let the sun shine

Today was a great day.

I needed a day just like today to pick me up and show me that things are all right.  A day to show me what wonderful gifts my two children are.  A day to show me that all we really need is a little sunshine.

This morning as Mr. Orange got out of the car at school we realized his backpack was still at home.  Miss Pink and I hurried home, I put on jeans and a t-shirt, put my scary hair in a ponytail and we rushed back to the school.  I walked into Mr. Orange's classroom (looking like a disaster with Miss Pink, still in her jammies on my hip) and Mr. Orange's face lit up when he saw me.  He blew me several kisses and said to his friend as we were leaving, "That's my little sister".

It was early out day at school (Mr. Orange goes to TWO hours of school on Fridays.  Why?  It's like he doesn't even have school.  He's home by 10:30!) so Miss Pink and I didn't accomplish very much while he was gone.  I did do the breakfast dishes and talk to my sister on the phone.

We picked him up and then headed to Walmart to get some new tubes for Mr. Orange's bike tires.  We were there way too long, found the tubes, found sunscreen, found seeds and some other garden plants.  An hour later we came home.

Mr. Orange and Miss Pink decided that we really, really, really needed to have a picnic at the park.  Um, we don't really eat picnic foods for lunch here at our house.  Their favorite thing to eat for lunch is toast.  I asked Miss Pink what she wanted to eat at the picnic and she said, "Toast".  I told her it was too hard to get the toaster oven to the park.  They both opted for yogurt.  I found a few other things and we went to the park.  They played in the sand and on the slides.  At one point Miss Pink came over to the blanket followed by a very frustrated Mr. Orange.  I asked them what was going on and Mr. Orange said, "Mom!  Miss Pink won't go down the slide on her stomach!  I'm too scared to go down on my stomach so I want her to do it!"  I told him to go down on his bum.  {Chicken.}

After we got home from the park it was time to fix Mr. Orange's tire.  His front tire has been flat for 6 months now.  We tried to patch it, but it didn't work.  So today was the day to actually get it taken care of.  I popped his tire off.  I make it sound like it popped off really easily, but it wasn't that easy.  It made me think of my dad and all of our flat tires that he used to fix.  He could get our tires off so fast!  Maybe it's because the wheels were bigger, but I like to think it's because he had the special Dad-ability that just makes things seem easy.  And that if you try and do it on your own, it will be easy too.  That's what I thought about while I struggled (a little) to get the tire off and then back on.  I was pretty proud of myself when I did get the bike put back together.  I didn't even kink the tube thankyouverymuch!  Mr. Orange was riding his bike in no time and busied himself with crashing into Miss Pink's bike (with her still on it, of course!).

For the past year Mr. Blue and I have wanted to get a freezer to put in the garage.  I have searched ksl.com and craig's list and have found plenty of freezers, but they were never really in our price range, or other things came up so the cash we were going to put towards it went towards fixing the garage door and other fun things like that.  A few weeks ago we found out that a neighbor was going to be moving and that she had a freezer she was going to GIVE AWAY!  Last Saturday we cleaned out the garage and Mr. Blue and another neighbor brought the beauty home.  She was definitely in need of a little tlc, but she is 35 years old, so I decided to look past her imperfections.  She's perfect.  I scrubbed her insides as much as I possibly could and helped her out with a little duct tape.  I can't wait to fill her up.  (I've only filled up one shelf so far.)

It was almost 4:00 and I knew I should start dinner, but the sunshine just kept calling my name in the backyard so the kids and I gathered up some gardening tools and headed back to plant some more stuff in our garden.

Today we planted:

24 red onions

24 white onions

16 green onions

16 shallots

4 giant caesar lettuces

4 little gem lettuces

4 baby bok choy

Last week we planted:

4 giant caesar lettuces

4 little gem lettuces

2 lacinato kale

4 baby bok choy

We are off to a good start.  We still have some empty squares and it took a lot of my willpower to refrain from filling those in as well.

The kids helped me with the planting.  Mr. Orange plugged his nose every time he got near the onions.  Miss Pink helped me plant the onions.  They both helped with some of the seeds.  I was helping Miss Pink plant some seeds and they were little and she was having a hard time picking them up.  I separated them a bit and she kept missing the holes that I had made.  We kept working at it and by the time we were finished she was doing great.  While we were finishing up the planting, Mr. Orange found one of their watering cans.  I looked at my garden box map and told him where to water.  The two of them took turns watering.  Mr. Orange would fill up the can and carry it to Miss Pink when it was her turn.  He was afraid it would be too heavy for her.  I just loved working outside with them today.  (I also loved the hugs and kisses that they would randomly give me too!)

 Around 6 we decided we should eat dinner.  Mr. Blue came home just long enough to eat and then he was off to his mission reunion.  The kids and I had movie night.  We watched "Tangled".

I couldn't have asked for more today. 

We had sunshine.

We did simple things.

I wore my husband's shorts.

I never even made it into the shower.

It was perfect.