The last week of March: beautiful weather and a broken puppy

After several days of gloomy, wet weather, the backyard was a bit sloshy, so we went over to the elementary school playground to play. It was so nice outside. I sat there and did my Bible study and the boys ran around like crazy people.

Adam doing school lessons on the back porch. We have to take advantage of these cool mornings while they last.

My mom came up for a day to help me pick out some things for the nursery projects she's working on. We made a stop at IKEA too... Grandma added to the boys' rat collection and they were pretty excited about it.

On March 26, our baby girl got her lady parts removed. I got up early that morning and gave her a bath to get ready for her "spa day." 

She was thrilled, as you can see.

When I picked her up that afternoon she was just as thrilled. So mad at me.

That entire evening she slept it off on a blanket pad in the living room. Alan insisted on giving her a pillow.

Grandma made felt clothes for the rats while she was here and Aaron later found a little pouch to use as a backpack. The dimples even came out for this picture.

"Bumpie" at 22 weeks and 6 days. Everything is looking good. I'm starting to lose a little bit of my energy. She moves nonstop but thankfully slows down during my sleeping hours. No name yet for those who continually ask... we'll let the world know. I gave the boys a bath the other night with a sports bra on - allowing some lotion to dry on my belly... Aaron was staring at the belly and said, "Mama, with a shirt on it's hard to tell, but now I can see, your belly is enormous!" Apparently he was too young to remember what Adam did to me.

On 3.27 we took an afternoon drive west with the idea to go check out Canyon of the Eagles on what used to be Lake Buchanan. It is a LCRA park operated by a private company, so it has a little bit of outdoor rustic to it and the rest is borderline fancy. It was neat. We could not remember the last time we were out there, but suffice it to say it has been a while, as the lake was full back then. Thanks to drought and down river farming irrigation, Lake Buchanan is much smaller and these once lake-front properties are now just hill country. 

Down by the once Park Store. The entire area in front of the boys used to be a lake.

Adam likes to run out ahead. So this was the sidewalk and dock.

I found this sign both funny and quite sad.

The boys standing on the dock... so all of that ahead of them used to be Lake Buchanan. The bright green plants are all bluebonnets that have yet to bloom... so that field will be quite colorful in another week or so.

If the weather is nice, the boys are outside playing during our free time. They come up with some of the craziest things... they stacked the patio chairs, put a bin on their heads and suddenly they were flying some sort of "underwater jet car."

A few days after her surgery, Aspen started attacking her stitches. It was late at night when we realized so we had to come up with something to keep her from damaging herself until morning when we could get to the vet for a proper collar....  

My husband is a genius. She only thinks her life is horrible now.

But she had no idea what sort of fun awaited her... and us for that matter. It's going to be a long ten days.

We ended up taking her back to the vet and he replaced her stitches with staples and gave her some antibiotics. She seems to be handling the staples a lot better than the pesky stitches.

And now she requires "babysitting" as Adam calls it, while she eats to make sure she doesn't attack herself. The boys take turns with meal duty.

Nursery update: finished curtains! Getting closer!

Patch of bluebonnets at one of our neighbor's. Bluebonnet time is really awesome around here. Too bad it's also oak pollen time.... a few weeks of wretched yellow dust is worth it to have trees.