Dirt! Glorious Dirt!

Warm day today. Very warm. The babe and I got to play outside in the garden while the other three were at school. Normally, I would have used that time to exercise, but Matthew had a fever this morning and I had to change my plans.

This was good for me, though.

I pulled weeds and measured/planned some infrastructure changes while Matthew toddled around playing in everything...mostly dirt and the big red car. The top few inches of soil in my raised beds were warm and fluffy. I just raked my hands through it and smiled.

The chickens got to stretch their legs around the yard, too, but after 30 minutes or so of pecking and scratching, they gathered around my legs and followed me around. Kinda creeped me out. I led them back to their pen :)

We did some stuff in the middle of the day, and came back outside in the afternoon. We had a couple friends over and the biggest boys started digging for gold (clay chunks). I kept pulling weeds (should have pulled those last fall, dagnabit!). At one point, I heard Matthew and James playing in the big, red wagon nearby. Then I heard a "fwump"*grunt* and I turned to see Matthew's legs flop over into the garden bed. He had been standing in the wagon like James and lost his balance. No worries, his face broke his fall:

It's a good thing the soil was so soft and freshly cleared of pokey weeds ;)

I suddenly found myself in a serious grump. Not because of the crying, dirty kid who would now need a bath before dinner. No, I love my kids getting dirty. This time, I was grumpy because we had to stop our fun right then if I wanted to get ANY dinner made and served before bedtime.

Confession: I hated making dinner tonight.

But I did it. And strangely enough, the kids were so hungry and so happy from playing outside all afternoon (instead of snacking all afternoon), that they ate it up gratefully and massaged my shoulders. Before I knew it, I was saying, "Cheesecake for everyone!"

And Bobby brought out the cheesecake.

Spring is the bestest time EVER!