I love mornings.  I rarely blog at night, if I did I’m sure all that would come out would be zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

It’s Thursday.  43 degrees.  Sarah is outside riding her new bike and Seth is upstairs taking a bath.  Caleb just woke up; everyone else is still sleeping.  It’s 7:40.

Are the duck photos neat?  I took them first thing yesterday morning.  I stood stealthily behind a pine tree by the pond and watched this duck.  It wasn’t so much concerned about anything but looking around and quacking.  I guess he was looking for his female?

As I mentioned in the previous post, this is Spring Break Week for the children.  Yesterday was “Buy Sarah a New Bike Day”.  I left the house at 8 with her and Seth and we went to Target.  On the way we stopped at Dunkin’ Donuts.  Sarah wanted “a donut that was filled and it would be jelly inside.”  She is quite wordy.

On the way there they explained to me that they were Odie and Garfield.  Sarah was Odie and Seth was Garfield.  I played along and they decided I was John.

“I’m going to be John the man?” I asked.

“OH, I know!  You can be Liz!  Liz is in love with John and John’s Dad!”

That didn’t sound right.

“Liz is in love with John AND his dad?” I asked.

“No, John IS Dad.  And you love Dad.”

Oh.  Okay.  I get it now.

So we played pretend for a while until I got tired of getting yelled at for accidentally calling them Seth and Sarah.

They had their donuts and we proceeded to Target and found a nice bike for Sarah and a few shirts & ties for the boys for Easter.

What beautiful tulips!

On the way home there was a garden center, a nice small independently owned one, so I stopped to buy some pansies.

Here they are sitting on the floor of the passenger side…..aren’t they beautiful?  They have little ruffled edges.

Guess what?  I don’t have a photo of this but when we pulled in the driveway, the duck was in the other pond with his female!  🙂

Nice big brother Jacob did some work on Seth’s bike but ran out of time.  He had to go to college and work.  But Seth was okay; he still had the scooter to ride.

And Sarah was so cute riding around on her new wheels.

This bike is a bit taller and it took her a little practice and a few falls to comfortably get on and off of it.  She could ride her new bike for hours at a time and unlike the boys, she’s content to ride the same path over and over again.  She talks and sings to herself as she pedals.

Sarah even shared her bike with Seth until he ended up crashing it and said he wasn’t going to ride it anymore.  “First it went in the garden and then it crashed!” he said, without taking any of the blame.  It was all the bike’s fault.

I used to watch Jacob, Ethan, and Grace play EXACTLY the same way.  It’s like deja vu.

One sad note:  Before I could do anything to stop her, Sarah butchered the pretty streamers off her handle bars because “they were distracting her.”

My pansies at home.  I also had 3 six packs that I planted in pots.  Two of them are on the front steps and one is by the side steps in the garden.  They are cold weather pansies so even if the temperature drops they should be okay.

The potted geranium on my windowsill bloomed!

RANDOM PHOTOS:

My friend Lea Ann texted me this picture of her Texas wildflower bouquet!

I saved it as my phone screensaver.

Seth in the dentist chair.  I was reading my book but also watching and listening.  Very entertaining.  No cavities!

“Mike, will you show me your airsoft gun?”

“No.”

“I’ll give you a neck massage.”

“Okay.”

water and wine at the spa

*********

Quote for today:  “Faith sees even the darkest deed of all history, the death of God’s Son, as a necessary prelude to the brightest.”  Philip Yancey