Laura's "new" bike

Laura requested a red bike for her birthday. You would be amazed how hard it is to find a plain, red bike without Spiderman, Cars, or Gravedigger on it. So we fixed and redecorated our hand-me-down yellow bike that said Caterpillar and made it slightly more her style. Not too bad for duct tape!

Too bad it has been too snowy to ride it yet! Hopefully we'll get out this week.

Hello baby lemon

Lemon tree is producing!

Busy

We are having a busy March.
Jenny & Laura's birthdays.
Laura went to 4 friends' birthday parties!
I am participating in a Lenten small group discussion, a Just Eating class (about hunger around the world), and a class at a nearby community college about choosing a career. And we had a play group here with 12 kids and 4 moms last Friday (3 were babies and spring break added more older kids than normal).
Jim will have worked everyday in March, including weekends, trying to get his paper written for a conference in Finland (!) in June and submit several projects at work. Meanwhile, he has also traveled/will travel to North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Las Vegas for meetings.

Whew!

Orchestra Hall

This afternoon, Laura and I returned to Orchestra Hall. We had visited there on a field trip earlier this year, and today, we got to attend a concert! Michelle had passed along some tickets they had won in a lottery since they are no longer in the state, so we had a ladies' afternoon out. It was really fun, loosely geared towards kids and we had a good time.

After the concert, we wandered around the skyways in downtown Minneapolis, grabbed a snack at the coffee shop and had a great time being together. Thanks Michelle!

Crocuses!

 Kim said she had crocuses up in her garden and I just rolled my eyes and said something like "Please don't rub it in. We are still snow covered." But when I realized how much of the snow had melted today, we decided to check on the south side of the house where we had planted some crocus bulbs last fall. We don't normally go over there in the winter. Lookee there! They are blooming! We have some up on the north side too, where we will see them more often, but no blooms yet. They get much much less sun.
Wow, I needed this color, even if its just a tiny drop of it that I have to search to find!

Believing in spring

Siblings

I love it when it works!

Freedom!

His last time in the "cage"!

We let the monkey out this afternoon. He is sleeping in a real bed right now, as I type.

So far, so good!

Shhhh...don't jinx it!

With the trips to grandparents houses this summer, we knew that the pack n play wasn't gonna cut it anymore.  We wanted to work out the kinks of sleeping in a big bed now, rather than right before our trip. I'll let you know if it backfires!

Amazon Mom

Do you know about Amazon Mom's Club? Its awesome. Enter your kid's name and address and get free 2 day shipping on almost everything. They are keeping track of what you buy, so if that freaks you out...well, don't buy on the internet. But free 2 day shipping has changed my life, man.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/mom/signup