The Smiths: Spring Has Sprung

Spring has come to Texas! Here's a look at how we've been enjoying it this month.

We met up with the kids at school for Field Day and the Family Picnic. It was a cold day actually and sitting in the sun felt good. I love Brigham all bundled up. . . so like his Grandma Melissa. I have memories of her wearing a coat over her swimsuit at Lake Powell.

Luckily for Brigham, a lot of the Field Day games were inside.

We enjoyed a very low key Spring Break this year. I risked the shame of my kids inevitable "What I Did For Spring Break" journal prompts on their first day back at school and announced that ours would a "working" Spring Break. Knowing full well their friends would have better and more exotic stories to tell. Oh well, we had projects and practicing and work that needed to get done. And I had big plans. Ha! We hardly did any of it. We mostly just messed up the house and when that got too messy we headed outside for ice cream. And didn't come in until well after bedtime. Turns out the kids thought it was the best vacation ever. And we didn't even need to go anywhere.

Ice cream always makes it a vacation.

Here is cute Lydia who wants nothing more than her "dolliebaby" and her stroller

The kids pulled out our Little Tykes roller coaster and performed insane stunts that I'm sure were never meant for little tykes.

The pieces also became individual ships for a great ocean voyage.

I love this picture of stubborn Eliza refusing to move off the track. She held her ground, I tell ya, and the boys eventually gave up and let her have full reign of the roller coaster.

Even with her occasional stubbornness though, the boys sure had fun spending time with the little girls.

They did chalk drawings.

Our backyard came to life with hedgehogs, mermaids, rainbows, flowers, complicated geometric designs, battleships, WWI triplanes, and P-51 Mustangs. I bet you can guess who drew what.

Clayton discovered his love for climbing trees. (a.k.a. escaping his little brothers)

Here he is talking to his friend from school swimming on the other side of the fence. They both thought this was the funniest thing ever.

These pictures were taken just a day apart. Look how many more leaves appeared in just one day!

I fell out of tree and broke my arm when I was Clayton's age. Which killed violin practicing for an entire summer. I'm hoping history doesn't repeat itself.

And I didn't even have people firing darts at me!

This cardboard spaceship occupied hours and hours of time. The boys were up at the crack of dawn eager to get working again on their ship.

Brigham in his space pod.

The boys had a mock WWI dogfight. The sound effects and commentary were awesome. I'm glad a got some video of these kids.

And of course there's basketball - the constant draw at our house. On this particular day, the sun was too bright for Isaac. Rather than getting a hat or sunglasses, he solved the problem with a Darth Vader mask.

The funny thing is, nobody thought this was odd or unusual (including Isaac) until I started taking pictures.

Then everyone realized how funny it was to play basketball with Darth Vader.

Brigham had to pose for a picture too when he saw me snapping pictures of Isaac.

Our yard is blooming! Flowers are popping up on trees and bushes faster than Eliza can pick them.

The lizards are all coming out to sun themselves on our walls and windows. W watched this one fight another lizard for this spot on the window. I guess lizards are territorial. He's there everyday blowing out his red neck. The kids have named him "my friend lizard".

The bugs are back too. Ugh.

And the birds. Aw.

I love this little red cardinal.

The squirrels are in full force this year. One afternoon I counted more than twenty in our backyard. Not kidding. They're noisy too.

Flat Stanley came to visit us from our cousin Tyler. He spent the day in our backyard. The kids dressed in their "Texas" gear and we snapped a picture before mailing him back to Idaho.