Katie used some of her savings to buy a new book bag at Target. It’s a satchel-style over the shoulder bag and the strap is long enough that she wears it across her body rather than over one shoulder. This morning she bounced out of the car - excited for a field trip today and the 3rd grade concert tonight – wearing khaki capri pants, a robin’s egg blue hooded sweatshirt and her new pink paisley bag. This past winter was long and harsh with lots of trudging through snow and carefully walking up the sidewalk to school. Usually we park pretty close to the door where she enters the school, it was a beautiful morning and she got out of the car and walked further than usual. Today she was head-up, bright-eyed and ready to go, she looked like springtime.

Watching her walk up the sidewalk to school, mid-stride she glanced over her left shoulder, brown hair shining in the sun, flashed me a million dollar smile and waved. I had one of those split second moments when you realize how much your child has grown and are truly thankful for how great they have turned out.

Gretchen brought be back to reality, down off the cloud I was floating on, when she said from the backseat, “Look how big my nose has growed!” I looked back at her to see that she has curled up her finger and put it the shadow of her profile on the car door – making her nose look like the old lady/witch from Snow White. “Oh my, it’s huge!” I say and she bursts into giggles, immediately followed by her typical nonstop chatter.

I sit here tonight dumbfounded at how quiet it is in the house. It has been a rowdy week around here, the girls were on spring break and we weren't sticking quite as close to bed time as usual. This was kind of hard on me, not getting my relative quiet time before heading to bed in the evening, and I was the only one getting up at the same time everyday. It will even out again in the next few days as we get back to our normal routine.

After the girls went to bed a couple of hours ago, Erik and I played Mario Bros. on the Wii and then I made it through 2/3 of my Evidence take home mid-term test before stopping for the night. Rommel has been wound up and has just now collapsed in a 90 pound pile on the couch.

Although we got quite a bit more snow than was called for last night, apparently it's the first day of spring. This weekend I have put off the regular Saturday housework in favor of some fun stuff. I took Friday off of work to spend the last day of spring break with the girls, thankfully they slept in a bit for me. We had a play date with my friend Angie and her wonderful boys - her almost 2 year old snuggled up to me and spread my shirt and chest with slobbery cookie crumbs. Note to self - don't wear a v-neck t-shirt if taking cookies to Angie's house because you definitely intend to get some love from the G-man. :-) It's so nice to be able to sit, chat and have a cup or two of tea while they play quietly, or not so quietly, but really play well together.

We have been to Hy-Vee, Walmart, Target, O'Reilly's and Toys R Us in just the last 48 hours. Katie scored her early birthday present in a new bike and Gretchen was really pumped to pick out paint for the custom paint job Erik will give her new (Katie's old) bike. After being sure for the last couple of days that she wanted a purple bike, she picked out sparkly royal blue and silver colors. Today we had my niece's bridal shower followed by picking out library books and a very short nap for me. I didn't mean to nap, we read the library books and "The Big, Big World" was on - they have the best nap time voices and I just couldn't help myself. Thankfully, the grating voices of "Dragontales" woke me up or I would have slept through dinner.

Tomorrow I'll have to settle down and do the usual weekend stuff and cram it all into one day. Clean the floors and bathrooms, plan out a few meals for the upcoming days and work in a few loads of laundry, well maybe more like half a dozen or so. Oh, and finish that Evidence mid-term. It's nearly midnight and with all of that work ahead of me tomorrow I had better get to bed. Goodnight.

This weekend it was so nice to take off the plastic, open the windows and do a little spring cleaning. The sunlight a warm sparkle to stream through and light up the house. It feels good to get some fresh air in the bedrooms, though it may be causing a little bit too deep of sleep - Gretchen just fell out of bed.

I wanted to pass along a really great window cleaner recipe that my mother-in-law found somewhere. I was a little worried about pouring ammonia into alcohol, but there wasn't a cloud of toxic fumes or anything. Happy spring!

Window cleaner

1/2 cup ammonia
1 pint alcohol

Pour ammonia and alcohol into an empty (clean) gallon size milk jug then fill the rest of the way with water. Pour into spray bottle.