The big week!

Are you ready? St. Patricks Day is officially TOMORROW! I have a grocery trip this afternoon to get our final ingredients for our St. Pats meal... then let the baking commence! I'm excited about this whole new, "celebrating the holidays" thing in our lives. And, I think my energy has caught on because Brad is now having a St. Pat's party Sunday night with our teens! It's so true that if a momma has an obvious zeal about something... its catchy! {same with...if momma is grumpy, so is everyone}

Yesterday Ava and I made our "Happy St. Patricks Day" cards for her grandma's/grandpa's. She loves being able to play with markers, and I'm happy to sit with her and be crafty. They are by no means anything spectacular...but, fun all the same! Here's what we made:

She loved seeing her picture on the shamrocks! It's so fun for me to be able to interact more and more with her over things like this. {sigh} What a life!

After craft time we headed outside to enjoy some of the sunshine. This has been a loooong time coming - and I was determined to make the most out of all this day light! It took Ava a long time to warm up to the idea of actually walking in our yard... but, after a while she loved chirping with the birds and picking up the sticks (which we have an entire yard of!).

We ended up taking a walk up and down our sidewalk and then having some discovery time in the yard. And... I found some things! I have random flowers growing all over our mess of a yard. So, those of you with a green thumb - hoping you can help me out a bit. What are these? I have a huge patch of them towards the back end of the yard...








We also came upon this patch of things which, I'll admit, at first glance looked like a pile of doggy....well, you get the idea. But, upon further inspection had green sprouts popping out of them. My fear is they are just more of the nasty clover/grass weed thing that covers most of our yard. But, maybe I'm wrong. You tell me...
They look like this - big roots on top of the dirt.

All the same - it appears Spring has sprung! I'm so excited for all of this sunshine and the promise of warmer days ahead! I almost unpacked the spring/summer clothes yesterday in my excitement...but, didn't. Happy St. Pat's Eve!