Spring Is Here!

April is a busy month for us. Up first: Easter!

And to recover from Easter, we took a family trip to Saint Louis where there was lots of time spent in the pool, a trip to the zoo and most importantly, Elden ran his first half-marathon!

Then it was back home to celebrate Matthias' 4th birthday!

We took him to Chuck E Cheese for the first time, too! Both kids loved it, but Nora was a little (a lot!) afraid of the giant Chuck E Cheese character :)

And his big present this year -- his first real bike!! (which also meant that sister got her own "bike" all to herself now :)  )

And also on his birthday, Matthias had his first school program! He's hiding there by the cute girl :)

And thrown into all the activity, we've been trying to redo some of the landscaping in our yard. It started with getting the mulch out...

which made us realize how many tree roots there were...

which made us realize how much clay there was, so we had to till in some peat moss.

which meant ripping up the few plants that we had been planning to keep in there...

and now we have to regrade it up to the house and then..

finally, we'll be able to get some new plants in... and of course, the new mulch.

All of the landscaping has to be done in between the bouts of rain we've been getting. But even the rain brings some fun. Like, giant mud pits!