various, in no particular order

Been meaning to update for days, keep getting sidetracked. Figured now was a good time to try--The Miss is still crashed, and The BoyChild is ignoring his breakfast in favor of a book.

Had a productive weekend, even with Sunday's daytrip to see Mom and Sis. That was a nice visit. By and Sis's fiance took all the kids to the local park for a run-around, which gave me and Mom and Sis and Grandma a little time to talk without interruption.

We got a pile of boxes shipped to Cat last week (only one pile, sorry hon, because The BoyChild's allergies have given him fits for days), and that let us move a pile of our stuff. Between that and replacing our giant dinosaur tv (which was starting to die) with a hang-on-the-wall model, it's like we have a new living room. It's amazing. There's room for the kids' toys *and* paths around the mess.

I have started cleaning out the front flower beds. Got two done, one started. Those will be an all-season thing, because I need to hack out the ornamental grass that's overrun most of them. I can see more of my daffodils now, at just the right time. The back yard garden is nearly cleaned, except for the big patch of mountain mint. I hope to get that done today, children permitting.

We've order a bunch of small arbor vitae trees from the Arbor Day Foundation, to start replacing the old windbreak (nearly gone now). Not the species, but a columnar type called 'Emerald Green', that performs well with the wind and ice loads we tend to get here. A couple forsythia, 3 hazelnuts, and a red maple are accompanying our order--I've got places figured out for all but the maple.

The strawberries have been moved to their permanent home, I've dug and moved "escaped" strawberries from the other bed and added those, and most of my new stuff seems to be settling in.

Haven't gotten much knitting or other fibery things done, that's the price of being productive outside. Did take a rainy day to get wallpaper in all of the first floor of the dollhouse, and half of the second. Matching patterns, ugh.

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This is the beginning of the "kids picked all my flowers" years. The Miss is wandering from one patch of daffs to another, cooing "oh wow, look at that" at them, and sniffing the dozen in her little fist.

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Last of the backyard beds cleaned out, compost emptied, time to push kids in their swings.

The Miss tried to share her daffodils with The BoyChild, who was not as impressed. He popped the heads off the stems and dropped them.

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Outside time ended due to runny noses (including mine). The Miss will not let me out her daffodils in water. Instead, she's showing the bouquet to the cats and trying to teach them to say "daffodil."

*sporfle*

She just stuck a long daff stem through the top of her braid the way I do hairsticks sometimes. It sticks *way*out on both sides, and is the cutest thing I've seen in days.

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Note to self: yellow trumpet daffs hold up much better to a day's mauling by 3-yr-old than do the creamy white "Ice Follies" variety.

(Still can't get her to let me put them in water, but the yellow ones are only a little floppy bow. Despite being dropped, tossed, thrust at cats, poked into her braid and clutched by a little fist for hours.)