Easter weekend arrived and it feels like spring is finally here. Saturday was full of all kinds of beauty, most of which I didn’t photograph. We started the day with Jonah and I heading off to an Earth Day 5K at the Nature Center. We did it in celebration of his accomplishment of having completed a ten minute run in gym class. I knew that we would likely walk most of it, and we walked nearly all of it, but to my surprise he never complained and actually told me how much fun he was having more than once.

We stopped by the neighborhood hardware store on the way back home and they gave Jonah a cheap plastic kite. He was thrilled and wanted to try it out immediately, so I warned him that sometimes cheap plastic kites don’t work all that well and don’t last a terribly long time, but we walked over to the schoolyard to give it a try. Despite my skepticism, it actually flew quite well and he was over the moon. It was so much fun watching him run back and forth with it (which honestly amazed me after a 5K).

Jonah kept telling me what a great day he was having, and my heart felt as if it would burst.

It’s worth noting that I’d expected Saturday to be full of rain, but by some miracle it was beautiful, which allowed me to get out into the yard to do some yard work after our kite adventure. Kristin and the twins returned from gymnastics and joined us outside as we filled eight or so bags with leftover leaves and other yard debris while eggs sat in cups of dye on the patio table. It felt like the most perfect day.

The kids, Vivienne in particular, had been counting down the days till Easter for at least a week, maybe longer. Very early that morning I heard Jude wake up and yell, “it’s Easter!” at the top of his lungs. Somehow we convinced him to go back to sleep for a little while longer before hunting for his Easter basket.

Maybe an hour later Jonah glanced out the window and noticed an egg sitting in the yard and announced to his siblings that the Easter bunny had hidden them outside! They all got their shoes and tumbled out the door in their bathrobes to find the eggs we’d dyed. Their joy over such a thing, despite the absence of candy in those particular eggs, is infectious.

Today was Monday, always a tough day after a weekend full of magic, but this time of year when it feels like we’re just on the verge of summer and I can feel all of the potential for magic and wonder in the air, I just want to say yes to everything. Yes to all of the special things on an everyday Monday, so when Jonah asked if we could make s’mores I said that we could.

She’s just casting Harry Potter spells with her wand, er…marshmallow roaster

Yes to all of the things as we count down to summer.