It's Spring, Spring, Spring Again!

 It's been more-or-less February for about two months now (February being, of course, the "beastly month" when everything seems awful for a while). That is finally over! We've had over a week of lovely sunny springlike weather, and everyone is feeling great! We spent lots of time outside, we had to break out the sunscreen, Timmy got his ants, Rea is growing things in her garden. It's so nice.

Both last Friday and this Friday we went to nature group and then Wildflower Park and ended up being out for nine hours or so. We went to Cabana Park with the Plastows on Saturday and to Brookside Park when we visited Grandma Julie and Grandpa Craig on Thursday. We also went to Crestwood Park today. At Crestwood, Rocket discovered that he loved swimming in the creek. He really doesn't do well in the heat - even though it's just in the seventies, it's too hot for him to do much without wanting to lie down and pant in the shade - so it looks like come summer we're going to have to get him soaking wet before we play outside. At least it seems like he'll be happy about it!

Timmy finished the first dungeon of his reading game (CVC words) and next week will be starting silent-e words. He likes reading to the dog. We still aren't seeing any difference made by the medicine, and now that it's not February, the things that felt unbearable aren't so bad. Timmy was very excited to get a medicine that works, but now he's tired of trying different things too. So we'll see what happens next; we should be talking to the doctor this week.

Timmy's ant farm is going well. He caught probably a hundred ants and is eagerly watching them build tunnels and caves for themselves. He still hopes to eventually find a queen ant, but he's having fun with what he has right now.

Rea made her doll a dress matching the one she made with Aunt Sheila last summer. She is very good at sewing and the dress looks awesome.

Boo completely stopped using the potty; we don't know why. After she pooped all over her clothes (she likes to wear four or five layers) and the house four times in two days, she had to go back to wearing diapers. We're all very disappointed about this, but hopefully she'll start using the potty again.

Gideon is playing a cool Lego game on Nintendo Switch. He really likes it.

Sara asked for things to earn money, so Alison made up a chart and posted it on the fridge. Sara did more than half the things on the chart and earned.around $30 ($15 to spend, $15 to invest). She seems to be planning to buy a lot of candy with it.

Mike finally got ahead on his homework, so he's pretty happy right now. Alison started writing another fanfiction story, which is always fun.

Rea is working on writing her story as well, and is practicing typing it so that she can write it up herself. She is also going to add title pages to the chapters and drawings for each chapter. She hopes to publish it soon (once it is long enough for Amazon to accept it.)