The Colors of Spring

The girls and I were coloring at our kitchen table one morning several weeks ago. Crayons slowly emerged from the hard plastic pencil case into piles all over the table. One coloring book offered images of rabbits and ducks and frogs, another Elmo and Zoe and Big Bird. The pages were white and gray and slowly emerged to life as the girls added scribbles of color; pink, brown, green, yellow...

Spring is feeling a little bit that way... like God is slowly adding color back to the earth. Here in Buffalo anyway, we have lived for months under a blanket of gray and white clouds seemingly mirroring the white ground, bare trees and icy concrete streets. A dreary sight after many months if I do say so myself.

As I look out my window this morning the grass is lush and green (it needs to be cut actually!), there are buds on the trees, and the bush directly outside of my window is pushing forth purple stems.

Yesterday seemed to be the day when yellow was popping forth everywhere and I enjoyed enjoying it with the girls. On our way home from Playschool yesterday we passed many, many forsythia bushes (a favorite of mine) and I had a lot of fun teaching the girls how to say FOR-SYTH-I-A...kind of funny actually.

Forsythia have always been one of my favorite springtime flowers (bushes). While there are plenty of them here in Buffalo, the little town we lived in in New England seemed to the epicenter of Forsythia bushes. It was like a 4th of July grand finale of yellow buds, wildly splaying from bushes everywhere you drove or walked or looked.


In case you are not sure what I am talking about, here is a picture so that you can identify them for yourselves and take great pleasure in trying to get your kids to pronounce the proper name...

Other representatives of yellow in our yard; the several small patches of daffodils near our driveway (planted by the previous owners and left as little gifts to us!), and the dandedions popping up all over our yard...my husband, for the record wants to spray the grass but I am currently in moral opposition. In part, because we have young kids who play outside, in part, because the few weeds we have don't bother me that much, and in part because Ava loves to pick the dandelions...she brought me a beautiful bouquet yesterday....

I did try to explain that she needed to pick the entire flower (not just the head) in order for me to put them in a vase, but she deftly explained that many of them "did not have strings" so she did what she could.

...A treasure none the less from the hands of a four year old.

I think we may attempt to make a paper bouquet of daffodils today...here is a picture one such bouquet from the website alphamom.com  if you are looking for a craft to bide some time at your own house...

And lastly, the two little flowers that keep me busiest watering, nurturing, feeding and cultivating all year around...

Happy Spring!!