Hot Spring Days

 The Pacific Northwest has been blessed with warm, glorious sunshine. It's more reminiscent of summer than spring. We have taken every opportunity to be outdoors as much as possible. We've been dining al fresco in the evenings on the patio, taking long walks around our quiet, peaceful neighborhood, and the kids have been enjoying copious amounts of time in our backyard wading pool. Ella becomes fish-like on warm days and cannot get enough of the water. She asks to put on her "soup" (aka swimSUIT) constantly so she can splash, swim, and play to her hearts content. 

She also has a slight obsession with the garden hose. She likes to drink from it, spray water with it, and pull it all over the backyard to give the blooming plants and flowers a drink. 

 She's teaching herself to doggy paddle and beams with pride when I tell her what a great job she's doing.

Nicholas isn't a water baby, per se, but he's been enjoying the pool with us more often than last year. Yesterday he (with mommy's help) and Ella spent lots of time throwing and catching balls in the pool. Both kids were giggling uncontrollably every time they missed the catch and were splashed with water. 

I celebrated another birthday last Sunday and it was a perfect day...

 Jeff surprised in the morning with Starbucks iced coffee, then he put bark chips in all of our flowerbeds at my request to help keep the weeds (that I have been pulling out for months) at bay.

My lovely friend, Lyndsey, surprised me with three great gifts. She sent the bracelet shown above along with some adorable earrings and she sent the pot of succulents pictured below on the day of my birthday. Thanks so much, Lynds!

The evening of my birthday our wonderful friends joined us for a celebratory dinner at Salty's on the Columbia River. It was a gorgeous spring evening so it was a treat to eat in a restaurant with such a pretty view. 

 Words cannot convey the depth of my love for this man. He works so hard for our family, loves us all an infinite amount, and made my birthday very special. I absolutely love spending time with him, especially when he has been working such long, crazy hours which makes it difficult to see each other at all.

I am one lucky lady!

Mmmm, my dinner was perfection!

I am also so blessed with good friends. These two women are a joy to be around and I really enjoyed spending my birthday with them. 

The kids have been missing their daddy in the evenings, especially at bedtime so Nicholas requested I take his picture the other night and send it to daddy at work. We will all be so happy when Jeff starts working day shift again next week...we thrive on normalcy around here!

Ella doesn't take naps anymore, but I think with all the sunshine, all the time spent outside in the pool, and hours riding her tricycle almost everyday, she just gets tuckered out some afternoons. A few days ago she feel asleep cuddled next to her brother and Nicholas was so sweet, keeping quiet the whole two hours she laid next to him. 

 We have been using Nicholas's bath chair outside in the pool, so Ella decided to use the bottom apparatus that goes with the chair as her own personal fort. She brought all of Nicholas's stuffed animals over and declared it was, "circle time!" When Nicholas heard her squeals and giggles he wanted to join her in the fort. We read books together and the kids were sad when I announced it was time to go to sleep. But don't worry fun-in-the-fort commenced immediately the next morning.

This morning it was overcast until late afternoon when the clouds finally burned off. Instead of swimming, Ella opted to get buckets of water and make mud pies with the mole mounds in the corner of our yard. It's always an adventure with this child! But I will say that I wasn't unhappy to see the mounds of dirt flattened.