservatory full of beautiful plants and flowers, a Japanese friendship garden with coy where everyone is asked to speak softly. It's a beautiful place and Sierra keeps asking to go back. She was asking to go back even as we were leaving to get a late lunch after playing hard! She could've stayed on the playground all day!

Run kids! The aliens are coming!

I always like to see what a little light in my lens will do to a picture :) 

Thought all those beams of colors were pretty cool!

This girl looks so grown up and beautiful and adores her handsome Daddy!

(I had to include this because it totally reminds me of

 a picture of me as a teenager though she's only 7)

Making faces at the separate little "kid's table" at lunch after

We've also been doing a lot of home improvement projects this spring. Mike finished building a shed in the backyard in March in record time with just a little help from his Dad and I, and hurt his back pretty bad pushing it. He says he is never going to build anything like that again and I should remind him, but he said that after building the studio in CA, and he's already been talking of building the girls a playhouse with some leftover wood. It's a good sized shed for what he spent to build it, and will allow Mike to use the garage space as he needs for work.

It was a lot of materials for the shed and the concrete - This U Haul was packed!

 Super tired smile - done building :)

 They dripped paint everywhere

Didn't turn out the color we were expecting, so we will probably be repainting again soon when we do the house to get it to match. But it's painted for now! Took Mike more than a few days to recuperate after pushing himself so hard. It was raining on and off and he was concerned about the materials getting ruined so he was working full days nonstop. Not a good idea!

He's been feeling better enough this month to put in some sprinklers, lay concrete, plant a row of trees, and build garden boxes and fill them. A little pain and exhaustion won't stop my determined husband. Just digging the trenches for the sprinklers and trees was totally back breaking work as our soil is more rocks than dirt and lots of them are really big. Still a long list of other projects he wants to finish before summer so we can just enjoy the good weather while we have it and Lily's vacation this year. (Last year summer was pretty much filled looking for houses, and then right at the end moving and getting settled in. Not enough fun and relaxation!)

I helped do this, not too bad since it was Quik-crete and we'd never done it before.

I'll take another picture with the finished concrete and trees when we finish landscaping.

We had a huge delivery of dirt in our driveway on Friday to plant our trees and I took this cute picture of Lily as queen of the mountain. Unfortunately... a few hours later as she played on it with her friend she thought she was going to fall - and jumped off over to the hard concrete and hurt her ankle. Kinda hard to avoid accidents with our two active little girls. We have bandaids and neosporin lying out all over the house lately. The other weekend when we were laying the concrete I sent the girls inside to watch TV to try to avoid accidents (after Sierra got a minor hurt playing in a neighbors' yard) and shortly thereafter Sierra came running to report that Lily was hurt. Sitting on the couch watching TV - she turned and caught her knee down in the side of the couch and scraped it on something. Only my daughter can get hurt sitting on a couch! :)

Lily was so cute and chipper on the phone to me announcing that she got crutches on her way home from urgent care after her injury. Hoping the novelty doesn't wear off too soon because it's fractured and it's going to be 3+ weeks before she can try to bear weight on it. Her underarms have already been getting a bit red and hurting, but she is still in good spirits most of the time and did great her first 2 days back to school.

I hurt the palm of my hand really bad weeding this weekend and am not able to use my right hand very much at all until the skin grows back. Kinda put a damper on my birthday, but all the loving wishes from my wonderful family and friends and my wonderful husband made it a really good day anyway. Using the computer is much easier than most other tasks at the moment, and a nice distraction from the pain so I've been going through pictures and taking the time to post this blog!

Lily playing with neighbor friends while her dad finishes 

building and filling up the garden beds to clear our driveway.

 Little shoveler

I felt so bad watching Mike move all of that dirt pile all on his own. There were probably several hundred wheel barrow loads. Sierra did help her Dad a little at the end! Next up: get rid of wasps and finish landscaping, paint the house, plant our garden, etc, etc...not to mention regular work. And for me - get this hand better quick so I can finish a special secret surprise that's in the works for my sweet almost 4 year old's birthday which is coming up - not to mention, write, sew and cook again, and help Mike with everything else. Having a hard time even spreading peanut butter at the moment! Lots to keep us busy!