Weeds, Weeds, and More Weeds

Oy!  My front lawn - it seems there is barely any grass in it.  The grass is crowded out by mallow and dandelions and crab grass.  I have made a few half-hearted attempts to eradicate the weeds:  I have pulled and weeded, contemplated buying powerful weed killers or just roto-tilling the whole thing under and starting over.  But I have a dirty little secret.  I like dandelions. I really do.  They are so bright and yellow and cheerful.  The greens are edible, the blooms are edible and even the roots can be roasted and brewed.  Not that I've ever roasted their roots but that's not the point.  Kids have hours of fun blowing seeds and making wishes.  They are the ideal plants.  But because they plant themselves where we don't want them they are weeds.  Poor, misunderstood and under-appreciated pretty yellow flowers.  When I see a lawn covered in bright sunshiny flowers it make me smile.  Weird? Perhaps.  Who cares!?

 And whose heart doesn't melt when a little girl brings them a bouquet of flowers?

Easter 2012

Our Easter festivities started early Saturday morning with a church pancake breakfast and egg hunt.  There are no pictures but it still happened and was great fun!

Then we drove out to Meridian to enjoy the annual Easter Eggstravaganza hosted by Michael's family.  Oh, the rapture of cousins, candy and food!

We played outside while we were waiting for everyone to show up and lunch to be ready.

Aunt Amy and Grace wearing Uncle Rob's fedora.

An action shot of Sam running (and falling) toward the eggs.  He was very confused by the whole thing.  He wasn't sure why so many adults kept pointing to the colorful egg-shaped things and telling him to pick them up.

 

Suddenly, it all made sense.  There is CANDY in these things!  His face says it all.

Gracie spotting and attempting to retrieve an elusive egg.

This is me trying to get the kids all in one spot to be photographed. 

This was the most organized the photo got. 

Sunday morning the Easter bunny brought treats and flower seeds for all.  **SPOILER ALERT!!** This is also the year the kids realized the Easter Bunny is a farce.  Even before Easter the kids were having doubts.  They even asked me to Google whether or not the Easter Bunny was real.  Alas, it's the end of an era; for them anyway.

Things You Take for Granted

It was just another Wednesday.  My MIL had come over the watch the babies and I took the big kids to piano lessons.  We returned home and all was well.  Libby stepped outside, my MIL gathered her things and prepared to leave.  Then Libby started pounding on the door.  Someone had locked her out and she was mad.  I went to unlock the doorknob but it wasn't locked and yet I couldn't turn it.  Everyone gave it a go but the knob refused to turn.  After five futile minutes of trying to turn it I went and got a screwdriver.  It only took me a couple of minutes to get the knob off but it took me another five minutes to get the latch out of the door jamb. 

This is what the door looked like for 24 hours.  We had to keep the deadbolt locked to keep the door shut.

Occasionally people ended up locked outside.  The big kids learned to cope.

The Dyeing of the Eggs

The pictures are pretty self explanatory.  We boiled eggs then we dyed eggs.  We had the fun of having little eggs, standard eggs, and big ol' goose eggs.  My friend raises poultry and shared her little eggs and big eggs with us for Easter.  The little eggs are from banty (bantam) chickens.

Preparing the dye.

 A green banty egg with a glowering Libby.

 Two banty eggs (I told you the pictures are pretty self explanatory but apparently I won't feel complete unless I write a caption for each photo.)

 All Sam's eggs turned out muddy brown because he just loved dropping them in the dye.  If we didn't let him drop his over and over again he would open the egg carton and steal other people's eggs.  Reminded us of the "egg-sucking salamander" from Disney's Rescuers Down Under.

 Regular eggs, banty eggs, geese eggs, oh my!