Oh, How I Love March!

I love March. 

And not just because it is my birthday month.

I love that we see kites at least once a week at the park.

I love that the weather is getting warmer.

I LOVE seeing everything grow...like our trees in the front yard. 

I love opening Big Sis' window every morning to see more green leaves on the branches.

And the wild flowers growing on the side of the road...everywhere. 

But most of all I love seeing my sweet family experiencing new wonders all the time.

Garden shots from about 3 weeks ago.

beans

zucchini

The day before my birthday my cousin came to see us while on her music tour! We were so excited to see her...it had been more than 6 years.

This girlie loves to dress up and spin!

And we cut Big Sis' hair! 

Garden shots from about 2 weeks ago.

beans...they have seriously grown SO fast

zucchini

spinach

Big Sis and Handsome went to their first Daddy-Daughter Dance at our church last weekend. Big Sis was so excited. She couldn't decide what to wear (for reals people, we went back and forth between 3 different dresses and 2 different skirts! I finally had to remind her she just needed to get something on so she could GO!)

Baby Beluga and I worked on the cylinders.

Then Big Sis and Handsome got home, way past bedtime and super happy. Big Sis got to take home a balloon, tried a root beer float, played with hula hoops and most importantly, got to dance/jump/run in circles for more than 2 hours!

 

 

And these days we are into hopscotch. We made about 5 different ones on our driveway this weekend.

Our February

This green bucket from the dollar store provides quite a good time for our Little Sis. First, she explores all the toys and pulls them all out.

If things aren't coming out fast enough, the dump method is very effective.

And then you can get a good taste of the green bucket. 

We've had a lot of fun this month making felt food for Big and Little Sis' kitchen. We've got some chocolate chip cookies, heart shaped sugar cookies with frosting, sandwiches, and pancakes. Today Big Sis offered Handsome some syrup for his sandwich. Interesting combination...

Which reminds me, tonight we had chocolate pudding for dessert. There were still some spinach leaves on her plate and the next thing we knew she was dipping her spinach in the pudding and eating it all up. 

This year for our valentine's to the kiddos grandparents we tried out a pinterest idea. Around the feet it says "We love you from the top of our head to the tips of our toes." Sadly, I forgot to make one for us to keep, so we took a picture instead.

This Little Sis LOVES to tear up the grass. Let her have at it for long enough and you get a nice pulled up patch of grass. 

Big Sis LOVES to pick dandelions. Good thing we've got a bunch right in our backyard. We may or may not have gotten at least 5 dandelion puffs blown to bits just inside the door of our house on a windy day, which led to LOTS of dandelion seeds all over the kitchen.

Little Sis loves to get under things.

The couch cover...

 

  

The futon...

The exersaucer...

Maybe we have an aspiring mechanic on our hands.

We found a caterpillar about 2 weeks ago and I let Big Sis put it in a jar so we could look at it for the rest of the day. 

Well, turns out that caterpillar was ready to cocoon. 

And so it did. 

In our jar!

We've been working on food storage...a lot. It's one of our goals this year, to work up to our year supply of food. The leaders of our church council us to do so, and so that's what we're doing. Want to learn more, go here.

Figuring out where to put it all has been our main challenge, especially since we need to rotate it so nothing ever goes bad. Aunt M has been an AMAZING help with figuring that part out.

Here's our pantry after doing some organizing. No, not all the food fit in there. We stashed lots of it on the top most cupboard shelves, and I've got plans to make more shelving in our storage closet and laundry room.

We had a matchy-matchy morning and I snapped some shots of my smiley girls.

If you are ever getting bull-dozed by your big sis, just try to bite her head.

We are also attempting some gardening. We are really excited at the prospect of growing some of our own food. This season we are planting spinach, zucchini, green beans, and 2 types of tomatoes, plus some basil, marigolds, and zinnias. Big Sis chose the zinnias...bright pink ones. 

Here is our garden box made by Handsome and some of our friends who are also attempting gardening as well. They made 4 boxes. 

Before we moved it and filled it with dirt it was a magical play land in a sea of windy grass.

Remember that cocoon a few pictures back? Here is the beautiful butterfly! 

It only took about a week! I was so surprised that it happened that fast because I was expecting about 2 weeks. We missed watching it come out, but were glad to see that it didn't fly away. We let it go outside after we showed Handsome.

Reading their books. Little Sis did have hers open before I snapped the pictures.