It's on it's way

"Spring, Spring, glorious Spring.
It's on its way hooray hooray!!"

I am not a winter person.  At. All.  So when I see things like this, I know that Spring is truly on its way:

Beautiful red cardinal on top of the raked-away straw from last year's garden

Flowers (as Ruby would call them)  Nonetheless - brightness amidst the gloom

Rotor-tilled garden plot!

Long lists of things to do to get ready for a certain little girl's SECOND birthday.

Sorry I've been an absentee blogger.  This lent I am really trying to focus on being more present as a wife and a mother, which means I am more absent from the online world.  We're less than a week in, but it's been good so far.  These sweet kiddos are just growing up too fast and I don't want to "just a minute" their childhoods away while I'm on the computer.

Hope you and yours are having a peaceful, reflective Lent.  I read something the other day that said that the sacrifices we make during Lent help to make more room in our hearts for Love and for God Who Is Love.  May your heart expand this Lent!

Sweet Siblings

The kiddos have been having so much fun together lately.  It seems like they are finally starting to play "with" each other (as opposed to just playing together.)  And although it means we have a lot BIGGER messes to clean up because of their new-found "siblingship" it sure is nice for them to be able to play with each other while I'm cooking dinner (because by that point I am ready for a break!)  They go downstairs and it's just precious to hear them playing and laughing together.  Ira has even wanted to put Ruby to bed the last few nights.  Some of their favorite things to play are:
-Ira pushing Ruby in her Little Tykes car running and cutting donuts and doing power slides,
-Dumping out all the Hot Wheels and playing cars on Ira's track from Christmas,
-Playing the drums,
-Chucking stuffed animals out of the toybox,
-Running around with balloons,
-Coloring and making confetti, and
-Doing puzzles (not the same puzzle, but Ira doing big puzzles and Ruby doing her little ones.)

Ira reading Ruby her bedtime story:

It is just wonderful to see their relationship develop.  I hope they always stay close.  I know they will have their fights and their disagreements, but I know I cherish the relationships that I have with my siblings and consider them some of my best friends, and I hope Ira and Ruby can have that when they get older too (with hopefully a handful of other siblings by then! ;-).  We'll see what God thinks of my "plans!"

A sequence of funny faces:

(Oh, and the bandaid above Ira's eye is holding closed a nice gash from sliding into the table they have with their kitchen set while playing the aformentioned "running around with balloons" game.)