day 76 - a beautiful day $

Happy St. Patrick's Day! A holiday I don't really get but maybe it's because I'm not Irish. What I do know is that on this day 70+ years ago, my grandparents met at a St. Patrick's Day dance in England. My efforts today were slightly more modern. We had green pudding for dessert and the kids wore St. Patrick's Day shirts from Old Navy. They didn't last for long as one fell victim to a diaper malfunction mid-morning. I went to find a new outfit for Owen and came back to find the other two had also stripped down to their underwear/diaper. So...pictures of them wearing their St. Patrick's shirts are nowhere to be found. Oh well.

It was a beautiful day again today. It was at least 15 C and it was sunny all day long. The kids got a chance to play outside which they loved. We dragged riding cars and bikes from the basement and balls from the house but what did they want to play with? The broom I was sweeping the driveway with. So one broom became three and I gained two assistants.

Anyway, here are some randoms from tonight. I will narrate using new Ava created nicknames.

Here's Trackie (E) helping me sweep




and Flying Machine (O) trying to sweep the lawn.



The boys tried their best but it didn't take long before I realized I had employed unionized help. ;)



Stopping to enjoy the last moments of sunshine after a job well done:



Other randoms include discovering one of the hostas in the front garden poking through the dirt



Ava's boots at the front door



and I have to apologize to my daughter who told me the moon was out but I didn't believe her. I thought she was pointing at a very bright star that was out really early (turns out it was Venus) and because the moon is usually on the other side of our house. I was wrong. The moon was indeed out and it was very cool. This is a terrible picture but you get the idea. It was a very, very small sliver - so small it was almost like an eclipse. There was a shadow across the moon covering everything but the sliver. I don't know anything about astrology, so I looked it up. Turns out this is referred to as a "waxing crescent moon" and the shadow is not from the earth (as that would be an eclipse) - it's the moon casting a shadow on itself. Way over my head, but very cool and something I might not have paid as much attention to on my walk tonight had Ava not noticed it before we went inside.