Marlo & The Popsicle

We are finally spending real time outdoors and the whole family is loving it!  It was simply beautiful outside today.  The temperature was perfect, the sun shone around us all day while lots and lots of yard work was accomplished.  Cesar and I worked together on a few projects and really made some headway.  I've got the fever now.  The fever to weed and prune our yard till... till... well, till it is too hot to move outdoors, those days are just around the corner now. 

My main project has been to dig out the remains of my flower garden.  The weeds have been very, very pleased with themselves during my absence.  So, I felt a bit like I had fallen into the book The Secret Garden as I discovered this or that plant treasure hidden under layers of pine needles and weeds.  I also had time to think of the friends who have shared bits of their gardens with me as I pruned and clipped and pulled. 

Hugo and his friend Rowan were wonderful helpers who busied themselves scooping up my heaped piles of weed trash.  They loaded up Hugo's wheel barrow and then took turns driving it up the hill to dump the weeds in the woods.  They also had great fun playing army men and pretending that Papa's fancy pants lawn mower was their personal army jeep.

The boys were such good helpers cleaning up after my weeds and helping to keep an eye on the girls that I decided popsicles might be a nice treat.  I gave Marlo and Sabine each a popsicle of their own, their very first of many.  They weren't sure what to do with them, they didn't like the cold.  Marlo was so funny because she was determined to not hold the wooden stick of her popsicle.  She simply fisted her popsicle right in the middle.  Sabine was a good girl and ate her popsicle properly, but 10 minutes later you would have never known who ate their popsicle in whatever which way because they were both completely filthy.  As in dirt, pine needles, tiny rocks, and grass were all glued to the sugar on four little hands and two happy faces.  All four children were escorted indoors to wash up!  Marlo played with her popsicle stick for the rest of the afternoon.  She would not let go of it.