Signs of Spring

Spring is arriving slowly this year. Nevertheless, the flowers are blooming and we're beginning to see signs that we might eventually get to put away our winter coats. Our neighbor, who doesn't actually live next door to us and is, now that I think about it, not a neighbor on those grounds, has lovely tulips. He's not using them, so we like to borrow them to take pictures of the boys. His house is the most interesting color of mint green with black trim. Kind of like mint chocolate chip ice cream, if mint chocolate chip ice cream were overgrown and had a toilet in its backyard. Now I'm hungry for ice cream and I want to move to a better neighborhood. As usual, I digress.

My children are cute, even if I do say so myself, and I do. Timothy likes to dissect the flowers that he picks. Gabe likes to have his picture taken.

Jack has spring fever, and it makes him dart outside every time the door opens. Someone forgot to tell him he's a house cat. Maybe to him, "house cat" means "a cat who guards the house". He does that a lot. We think if anyone tried to break in, he might attack. Just ask my sister. She swears when she house-sat for us, he made her show some id at the door. And once, he dragged her out and told her to quit bothering the ladies, after MaKinsie hissed at her. True story. Dorothy Gish. (If anyone gets that other than my family, please let me know so I'll know you're as strange as we are!)

Some of you may be freaked out by this, but we were all highly gratified when Trevor, our tree frog, came out of hibernation and resumed his quiet life in my kitchen window. We were slightly less gratified when we realized that he hibernated in the potted herbs, which I brought in for the winter. Oh, well, the cats didn't eat him and he probably enjoyed the warmest winter he's ever had.

We've been out working in the back yard, and Boris is dying to join us. Unfortunately, he really loathes our dog. So he chooses to hide between our neighbor's shed and the fence, and stare through the honeysuckle vines at us. Stalker. Peeping Tom. Hahahahaha! Oh, wait, we had him neutered.

Here's a shot of Timothy smelling the tulips. Cute, huh? In truth, though, he smells everything, so this is less cute than it seems. He smells hedges, cars, the dog...pretty much everything. I guess what I'm saying is I enjoy spring because smelling flowers is far more normal than smelling cars.

Last but not least, my favorite picture of the series. They've gotten so big. How'd that happen?