Spring Is FINALLY Here!

I am so glad that winter FINALLY seems to be over and Spring is here! I actually am a fan of all the seasons, except winter. I can only tolerate it about a week and half. It's fun and festive around Christmas and New Year's, but  After January 2, I'm pretty much over it.

 I tend to get the winter blues, which is why I really kick up my work out routine during that time to keep the endorphins flowing so I can ward off depression. This year, we found out we were expecting around the first week of Februrary and so I cut out caffeine (another mood booster of mine) and then it was not long and the morning sickness set in and my working out came to a halt. So other than being ecstatic about the pregnancy, I realized that the mixture of feeling sick/fatigued, no caffeine, no exercise and the extra long winter was really dragging me down. There is just something about the sunshine, warm breezes through open windows, blossoming flowers, grilling out on the deck, yard work and kids playing outside that is so therapeutic. I absolutely love it.

This past week as been AWESOME! I have even enjoyed waking up to thunder and rain in the middle of the night. I can tell my mood as improved dramatically. It does help that my morning sickness has ceased. And even though my fatigue has stuck around, it's nothing a nice afternoon nap in the warm sun can't fix. I've spent as much time as I possibly can just being outside. It took me until today to actually do something productive though (I had just been sitting out on the deck, enjoying the warm breeze and watching Elisha play).

Today Elisha and I worked on cleaning up the landscaping in the front of our house. He helped me rake up all the leaves and dead stuff we had pulled.

Yesterday we had painted a plant pot for a fun little spring art project:

Today we planted some flower seeds in the planter pot:

Then of course, we had a great time just playing and enjoying the warm weather:

This week have been reading The Very Hungry Caterpillar almost every night at Elisha's request, so I decided to turn it into a sort of theme for the week. We read the book outside this afternoon. Then I had Elisha find 4 rocks and then we painted them the colors of the caterpillar in the story. I hot glued them and fashioned them into a caterpillar pet rock complete with googly eyes. Elisha loved it! I also had him paint a butterfly on some paper since the caterpillar turns into a beautiful butterfly. When we were playing with chalk a little later he decided he wanted to draw the Hungry Caterpillar.

 

It has seriously been one of the best days. Plus the yard work provided me with a pretty good workout for the day! I'm looking forward to tackling more projects on my list  this spring and summer including cleaning out the garage, organizing it, pulling out some of Elisha's old baby stuff and getting the nursery set up!

Speaking of nursery, here is the latest ultrasound photo of our new little one!:

Baby is growing strong and healthy at 12 weeks! The top photo is a great side profile and the bottom one is one that looks like the baby is praying-it actually had the hiccups and kept hitting its head with its hands every time it hiccuped!

Happy Spring!