Dandelions, Oranges, and Sunshine

This morning while our daughter slept (longer than usual - yipee!), my husband and son got time together outside digging holes and planting lavender by the front door, swinging on the playset, and Exploring. My mom had bought this awesome Explorer's backpack ages ago, and our little guy just had a blast with it! I don't usually promote products here, but you can find it at:

http://www.amazon.com/Small-World-Junior-Adventure-Set/dp/B000GI0SR6 (obviously, take away the whistle while your other child is napping!) ;)

Meanwhile, I was inside and actually got a chance to wash our mountain of dishes, clean the countertops, stovetop, and run a load of laundry! I think what made me feel most terrific about this is that I was able to do this without feeling like I was neglecting our children for the sake of cleaning. Believe me, I'll play with my kids over tackling household tasks any day, but sometimes you just have to knuckle down and clean, y'know. So the guys got terrific one-on-one time (how it warmed my heart to peek out the window at them!), and when our son was napping and Big D was out working, I got some terrific mama-daughter time! N just loves to swing and her latest love is going down the slide; she'll even lean forward and would tumble down headfirst if I weren't holding her hands! Today she made big eyes at me when she discovered that she can make an orange roll down the slide, too, and she immediately wanted to leap down after it. As she crawled after the orange, I noticed the dandelions by her feet. Usually, I am eager to pull up dandelions so they don't spread, but today, I really enjoyed their bright yellow. I want to make this crafty version of them but haven't done it yet....http://simmy.typepad.com/echoesofadream/2007/04/felt_dandelion.html

So, it feels like it's already been a wonderful day when both of our kids have been out enjoying the blue sky and sunshine, I've had some time to pray and read the Bible a bit (read some of Phillipians while our little guy watched Thomas the Train before heading outside), and I actually feel well rested because N slept from 9:30 p.m. until 4:30 a.m. straight (and again until 6)! Hooray!

My last little note for the day is how arranging a small bouquet of flowers or fruit on a platter can be such a meditative, self-nourishing act. Particularly as a mom of two children under the age of 3, I'm trying to relish more such little moments. The last couple of days I have felt really eager to bring in more flowers from the yard, so this morning I clipped some ballerina-pink camillias for a mason jar and wrapped a gold ribbon around it. I even put some flowering weeds in a glass jar on the kitchen windowsill. They look very homey and sweet! I think I'll need to toss them before my mom gets here tomorrow to babysit while we have out date night since she has terrible allergies. I think the enormous Cape Plumbago bouquet will also have to go. Ah, well. Maybe I'll just set them outside until she leaves, but yes, I would toss them to keep my mom (/babysitter!) happy!I'm including some photos of these flowers just to give your eyes a feast of these colors, but these aren't actually photos of our flowers.