Quick 5

April showers bring May flowers!

1.  No seriously.  Can you see it?

Look closely and maybe you'll see a tiny spot of orange, right near the middle of our unkempt, seemingly useless hill.

A perfect, yellow and orange striped tulip.  "Why on earth would you plant ONE tulip in the middle of your unkempt, seemingly useless hill?" you may ask.  Well, we didn't.  It just showed up.  Now, I know wildflowers can just show up, but I also know that a tulips are NOT wildflowers.  They involve a big ol' bulb that has to be planted in the fall.  I think.  Anyway, we did not plant that tulip and have no idea how it got there.  Our best explanation so far has been that a squirrel, which there are a lot of around here, buried what he thought would be a nice snack.  My favorite explanation involves the Tulip Fairy, but since no one has ever heard of her, then that's probably not what happened.  But we have a tulip, and I'm now feeling inspired to plant a row in the front of our house.

2.  In other garden news, one of our apple tress is in full bloom.  It's the one right outside our bedroom window, and seeing a tree full of flowers  makes me happy.  Until I realize that those blossoms are going to turn into apples.  Which will then fall all over the place.  Which makes terrible noise in the fall, banging on the room above our bedroom at all hours of the night.  We didn't have any apples last year (because of the late freeze?) but I did enjoy not having to deal with all the apples.  This year we'll have to deal with them.

3.  Since the weather is getting warmer, I think beard hat season may be over.  So I've moved on to a fun little girls hat, thanks to my crocheting friends at church.  It's taken a few tries to get the sizing right, but my poor nieces can now expect yet another crocheted present from Crazy Aunt Tori this year.  My first attempt fit Bria just perfectly:

Shades of Cabbage Patch

4.  Speaking of Bria, I've hardly seen her crawl the past couple of days.  She will if she has a long distance to go, but mostly now she is truly toddling.  C U T E.

5.  There are just four weeks of school left.  We almost made it.  But suddenly, in the past week, all three of Alaina's school pants busted open at the knees.  I tried mending them, but to no avail.  I just can't bring myself to buy her new pants for four weeks.  I'm afraid I'll get the sizing wrong, since there is a good chance she'll have a growth spurt this summer.  So she has to wear her school skirts, which she doesn't like quite as much.  But thankfully it's getting warmer.  And that's what we've got.

My baby bro turns 20 this weekend.  He's practically a full grown man!  Happy Birthday Ben!