Easter and busyness

Sean enjoyed many egg hunts over Easter. He gots lots of nice presents, money, and candy. Here, he is amazed to find some paper money in an egg! Also any time he opened one that contained a mini candy bar (such as Snickers) he would yell, "NOUGAT!"

In the woods on the side of our house.

The spaceship. Oops, I mean the doctor's office. Oh wait, that's our house! I really should update this picture - it looks much better now that everything is green.

Still loving the bike. (Notice he has taken apart the bell. Too bad he is not good at keeping track of things - it is now missing some gears and doesn't work anymore. He does not seem to mind though.)

Starting the garden inside....

... and out. We decided to put up a fence to keep the deer out. That put the garden in the far corner of the yard, so we wouldn't have to look at an ugly fence from the family room and kitchen. The only problem is it's the part of the yard with lots of trees. We did some pruning, which hopefully will help it get enough sun.

There was a fundraiser carnival at a local park. It was not very crowded, as you can tell by the pictures. That meant Sean got some rides all to himself!

In the middle of the train ride, as he went by us he kept saying he wanted to go in the middle and see how it worked. So the operator was kind enough to explain the motor to Sean.

Then came the observation of the wheels when the next boy got on.

Sean got his first ferris wheel ride. He was excited, then nervous as the ride started moving....

and then came over the top with a giant smile. That was a relief!

On our way out we got a funnel cake and lemonade. We stopped to eat it in the park shelter. Jeff just had to take this picture. Yes, we live in Ohio!

misc.

Sean likes to help out in the kitchen. Here he is enjoying some leftover chocolate frosting from cupcakes.

Looking especially colorful with the famous tie-dyed shirt, beads, and a lei. (I guess he's just staying prepared in case we had gone to a hippie fest, mardi gras, or a luau.)

Sean got all of my belts out one morning and Dada helped him to string them together into what is now known as the Uber Belt.

Haircut time. I have always cut Sean's hair from the beginning. When he was a baby he just didn't have enough hair to justify taking him somewhere professional, since I could easily trim it myself. Now I have almost 3 years of experience so I think I do an acceptable job. (We'll see what he says when he gets a little older and has more of an opinion about it.) As for now, we have plenty of other things we can use that money for. (Like saving giant wads of money to be able to afford to send him to ND someday ;) )

Spring must be here! Sean found this flower outside. We are SO ready for the cold to be over for the season!!!

Here is a deer (the fourth one I had seen that day) making himself at home a few feet from a bedroom window. I am a little concerned that my gardening efforts for this year will end up being wildlife food. I wish there were some nonhuman deer predators left to keep these guys in check....

*****

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

We went to the only Irish pub in town for dinner, but then changed our minds once we found out there was a 3-hour wait to be seated to eat. We ended up at the Mexican restaurant, which was in fact serving green beer and had lots of other patrons wearing green. After dinner, we stopped by Flub's for our first ice cream of the season.

Sean abandoned his cone after a few bites - those railroad tracks are much too interesting!

Seriously, there is a lot to talk about when it comes to railroad tracks.

visit to Rochester

Last weekend we drove to Rochester to celebrate Grandpa S.'s birthday. We kicked off the weekend with a surprise birthday dinner.


Grandpa got a Thomas birthday balloon, which he was happy to lend to Sean. Sean also found a bunch of unused silverware on the table after dinner and entertained himself with it (mostly by using them as drumsticks or seeing how many he could hold in his hands).

But also by using spoons as extra ears.

Ok, I'll admit, I put him up to these. But usually I can't get a genuine smile out of him, so he might as well be goofy!

Mesmerized by the candles.

We stayed to visit for a few days and mostly just played at the house. Sean loves flashlights. This one was especially cool because he could wear it too!

Grandpa S. has some ham radio equipment set up in the basement.

Someone found an old Matchbox car race track in the basement, so that was a lot of fun too.

Grandma provided some arts and crafts time. Sean made this lovely hat.

We did a lot more but I am just terrible with the camera! I have gotten out of the habit of taking lots of pictures of what we do. I will have to try to start taking more again....

Snow!

So, I know many people out there have been getting a lot of snow. We are no exception. Cincinnati has already set the record for February snowfall, and we are supposed to get even more this weekend! So it's a good thing Sean loves to shovel. We have gone outside at least once a day to shovel, re-shovel, and shovel again.

(And yes, that is duct tape holding his gloves and coat together. It sure does come in handy! Without it, Sean's gloves fall off, hands get full of snow and cold, and crying and screaming follow. Now going outside is a much more pleasant experience!)

The lawnmower is also fun to push around the tracks made with the shovel. We left it out one day after using it so that the snow stuck on it wouldn't melt and get the garage all wet. Oops! Now the lawnmower is unusable indefinitely. Must be global warming.

We are trying to stay warm and cheery under the permacloud.... hopefully spring will come soon!

A quick dance