Spring has, um...

We're still here, recovering from nearly month-long colds and various travel and busy-ness (as usual). And now that it's over five days after the beginning of spring, I want to reassure everyone that the warming season is truly upon us because (wait for it) WE CAN SEE GRASS HERE! There's still vestiges of snow on it, and it's twenty-three degrees out, but still. Where there's grass, there's hope, right?

Our Snowy Fun

Early Thursday morning, this is what I saw outside our front door.

And this gave me a blog-relief moment. Why? Because I've been sitting on pictures of the kids in the snow from, well, when it was still officially winter. And now I feel sanctioned to share them. "But--but--but snowfall in April?" you sputter. How about ice and sleet, heavy-dump white clod free-falls when tulips should be popping up in our front mulch bed instead? Ah, no matter. For I can give thanks in this circumstance--that snow, for the second/third/fifth time in two weeks, including just a few hours ago, hath extended my negligence from guilt into comfort. Besides, when life hands you snowstorms in April, they say, make hot chocolate. And it's about time for more hot chocolate, I say.

"Can't we go outside now, Mom? PLEEEEEASE?! Okay. CHEEEEEEEESE!"

 

"Here's my snowball. Can I go back and play now?

Can't...stop....eating...snow... 

C, thinking: What are you doing?!

We all looked! Amazing.

After making his sixth snow angel. Note the white stuff in his ear...and the smile!

"I'm cuuuuuld."

Best buds.

No sledding pics but this one. Papa's got the rest filed in his memory.

Superman, who seemed to prefer this kind of snow-pose.

AND...

Yes, she made it outside to play in the snow! Once!

She loved it.

You can't hear her, but she's humming. Yep, a Minnesota girl. 

Neither Hot Nor Cold

There's no such thing as lukewarmness in regards to faith in Christ as our Saviour (at least, not if you want to avoid some serious spitting.) I'm pretty sure distasteful lukewarmness also refers to refrigerators, which are beyond worthless when they're neither hot nor cold. We've been experiencing the wide variety between the two this week, as our thirteen-year-old fridge sputtered, lived a little longer (thanks to Papa), and finally went kaput in the last week. Now the empty, dead monolith sits ridiculously impotent in the middle of our kitchen while we wait for a new-to-us one to be delivered tomorrow. All I can say is that Minnesota winters in January will never qualify as lukewarm--and thank goodness for it.

Don't worry, guys--God has marked you as BLESSED.

Quiet Thursday Happenings

So as C sleeps this early afternoon on this frigid, frigid Thursday (looks like winter's finally arrived in Minnesota!), I took a picture of her. Because who can resist this?

"And the Packers score their seventh touchdown!" Yes, Honey, only in your dreams.

Then P saw me taking a picture of her, and he said, "Take a picture of ME, Mommy!" So I took several because he had to practice not moving and actually looking at the camera.

 

Notice the sparkly white teeth here! P visited the dentist this morning with Papa, who also got his teeth cleaned. No cavities for the Olson's! Even more impressively, P sat and had his teeth cleaned without Mommy or Daddy sitting next to him, and when he was finished before Papa, upon being asked by the lovely dentist office staff if he wanted to watch a movie, he said, "No, thank you. I'll just play with the blocks." Sigh. Awesome kid moment.

Then,as if he hadn't already made his parents really, really proud, he floored us in what we call Letter Lessons (you can read about the beginning of this process here).  We started double consonants at the ends of words last week, so I wrote a few words on the whiteboard as part of his review. The first one was "mess." I didn't 1) remind him to look at the letters from left to right, 2) prompt him to sound out each letter one at a time, or 3) repeat the sounds of those letters to help him blend them all together, and P read the word all by himself! "Mmm--eeeehhh--sssss. Mess. MESS!" It was MIND-BLOWING! He can recognize letters and identify them and figure out what they say together. He can make meaning by himself! Suffice it to say this was one of those moments that make me want to home-school FOREVER!

Anyway, then P read a number of other words--today we started "ck" at the end of words--one of them being "rock." And as soon as he read it, he looked at me and said, "Like Little Rock, Arkansas?" Great-Grandma Elsea, who was born there, would be very proud.

And not to be unfair here, I thought I should take a picture of S, too. Here he was as I found him.

