Chasing Rainbows

It has rained here every day now for the last 15 days.

You must be thinking "Oh great, another blog entry to complain about the weather." But au contraire, mon frere, I am delighted that it is raining because rain is not snow. It could be worse. It could be SO MUCH worse.

Still, incessant rain does sometimes leave one feeling pent up and restless, particularly if one has three small children under four to entertain. 

What to do in such a situation?

You pretty quickly figure out that it is useless to curse the weather. 

Blast you, sun! Show yourself!

You can steal a few moments between showers to play outside.

Covered in mud at the Brogans house

Or you can chase down the light.

 

That's the maddening thing about storms. You know there is always light somewhere, it's just hidden from your view. Or it's just barely out of reach.

You know that if you wait long enough, good things will eventually come to you. Nothing bad lasts forever, and the sun always returns.  But I've found that you can get to the good parts faster if you work, if you throw yourself into the pursuit with passion and vigor and effort. 
 

And in the process of pursuit, I think you sometimes come to love the struggle. And the bad stuff? Sometimes even those things become dear to you.

Last night, Tim and I loaded the kids and the dogs into the car and we pursued the light and in the process we found out that actually really love shades of grey.


 

So while I will definitely be thrilled when the sun comes back...and I'm assuming that it will...for now, I am kind of loving the clouds.

And I know I'm venturing deep into "Put this on an old fashioned postcard and post it to Pinterest" territory here, but without rain, we wouldn't have any rainbows. And last night, I realized that I love chasing rainbows with my family.

 In the words of my daughter "That was a berry cool addbenture, Mom." I agree, Ads. I agree.

Picture Post

 In which the heroes do the same things. Differently.

 Addie slides.

Always with great trepidation.

 Graydon slides.

Always with great glee.

Addie builds.

Ads is becoming quite the builder. The only problem is that her structures tend to be slightly top heavy.

Graydon builds. 

G favors a slightly more free form style.

Graydon has a flower.

Like Ferdinand, Graydon likes to sit quietly and smell the flowers.

Adelaide has a flower. 

Her "lily" as she insists on calling tulips. "Lilies" are "my very best favorite, Mom."

Addie enjoys celebrating her flowers through dance.

And praise and worship

I asked her to smell her flower for a picture. So she did. With her whole heart. Pretty sure she sucked pollen into her brain.

 Addie runs with her friend.

Ads and C-lo

 Graydon runs "with" a friend (?)

Running "with" Sydney.

You Know, Just Your Basic May

My sister (Des) was famous (in our family) for starting nearly every sentence (for a time) with the phrase, "You know, just your basic..."

So I now borrow her phrase to describe our May so far. Because, really, it's been pretty normal. Just your basic May.

We're doing all the things one does in May.

Grilling out. 

Sixteen inches of snow. In May.

Enjoying the new spring greenery.

Sixteen inches.

Playing on the slide. 

Did I mention that it's May?

 When one is trapped spends any amount of time indoors with small children due to freakishly inclement weather and a refusal to put snow tires on in May for any reason you find yourself stretching out normal activities and doing things at odd times. You find yourself thinking "Surely it's time to start the evening routine. Oh wait, it's only 10 AM." 

Still, you're ready for a bubble bath? Why not? 

Addie is not a fan of a mere bath. She only wants to take a 'nice warm cozy bath".

Graydon is my splasher. Unsurprising.

Wet little kiddie eyelashes are the best.

Dress up? Yes. Let's do this. All of us.

You would expect Sydney and Addie to enjoy tutus, right?

Bet you didn't expect that Graydon would also love some tutu time. 

But he does enjoy a good game of Ring Around the Rosies in a nice skirt.

And why not?

What else do we really have to do?

Tutu cute, if you ask me.  Love this punkin.

Love this sweet little muffin too.

And also this one. Sweet outfit, Ads.

Want to stick your head through a cat door? Absolutely, kids. Absolutely.

Good clean fun.

Graydon kept trying to either a) shove her out of the cat door

or b) pull her through it by her hair

Lots of movies have been watched whilst consuming highly processed snacks. Listen, don't judge unless you too have been snow bootin' it in May.

Chilling. Literally chilling.

 Fortunately, the snow has finally all melted. Not without first flooding our basement, but hey...the good news is that this single snowfall was so wet that it solved the drought in SE MN. So a wet basement floor is not too high a price to pay for a nice high water table.

And, much like denizens of the Arctic Circle, now that we are becoming reacquainted with that glowing orb some call the "Sun", we are ready to celebrate. And we may never spend a daylight hour inside until snow once again forces us indoors. So, I'm thinking we've got until at least September, and I plan to make the most of it. 

We're more than ready to turn over our soil and grow some stuff around here. Bye bye Old Man Winter. Don't hurry back!