Weekend Joys

This snowy April weekend brought many simple joys:

• Beautiful scenery. Before Friday's snowstorm rolled in, I got this picture of the snow-capped mountains peeking through "windows" in the clouds. It's not the best photo, since I took it while I was stopped at a stop sign by our street with my little point and shoot camera that I always keep in the diaper bag, but it was such a stunning scene I had to share!

• Snow fun! In the afternoon on Friday, after the snow stopped falling in big fat, wet flakes, while Zach and Josh were sledding down the neighbor's sloped lawn, Ben diligently worked on a small snow fort.
• More snow fun! He wasn't willing to lend a hand, but Luke put on his shades, and cheered on Ben's efforts.
• Girls' Night! My friend Shaina always throws such great girls' nights. Friday night I escaped for a few hours (until Tommy woke up at 10:45pm and wondered where I was and then decided to spend time with me until 1:30am) to enjoy time with sweet friends and some great food. How can you go wrong with an equation like that?!
  
• Swimming. Because the fields had been swamped by the volumes of snow, Saturday's soccer games had all been canceled, so we were given the gift of rare springtime weekend freedom. Adam took Zach and Luke to the Cottonwood Pool. Ben had been invited to our neighbor, Micah's, birthday party there and Micah's mom invited the rest of us to go when she found out our games had been canceled. They came home three hours later, happy and exhausted.
  
• Teamwork. I stayed home with Tommy, who took a nice long nap, and Josh, who was facing a consequence for drawing with a crayon on the couch. After he got over his grumpiness from being left out of a fun outing to the pool, he happily chipped in to help me haul stuff up from the basement into the living room. We are so excited! Work to finish the basement should begin this week! I love that Josh worked by my side for an hour, asking what he could do next, doing all he was asked, without complaint or pause, even though he had to work instead of playing at the pool. That's just our Josh. A great buddy, through and through.
• A long weekend can mean extended hours of bickering (and there was that), but it also includes a lot of time for cooperative play and brother-time. The boys played hide-and-seek, read books to one another, played video games together, built fishing poles from some forgotten dowels they found in the corner of the basement, and came up with all kinds of imaginative games that entertained them while the snow blanketed the ground. I love watching the boys get into good play grooves with each other, it fills my heart with joy!
• Adorable babies! On Sunday I made an effort to go to the second-hour Sunday School class, but it's in this big echoey room and so quiet except for the teacher, and Tommy was doing his favorite things: squealing really loudly and blowing raspberries, so we made a hasty exit and joined my friend Shaina and her son Kimble in the empty Relief Society room, waiting for the third-hour class to start. Kimble and Tommy are only a few weeks apart in age. Their adorable side-by-side chubbiness was almost too much to handle! It was so cute when they'd find each other's hands and hold hands, or poke at each others heads. At one point Tommy, on his tummy, was holding Kimble's arm while Kimble let Tommy chew his thumb. What scrumptious boys!
• Random food sculpture. Sunday afternoon, while doing a light cleaning of the kitchen in preparation for dinner, I discovered this "boat" built by Luke from his discarded lunch: a nibbled pancake, a toothpick (once used for eating lil' smokies) and half a cucumber stick. It was so funny sitting there, abandoned, waiting for a sea to voyage upon, I had to get a photo!