Spring!!!! (Finally!)

Well, I think we can safely and officially welcome Spring to Ohio!!!  After such a long winter, we are just basking in the sunshine and warmer weather and enjoying every minute of it.  The boys spend much of their days outdoors and Joe is just as content as the older two to be outside. 

Here are some of God's beautiful signals of Spring...

We've done a few craft/art projects to commemorate the most important event of Spring: Christ's triumphant resurrection!

A watercolor resist stained glass window project:

A spring nature infused cross suncatcher:

And an oil pastel/watercolor light ray cross:

We've headed back to some favorite parks, taking walks and observing the changes in nature with the coming of Spring. It didn't take long for the boys to head right into the water!

Last week, we were able to pick up Jake and Sarah to spend Easter weekend with us. We had such a fun time. We took them to see a park and museum filled with local Dayton history - a spot we had enjoyed in the fall. 

 We lined the kids up in the one-room school house in the order they may have found themselves sitting if they were back in the 1800s or early 1900s!  :-)

We took them for a nature walk at our favorite park, too.

 Though we don't really do Easter baskets or anything to take away from the true meaning of Resurrection Sunday, we do have fun being artistic with eggs!  Eggs symbolize new life, remind us of how Jesus broke out of the tomb like a chick breaks out of an egg, and remind us of how the stone was rolled away from the tomb.  We boiled one dozen and while they were hot, decorated with melted crayons before dyeing them.

 Even Grandma participated!

We used Sharpie markers to decorate, and then used Koolaid packets to dye the eggs.  (Though it smelled fantastic, we decided Koolaid doesn't dye as well as the packaged kit dyes.)

By far, our favorite method of decorating eggs was the nail-polish marbled swirl!  We poured different colors of nail polish in cups of luke warm water and stirred a bit, then dipped the eggs one by one.  The result was beautiful!  (Aunt Maddie helped with these.  Jack loved how some of them looked like planets!)

We celebrated a beautiful Resurrection Sunday together at church before hitting the road to drive Jake and Sarah back to their Mom.  It was a quick visit...but we are counting the days until we can have a longer time together for the summer! 

Happy Spring!  He is Risen!!!