I love our little guy! He's talking like crazy and running and getting into things (like dumping two 100-piece puzzles all over the kitchen floor this morning) and telling me lots of things like, "Nice to meet you, Mommy." "What's that?"--that one constantly, sounding like a foghorn "Wat's DAAAAAAAAAAAAAT?"-- "No cry, Clara. Pacifier, Mommy"--even when Clara is sleeping or not crying. I like to think he's just very protective and comforting to his baby sister. And at times in the afternoon like this, I am really glad that, like when S plays, he plays hard, when our big little S sleeps, he sleeps hard. I did move the blanket to get this shot of his face.

Life. Is. Good.

Now I've got to go switch out my Christmas dishes from the hutch, just in time for another holiday coming soon! See future posts for details.

The Last of August

Okay. I'm going to try not to be too melodramatic here. Today was a beautiful, somewhat muggy summer day. After a foggy a.m, the sun came out just before noon with nary a cloud in the sky. We got out the wading pool (though with only an inch or two of water in it, that barely qualifies for puddle-jumping, I guess) on the back deck, the boys frolicked merrily with their toys, and after less than five minutes in the warm sun I was "glowing."

Yet.

This is the first really "summer" day we've had in a week or so, with some cool, cloudy days giving us whiffs of a change. The tomatoes are coming in, which is always delicious, but also imminently telling. AND the flies are getting slow and fat. Yes, that's a rather gross observation. But they're not only annoying when they're like this; they're bearers of news that I'm not ready to accept.

We still have twenty-three days of summer left. Technically. After five years in Minnesota, though, I know that the next three weeks could change our encounters with the outdoors fairly significantly. Don't get me wrong; I love autumn. (Check out this quick overview of the solstices and season changes; so interesting!) I always think summer is my favorite season until gorgeous, melancholy autumn arrives. But after last winter, which seemed to last forever--okay, so it wasn't six months of winter. It was closer to eight.--I don't want to let these warm days go.

So, as a fond embrace of the glories of summer, I give you this; a glimpse of our simple afternoon in the sun. So many days like this; so many sweet moments of spilling lemonade, squabbling briefly over toys, getting dirty and WET, and generally having a gentle, lovely time watching two boys enjoy warmth and sun.

 

Minnesota, mid-April.

The contrast between last Friday--balmy 70s, sweet breeze, baseball openers and wind-chime peals--and today, specifically right now, is starkly darkly depressing. It's 32 degrees Fahrenheit outside (that's ZERO degrees Centigrade--old school term for Celsius--which really puts things in perspective). It's beautiful--until I remember that it's April, nearly a month after the official beginning of spring, and at least six months since we began seeing snow at the beginning of last winter. That last little bit makes me want to cry.

 

But I know this snow will not last. April snows here are always wet, heavy, blow-hard-idly truculent, wanting to be taken seriously but never achieving a greater status than that of a temporary nuisance--sort of like the last throw from a weak and black-eyed fighter, the last insult hurled in a lost debate. Because, of course, these snows melt away quickly on the already-green grass, disappear in the softened black earth, their hardier and grainier sisters long disappeared from the months and months of sitting in drifts on the frozen ground. The thaw is already here. The daylight extends well into the early evening. The birds have returned. And though they stand still and silent now, snow blanketing their backs, this snow just reminds them, and us, that cold likes to hang on here, but even it can't last forever.

 

Thanks to Papa, who always takes such lovely pictures.

Returning Spring

Papa took these pictures today of robins bird-bathing in front of our house. Winter is so silent here that when we hear the sound of birds singing outside we feel like cotton has been removed from our ears and shackles from our souls (okay, a little melodramatic). Suffice it to say we are thrilled that spring is inching its way northward, the snow in all of its compacted drift-ness is inching its way downward, and fluttering, feathered ones are returning back to our skies (and our doorsteps, as it were).



In Like a Lamb

We're beginning to see glimpses of spring here, despite the snow piles everywhere. I've heard birds chirping--such a solace after weeks and months of outdoor silence, excepting the wind--and I can smell spring coming. I kid you not. I'd like to think I'm smelling the Chinook so happily received by the Ingalls clan in The Long Winter... and actually, I probably am. Look at this!

Thirty-nine degrees! Bust out the bikinis--spring's almost here!