Teenagers!

Two-and-a-half years ago, I became the mom of a teenaged boy.  Scary, yes, but at that point I still had a preschooler and I felt fairly "young".

Yesterday, I became the mom of TWO teenagers when this sweet boy turned 13!  Hard to believe, but it's true!  We had coffee-cake muffins and sausage links for breakfast, clam chowder for lunch, and steak and fettuccine Alfredo for dinner - all his favorites!

I had made "Samoa" cupcakes last Wednesday for the first birthday celebration, then chocolate cake for Saturday (the second celebration), so I didn't have to bake anything for yesterday, as there were plenty of leftovers.

Happy birthday, sweetie!

Bluebells

Every spring, the Virginia bluebells pop up and we go and take pictures.  They look a little like fog or smoke if you're not really paying attention when you drive by the local streams and creeks.  We usually go out to Merrimac Farms and take a hike, finding frogs, salamanders, etc.

This year, we packed up the dog, drove out there...and found that they don't allow dogs.  <sigh>  We turned around, dropped off the dog, packed a lunch and started out again.  Instead of going "all the way" out to Merrimac Farms, we simply stopped at the little creek down the road from us.  Perfect!  A five minute drive, a creek for skipping stones, lots and lots of  bluebells, and beaver-chewed logs.  The kids had a great time, I got my pictures, and we were all happy!

Happy Easter!

I love going to church on Easter morning and hearing "He is risen" and joyfully responding "He is risen indeed!"  Thank you, Lord Jesus!!

After church, we grabbed the dog, went to my parents' house for Easter dinner, and then the girls did an Easter egg hunt.  They know there's no Easter bunny (they help buy the candy and some years they help fill the eggs!), but it's fun to get candy, right?  The boys are "too old" to do the hunt.  We set a rule a few years ago that 13 is the limit.  No more themed birthday parties, pinatas, Easter egg hunts, etc.   Don't feel sorry for the boys - the girls got SO much candy that they're sharing (and they did know ahead of time that they'd have to share).

This year was a little quieter than last , when we had Nana and Papa Mewes down here to celebrate as well.  They left for Vermont a week or so ago.

Birds

We have very much enjoyed watching the birds this winter.  We are one of the few families in the neighborhood that feed the birds, so we had a LOT of birds.  One day, we had a dozen male and a dozen female cardinals in our birch tree!  This picture doesn't show all of them, but it's pretty close.


We have seen red-winged blackbirds (although their call is a tad annoying), goldfinches, blue jays (until we ran out of sunflower seeds and switched to thistle... then they disappeared), purple finches, house finches, sparrows of all sorts, red-bellied woodpeckers, juncos, titmice, and doves.