Adding Some Color

While I really enjoyed writing my 5-part series on meal-planning, I know things got a little dull around here.  Especially if your purpose for coming to Mama Nash is to see adorable pictures of the kiddos and hear about hilarious stories.  So it's time to lighten things up a little, don't ya think?

Here in the Midwest we are experiencing an amazing stretch of gorgeous February weather.  I've always said that the six weeks preceding Valentine's Day are my darkest days.  The holidays are done and suddenly that snow isn't so White Christmas-y beautiful anymore.  Especially considering it's usually April before the last pile has melted.  And as if Mother Nature and I were right in sync, the weather started warming up just before the fourteenth of February.

Of course 40 degrees is all relative.  My bloggy friend Becca who lives in Arizona warned me on Twitter to keep my gloves on.  Instead we peeled off our gloves, our hats and even our coats for a while.

On Sunday morning I went to the early mass so that we could hurry up and get outside.

We walked the 8 blocks to the coffee store and then made a pit stop at the park on the way home.  We haven't been to the park since October.  It was funny.  It looked as though the playground had sunk with a two to three foot packed snow base beneath it.  See Brian's outstretched legs while sitting on the bench?

We sat there on that bench together for a long time. We watched our kids play all by themselves, Lucy a whole four months older than the last time we'd been here. We watched them chase a funny golden retriever who had also stopped to play in the snow. I sipped my perfectly hot coffee. I closed my eyes and held my head up to the brilliant sunshine.

"This makes me happy, you know," I told Brian.

"I know," He said.

Today is our fourth (or fifth?) day in the 40s and tomorrow it might even reach 50.  We've been outside every day.  Even if it's just a walk around the block.  I'll take what I can get.  The kids are so soaked by the time we get inside that I have to strip them naked at the back door.  But I've let it go.

Puddles are like a magnet to Lucy.  The bigger the better.  Also the bigger splash the bigger laugh.  Yesterday she found herself in the middle of a puddle that came up to her knees.  I gasped when I saw her, about to yell.  But then I just let it be.  It was too late for yelling anyway.  So I laughed instead.  Then she dove in head first when she tripped on her way out.  I sent William in to save her since he had on the big waterproof boots and I only had on a pair of sneakers.  She didn't think the puddle was so funny anymore.  So we went inside to dry off and put everything in the washing machine.

Later that same day, after dinner, William was pondering the idea of love.  No doubt love was on his mind after a sugar-induced high from all his Valentine's Day candy.

"Daddy loves you, you know," he told me.

"Really?" I asked, curious how he would respond, "How do you know?"

"Because he sleeps with you.  When you sleep with someone in the same bed that means you love them."

I couldn't make this stuff up if I tried.