Happy spring! Oh, and brr! I'm hoping we make it above freezing today. At least we had two days this week where it definitely felt like spring. On Wednesday and Thursday, the kids ran around outside without jackets. In short sleeves. They were ecstatic.

Let's see what's happened since St. Paddy's Day.

On Thursday the kids and I went to the 4-H building to help sort the fruit fundraising orders and pick up our own box of apples, oranges and pears. It took about an hour, which went much faster than I had thought. There were young kids running around, so it wasn't out of place for Ella and Tylan to be there helping as well. Tylan didn't do much more than try to avoid getting run over by people carrying heavy boxes, but Ella wanted to help carry every box that I carried. After that, Cole had tumbling, and that took care of the rest of the afternoon.

The cold weather returned on Friday, so we spent yesterday hanging out inside. Tylan is very fascinated by baby dolls right now and always needs one in her arms. So we usually have half a dozen lying around the house for Tylan when she needs one to hold and has thrown her previous one somewhere on the floor.

Ella, meanwhile, can't get enough of new-to-her spring/summer clothes. I've been dragging totes up from the basement and going through Accalia's old clothes for Ella and Accalia's/Ella's old clothes for Tylan. I haven't even gotten to the bags of clothes handed down to us from my brother Jeremy. We're overflowing with girl clothes! Poor Cole - it's hard not getting hand me downs.

Looking forward to the weekend. Accalia dances with her ballet class at a nursing home this afternoon. Cory won't be able to come along since he'll be getting ready for work, so I'm hoping that Tylan won't be worn out and ready to nap. Of course, with the way she's been napping lately, that would be highly unusual. Tylan is either taking late naps (3 p.m. or later), or forgoing naps completely. Nineteen months seems a bit early to start giving up naps, but my kids seem to give up naps earlier and earlier with each one. It amazes me to hear parents talk about their 3-4-5 year olds still taking regular naps. I think three is as old as mine have gone with regular or semi-regular naps. How does that work? Is nap time required or do the kids just naturally go down for a rest? We've never required naps (hated that as a child), so maybe that's part of the reason they disappear relatively soon.

Looks like I'll have to stop for now. Ella is awake and requesting computer time. Have a good weekend everyone!

I'm loving all of the signs of spring, which is just a few days away! We're almost constantly hearing and seeing the geese overhead as they migrate back up north. Today the kids and I are going to drive out to the lake area to do a couple things, and we'll have to be sure to see if large flocks of ducks and geese are resting on any of the lakes as they make their journey.

Happy St. Patrick's Day! I'm looking forward to having a Guinness tonight. That's about as much of a tradition as I have for this holiday. The kids love dressing up in green, and at least the girls like painting their nails green, too, but otherwise it's a pretty quiet time. I think everyone is more excited to put up some Easter decorations and plan ahead for that and for our lovely spring weather. Unfortunately, Friday and Saturday are supposed to be cooler and have some rain or snow. Hopefully we can make it through the next month without any major spring blizzards. That rarely happens, but I can always dream.

Today Accalia will finish up her standardized testing, which is one of the few requirements South Dakota has for homeschooling. Basically there are the standardized tests (CAT tests) in the same grades that the public schools require and the yearly exemption form sent in to the school board. I can definitely handle that as what is necessary to keep the public school system from trying to regulate our lives.

There isn't a whole lot new and exciting happening so far this week. Tomorrow Accalia is going to help sort fruit for the 4-H fundraiser, and Cole has decided he'll go along to help. Parents are asked to help, too, but I'm not sure if I'll be able to since it's going on before Cory's home from work, and it'll be right at the time that Tylan usually needs a nap. We'll play it by ear, though.

On Saturday, Accalia and her ballet class will be performing their recital routine, "Nature's Grace", at a local nursing home. I'm excited to see it since I haven't had a chance to do that yet. There are 15 girls in Accalia's class, so it's a bigger routine and involves more complicated techniques. I caught the very end of ballet class yesterday and just loved watching Accalia as she followed the teacher's commands in French. I'm sure that's partly because I always wanted to take ballet but never did except for one free sample class.

I'm not getting nearly as much done as I hoped to this morning. Tylan has been having a very difficult time doing much in the way of napping and long stretches of sleep, so that's wreaked a bit of havoc on life around here. I'm going off of less than three hours of sleep today, too, so we'll see how the day goes.