Thursday pretty

Gee, it's been a whole week since I updated, just about. This blog is in danger of becoming "let's fill out memes". It makes me take pictures, though!

Anyway, it's time for another edition of {pretty, happy, funny, real} from Like Mother, Like Daughter.

{Pretty}

This is the flower bed outside the apartment office next door to ours. These are mostly pansies and snapdragons. They're well established and look fantastic. Therefore I'm sure the gardeners will rip them out and replace them with "summer" flowers any day now.

I went on a photo tour of the blooming rosebushes around our complex, and found this bush with these odd double blooms, pink on one side and purple on the other.

I think I'm going on my tour again, this time with scissors and a vase.

{Happy}

My girls!

{Funny}

Another mystery photo I discovered on my camera this morning. I don't know what's funnier, that it seems to be a butt shot, or that the pants in question are on backwards.

{Real}

It's a clear, warm, windy day, with a sky blue enough to swim in and the mountains looking clear and much nearer than they are.

I suppose it's not as real as it should be, because I cropped out the busy road at the bottom of the picture. :-)

Good ol' March

Yesterday was such an incredibly gorgeous day. It was just over 70 degrees, and sunny with a breeze. The kids ran in and out all day, and I got to sun myself as much as I liked. (I'm so disgustingly white. I wish I had a splash of Mexican or some other brown flavor in me, so I wasn't so white in the spring. I look like, like, a grub, or a cave cricket, or something.)

Anyway, today we got up and it's gray and cloudy. There's a big storm up north, and we might get a few sprinkles today.

As always in the spring, I think of my favorite passage from this little book called the Song of the Cardinal, by Gene Stratton Porter. Imagine my delight when I found it as a free ebook! So now I can post this excerpt from it without having to beg my mom's copy.

Up in the land of the Limberlost, old Mother Nature, with
strident muttering, had set about her annual house cleaning.
With her efficient broom, the March wind, she was sweeping every
nook and cranny clean. With her scrub-bucket overflowing with
April showers, she was washing the face of all creation, and if
these measures failed to produce cleanliness to her satisfaction,
she gave a final polish with storms of hail.

Free ebook here

Spring walk

Today's March 1st! It's gloriously warm outside (about 60 degrees), and mildly overcast. Supposedly a storm is coming in tomorrow, but today, it's wonderful.

I'd been reading an article about being a Preschool dropout, how this lady pulled her kid out of preschool because he hated it so much. The comments were all mostly, "Little kids shouldn't be in preschool anyway! Let 'em play outside!"

So I took the munchkins out on a Spring walk around our apartment complex today, to see if we could find spring. Here's what we found.

Right in our next-door-neighbor's flowerbed:

Alex picks a flower. He also borrowed my camera and snapped a picture.

Alex's picture:

Holly had a little more trouble picking a flower. They had tough stems that resisted picking.

There were very few flowers after this, so we went out to the office that always has very nice landscaping. All the fall flowers (what is a "fall flower"? Must be a California thing) like the pansies and snapdragons were in full bloom, which means they're slated to be ripped out in a few weeks and replaced with "spring flowers". They each picked a pansy.

Then we went and tagged trees along a big grassy strip. They still have their flowers, you see.

Then we came home and put their flowers in a vase, and had lunch. It was a very nice walk. Maybe next time we'll go further and look for more blooming things.

Article on being a Preschool Dropout

Sunday at the park

It was such a gorgeous day today that I made it a park day. With the ulterior motive of going to the mall first. :-)

Anyway, it was about 65 degrees today, and I got to sit in the sun until I felt my face start to burn. It was wonderful. The munchkins got to run around like little wild indians. And climb slides from the bottom up.

I'm so glad Holly's finally big enough to enjoy the park. She was running around with the bigger kids, totally unaware that she's not even two yet. The big girls there thought she was adorable.

Alex, my gregarious one, ran around and helped this other little kid build sand castles with a bucket and tear them down, over and over.

Then this girl showed up and graciously let them play with her sand toys. I made sure they asked politely first, and told her thank you when it was time to leave.

All in all, a very nice day at the park, even with the jillions of people there and the impending birthday party. Fortunately we got out of there before the party started, or I'd have had to explain to my munchkins why they couldn't have any cake.

Spring is ...

Spring is a flowering crabapple tree.





I want a couple of these trees.

Also, spring is getting to play on the porch in short sleeves.



Spring is letting the chicks loose and see what Holly does.





Look over there!

A day at Grandma's

First: Holly likes pictures of herself.



In other news, we went to Grandma's today.

It was a gorgeous day.



All the fruit trees are blooming. I believe this is one of the apricots.



Look at that! I'm getting better at the whole depth of field photo thing!

Anyway, I got lots of neat pictures. I'll share them over the next few days.

Wishing for spring

Here's Holly looking outside. She's not allowed outside under her own steam until she learns to walk.



I need to grab some pictures of the camellias around here before they stop blooming. I heard mockingbirds singing today, and it sounded like spring. And the air smelled so good!

Here's some oddball flowers from my mom's strawberry tree.



For some reason they crack me up. They're like little hearts.