"The Flowers are Waking Up!"

Spring is in full swing here in lovely Ohio! We started the week lingering around freezing, and today will reach 80.

The ground has been so saturated, but it's finally dry enough to walk barefoot in the grass and let the kids roam without them squishing too deep.

(hanging out by the fire hydrant..?)

One great unexpected surprise popped up a couple weeks ago. Apparently the previous tenants planted tulip bulbs. They sprouted all on their own! The only thing I've done to the garden was pull a few weeds yesterday. Our tulips are some of the last to bloom on our street, but it's been something the kids have been looking forward to.

Charla was closely checking all the flowers this morning. Only about half of the tulips have bloomed, so she was exclaiming, "They're waking up!" I hope they'll all be "awake" within the week, so we can see the whole garden in bloom all at once. I had so much fun taking pictures of them poking around the flowers. This is definitely a new thing for them.. and for me!

Our photo session ended after I snapped a few pictures of my girls together. Charla is usually not too crazy about Leora invading her "space", but I guess the pleasant weather softened her.

(near the end, blowing spit bubbles was more interesting than posing for pictures)

Cute story:
Gregory has been learning about how plants grow in class. He even brought home some sprouted seeds that we've potted. Most of the yards here are yellow with dandelions, that are starting to get their fuzzies. A few monstrous ones have taken up residence in our garden. When Gregory asked what kind of flowers they were, I explained they were actually weeds. Of course he needed a further explanation, so I told him weeds sometimes kill flowers. You can imagine this definitely concerned him!

A couple days later we were leaving a friend's house and their daughter, who rides the bus with Gregory, asked me if she could give him a flower. She plucked a yellow dandelion and offered it to him. He eyed it suspiciously, but finally accepted. As we walked home he gingerly asked if she had given him a weed. I had to try hard not to laugh, but somberly nodded my head. He threw it away when we got home. He didn't want to risk it getting too close to our flowers.