Spring has Sprung

The weather has been beautiful lately.  A bit windy.  But hey, this is Nebraska.   Since it has been so nice, the boys have gotten to play outside a lot.
On Friday morning I took Ben out to explore.  He showed me how much progress he has made on the slide,  I put him up there, and instead of waiting for me to pull his hand to start him sliding he wiggle his little butt to the edge of the slide and started going down himself.  Yeah Ben.
I was trying to get him to stay by me as I pulled weeds here and there, but he would not stay with me.  Then I remembered the swing.  I could put him in his swing for a minute while I got my stuff done, and not worry about him getting out of sight.
I went to the old garage where the swing was kept, and fought with the garage door.   The old garage is starting to lean a bit, so the old door does not always want to go up and down easily.  The door only opened about half way, so I decided that would have to be far enough.   Ben was about 50  feet away in the yard toddeling by the slide.  He can not climb up on it yet so I figured he would be safe for a few seconds.   I bent under the door, went to the back of the garage, got the swing down off the hook, tapped it against the wall to try to get the bird droppings and dirt out of it and headed back out of the door. 
Before I even straightend up from bending under the door, I was looking for Ben.  He we not there.  I figured there was no way he could have come toward the garage and be out of my sight already, so I headed toward the slide.  Maybe he was behind it.  He was not.  I started to panic.  I turned back toward the garage and saw him well past the garage heading for the open shed.  Little stinker is fast. 
Not sure what the draw was in the open shed.  Maybe it was the truck, maybe it was the loose dirt inside.  But he kept going back to the open shed. 
At least now I know where to look for him, if I can't find him.

Belated Happy Easter

We hope you all had a wonderful and blessed Easter.  We had a beautiful day in Nebraska, with sunny skys and a light breeze.  It was a great day for hunting eggs. 

But before we get to that, I wanted to show you what I did to my boys before Easter.  All my boys.  It was very warm a couple days this week and with the warmer weather came lots of sweating.  To my surprise John came to me and asked me to buzz his hair.  Then Noah, who always wants to be like his big brother, wanted a buzz cut too.  Ben was getting a little bit long so I figured what the heck so he got shaved as well.  I had not ever cut Ben that short, but he did not seem to mind.  I think he likes it when people rub his hed.  Noah reported that 14 people rubbed his head at school the next day after his buzz.  John reported only 1 head rub.  Here are my three freshly shaven boys all ready for Easter.

We got to enjoy 2 Easter egg hunts this year.  One, at our friends house on Saturday, and one at our house on Easter.  Ben really did not get the hang of putting the eggs in his basket.  He just wanted to open them to see what was inside and then throw the eggs.  Our niece Emma however, knew exactly what to do and got a whole basket full. 

Almost everyone got in on egg hunting fun.

Impressive results.

These last few weeks have been incredibly busy.  This week is no different.  We have Small Fry basketball practice and games, a Cub Scout meeting and 2 community service events, baseball field cleanup, Dr. appointments, therapy, ESU planning meeting, and we get to end the week with a banquet. 

The banquet is the Bess Streeter Aldrich Foundation's Spring Banquet.  John won the Aldrich short story contest for his age group and will be presented with his award at the banquet.  The prize is $25 and he is already thinking of all the ways he can spend it.  He is so excited and we are very proud of him.