Sprung

After an exceptionally mild winter, it is pleasantly surprising that spring has sprung so early in the season. There are flowers and trees in bloom all over the neighborhood, where we've been making the most of warm days with cool breezes running through them - my favorite kind. A light sweatshirt is all we need when we take our evening walk thorough the park. The girls pile into the wagon with their jammies on, and have fun pointing out the cherry blossoms, magnolias, poppies and roses. Our neighbors have fun pointing and smiling at Hazel, who has been wearing bunny ears all day long for the last 3 weeks.

We dyed about a million eggs with friends at a backyard party on Sunday. Hazel and Violet each tried eating one for the first time. I taught them how to peel off the shells, and grind a little salt and pepper onto their plates, to roll the eggs in before chowing down, like I did when I was a kid. We ate some of the eggs sliced on toast points with tapenade last night, and tonight we had a kick-ass salade niçoise. Have you tried Trader Joe's Caribbean popsicles yet? They make a most excellently messerific dessert. We had some of those tonight, as well.

Our next door neighbor is a landscaper, and as Mike and the girls were walking home from the park while I was making dinner, he asked if we would mind taking some of his leftover sod off his hands. I think that was a landscaper's polite way of saying "Please let me help you with your jacked up lawn so I don't have to look at it anymore." So while the girls and I ate our salades and popsicles, Mike and our neighbor installed a new front lawn. It looks really nice. Perfect for kickin' it at dusk, people watching, and popsicle eating.

I love this time of year. Everything seems so fresh and new and full of possibility.