Ready to Push Pause for a Little While...

We've been cutting trees out of the yard lately.  Two big pines in the back and one big oak in the front so far.  Now the garden can get more sun and we can fit more cars in the front yard. 

Julia is a bit upset at the loss of the trees.  I'm not sure what attachment she had to the pines - I can almost understand her missing the oak in the front.  I appreciated the shade from it, but not the way it blocked light that could have come into the house and not the sap and gunk it dripped on the cars parked beneath it.  I can't wait to have a little more grass out front.

 Alan has had a couple of field trips in the last weeks.  His class color was PURPLE.  Everyone was supposed to wear a purple shirt to make it easy for the teachers to identify kids in their class.  His class has 22 boys and 4 girls.  I bought him a purple polo.  He was less than enthused and immediately said he'd wear it, but not to school.  Ha!  Lucky for him I found this shirt at Target before the field trips.  And as we walked to class that day I noticed quite a few boys in purple polos and one other boy in this same shirt...

 It's colorful in the sun and white inside the house.

We dyed a few eggs before Spring Break.

 The kids loved it.  They took their time with it - spending more than 2 hours on 9 eggs each.

 We had just a few casualties, and each time an egg suffered a crack Alan insisted on putting a bandaid on the spot.

 While the big kids went to Mississippi for Easter, Sean and Jillian and I went to Tennessee where Jillian licked her grandma's floor.

 And we went fishing with Sean's grandpa.

 Jillian was fascinated by my dad's beard.

 And Papa Mac's hat.

 It's been kind of hard to get back to the school routine.  I'm sure the next 4 weeks will fly by, school will be out, and before I know it Julia will be headed off to Camp Toccoa for the week.

 Photo of Julia courtesy of Alan.  Photo of Alan courtesy of Julia.

He looks so grown up...