Mud season

On Sunday, we got our first real taste of spring for this year- it was at last 60 degrees and sunny! Toby made a snack for his siblings to eat out on our back deck :) From last week, but still sweet... Majestic Sand Hill Cranes- they were doing a mating dance- so neat to witness! In the late afternoon on Sunday, we walked down to a big park a half mile from our house with Will, Ashley, and cousins. It's nice to be closer to them- and so many things! Freeze tag Dirty piles of snow that have been building all winter are still present on roadsides, but for the most part, the perma-winter-white-stuff melted these past few days, though I'm certain that's not the end of it. Some people here refer to this time as "mud season," which seems appropriate to me. Growing up back east, spring looked like daffodils and little green and soon pink and white and yellow buds everywhere- and a greening up of everything (Nothing got completely brown and dead looking as it does here). I don't recall much mud or ever wearing boots, and that's all our kids have been wearing lately. I do miss our mudroom, as crowded as it was- now we have a mud deck- and a mud mat by the back door, where piles of mud-caked galoshes and soggy outerwear accumulate.

I am looking forward to later in April- to Easter!- when the green of new life seems to emerge before our eyes. But for now, I will relish these warmer days that get our kids outside and running around and walking the short distance to the park, that have us all eager to soak up some vitamin D. And the wonderful graces that have come our way this Lent so far. I tell ya, we have some amazing friends and family and kids- a wonderful homeschool group, and so very much to be grateful for!

I wish you all a blessed mud -and Lenten- season!