Ahhh, Spring!

I thought I would appease Sarah and post some "Spring" Loveliness. Now, you all need to realize that Lovely is a very relative term and that in my world sarcasm IS lovely, so take it as you will. Maybe I should call this post "Shades of Loveliness."

We did our Easter celebration with my parents and sister and brother-in-law a week early as Mandy and Peter were suppossed to be gone on Easter. We were able to have the Egg Hunt outside even though snow pants and mittens and boots were required. It was a balmy almost 40 degrees.
I found a Star Wars Easter Egg kit. What better way to celebrate Jesus?
On Easter morning, as we were all scrambling to get ready (OK, I was scrambling to get ready), I asked Curt to take some pictures of the girls in their easter dresses. This is one of 5 pictures that all looked goofy. Ummm, thanks...
Mommy, then took over the camera.

I made my mommy, Curt's mommy and Mandy tote bags for Easter this year. This is Curt's mom's bag. The girls did drawings and chose fabric and I appliqued the pictures on the linen bag. This is a bird house and bird sitting on an egg on a nest.
A Spring Sunrise on my street. Taken this morning. With 3+ inches of fresh snow!
Happy Spring!
When I went grocery shopping on Monday night, there was a cart full of sad looking Easter Lilies marked down to $1.99 each. I HAD to rescue one. It is looking much better now and even gave me 3 blooms so far. It smells so good. My husband didn't even laugh at me for having to "rescue" a plant, but my mom did.

Lisa, could you please to send Spring here as you all seem to have moved on directly to Summer?

Our Week

Our adoption home study is officially approved! The girls and I went to Madison on Tuesday and got the certified birth certificates and marriage certificate. Then we explored down town Madison while we were there. We were able to walk from the government building to the Capital and looked around inside a bit. The girls were quite impressed. Then we went to the Madison Children's Museum. We could have stayed there all day. What a neat place. There was a sensory area on the first floor that I wanted to move in to. Lots of role playing/pretending type stuff and the girls are quite into that right now. I had to beg them to leave when it was time so we could eat lunch. After the museum we walked down State Street and got some lunch and then back to our vehicle which was parked near the lake. The whole thing was quite an adventure for all of us. Then we drove to the adoption agency offices and picked up our official home study packets. So exciting. The next step is sending our USCIS paperwork on Monday and then our Dossier paperwork sometime in the next couple of weeks. Then comes the waiting... It is starting to feel so real. I can't believe that a year ago we were putting adoption on the back burner to buy this house and I had all but convinced myself that it would never happen and now here we are. God is truely amazing. I did manage to take some pics of our field trip on Tuesday so you could join in the fun.

Emma in full construction worker gear. Note the pencil behind the ear, just like Grandpa.
This is called the Dream Machine, sort of a cross between a boat and a plane or sorts. They had bunches of fabric fish laying around and life vests. Much fun.

This was a water feature in the sensory area. They wanted the kids to touch and play in it. I want one in my house. Water flowing over rocks is so great.
Emma playing drums in the Making Music area. She is beggin for some bongo drums now.
Mosiac Floor! I want this too, I told you I wanted to move in.
Giant blue gill that you could crawl inside. The inside was painted to look like what is really inside a fish.
A long table full of pea gravel and construction vehicles. Endless fun.

Randomness

My children are not giants, this is how tall the snowbank is in front of our house.
New springy garland on the staircase. Thanks for the help Aunt Mando!

We attended our first ever doggy birthday party last weekend. The girls had so much fun. Brooklyn (our pup) was nervous, but was good and very tired out by the end.

Sunset behind our house. We first looked at this house 1 year ago last week and the night that we looked at it the sun was setting just like this. I was hooked. It has been a great year here and I feel quite blessed to be here and have a view like this out my kitchen window.
I was searching for signs of spring earlier this week even though the temp has only been above freezing once in the last month. This is the Golden Oregano in my herb Garden. It is tough evidently.
My lilac bush seems to know that Spring is coming... hopefully the weather will follow.

I tried posting earlier this week, but Blogger was not in the mood. This post is rather random and not even in chronological order, but here it is anyway. Happy almost spring!

Good Bye February...

When the sprouts first came up they were kind of purple. I was a little concerned as I really wanted some green, but they are greening up nicely now.
This is today. The grass is getting quite tall and the girls were quite concerned as to how we would trim it without a lawn mower that small. I assured them that it would be ok for us to trim the grass with scissors.

I will not miss this month when it is gone. I will gladly welcome March tomorrow morning with a smile. There is even RAIN in the forecast for Sunday, and here I thought that precipitation only came in the form of snow or ice pellets. I know spring will come, the wait is just so hard sometimes. Our pretty green grass on the window ledges really does cheer things up. We are working on some spring crafts also. The absence this week was due to the preparations for the home visit with our Adoption Social Worker that took place on Wednesday. One more big hurdle conquered (and a very clean and organized house to boot). We should have our Home Study approved by the end of next week. Next step is sending paperwork to the USCIS for their approval, then another chunk of paperwork to gather and then it all goes to Ethiopia. We are making progress and that feels good.

Playing in the Dirt

Trying to make it feel more like spring, we planted Rye Grass Seeds (couldn't find wheat grass seeds, but this should work). These little pots are on the dining room window ledge which is quite sunny. I will post an update next week when they start to sprout.
I didn't want to be left out of the fun, so I took some of my little glass jars on the kitchen window ledge and filled them with dirt and seeds too.
We have been working more and more on independence, and they are coming along quite well. I know it is a good thing, but seeing them doing things for themselves makes me wonder what happened to my babies.

We can always count on Emma for a laugh. She dug a hole and shoved her head in it... "just like my cousin Buck." (Buck is my sister Mandy's dog... Emma and Abi's ONLY "cousin").

Color 4

So here is the big adoption story change in a nutshell. We got a call from our adoption agency last Wednesday during the blizzard telling us that Haiti is not an option for our family as the draft of the new law states that at least one parent has to be 35 years old in order to adopt from Haiti. So basically overnight we had to chose a new country. This has been very hard emotionally, because we really felt led to adopt from Haiti. So complete change of direction was a lot to take. We have decided on Ethiopia. We had our first meeting with our Social Worker last Thursday and that went very well. We are slowly making our way through the mountain of paperwork. It is more emotionally draining than I ever thought it would be as they ask a lot of very person and in depth questions. Keep on praying for us please. We appreciate all the added prayer we can get.

On to color for the day. Not an outside picture you will notice, but will also notice the sun streaming in the window. That was the happiest part of the day.

A game of Chinese Checkers counts as math right?

Frosted Window Panes

What 40 below zero does to our windows.

Our bedroom window before a nap:
And after a nap:
I was able to travel to Madison yesterday with my Mother-in-Law to visit the Garden Expo. We at least got to pretend it was spring for about an hour. Then we drove home in the many degrees below zero weather on the highway that was half drifted shut. I am just going to stare at this picture and pretend myself there.