What A Beautiful Day In The Neighborhood It Was Today....

At about 4 pm today, Jonas crawled over to the front door, tried turning the knob, and when I looked at him, made the sign for "bye-bye" and I said, "you want to go outside?" and he got so excited, it was a YES, I could tell. I kinda grudgingly said to myself, "okay, five minutes won't hurt me, and look how excited he got. He's obviously getting cabin fever." So, I put on my slippers...yes, slippers, and a raggedy old jacket and took Jonas outside and to my surprise, I got hot! So, Kinsey came out and I told her to get on some shoes and a jacket and we all went for a walk to the end of the street and back! I cannot tell you how for sure I was that we wouldn't get out the bike and car toy until, at the earliest, April?? I just kept thinking...I love Cedar....it'll storm, drop a bunch of snow...melt a few days later and be sunny like this...and I LOVE it! Where I grew up, it would storm and storm and be gray and gross all winter and I hated it! Literally, if there hadn't been a little snow here and there, I would have thought it was April! Also, we had a breakthrough today! Kinsey FINALLY figured out how to pedal her bike for longer than five seconds and that picture of her so far ahead of Jonas and I is her figuring out how she can leave us in her dust! Grrreat.... This past summer, she couldn't reach the pedals very well and she'd get too frustrated, so she never really cared to pedal, so she'd just push the bike along under her and I wondered if she'd ever figure it out!

Also, I have been drawing again...after about 3 or 4 years, (besides that sketch I did of Jonas about 2 months ago), and its been fun! It wasn't nearly as much bother as I've been painting in my mind the last few years, and it didn't take me much time, either. Makes me wonder how much fun stuff I blow off because I THINK its too much bother and a waste of time... Anyway, my mom's bday is tomorrow and I was thinking of something to make her and I decided to try and draw her something. I figured if it wasn't very good, I'd have time to go buy her something still! So, I printed out a couple of my favorite pictures of my kids, (cause you know BOTH kids can't be smiling/looking the same direction/look NOT drugged in ONE photo), and I drew her a picture of them in a couple hours and, to my surprise, I think it turned out pretty well. There are still things about it that bug me, but I was using watercolor paper and its really rough, so I couldn't get too much detail into it and make it look fine like I wanted to. But, I thought, I know what they look like cause I look at them all day, every day. So, I wanted to try a picture that was a little more challenging, so I took a couple of photos of my brother Rusty, his wife Kylie, and their baby boy Hazen and I tried to do a drawing of their family....it turned out okay, too. I'm kinda mystified about it. Have I been missing out on it for this many years when I coulda been working on my skill and getting better? The whole reason I thought to attempt a drawing of my kids for my mom was, get this, because in church on Sunday, this thought kept harassing me and was all convoluted, but essentially this: I beg my girls in YW's class to look at all their talents and blessings and use them to bless the lives of others and am I a hypocrite? If I don't TRY to use the gifts I'm given, maybe I won't be blessed with more....and HELLO? there are SO many talents that others have that I covet every day! Anyway, I might add that in the three days since I've been chilling out and drawing some, amazingly, I've been really NON-O.C.D. about the house. Now, that could be considered either good, definitely bad, or both but its been a nice reprieve from the feeling that I'm not good for anything but keeping house. I dunno, but I asked Jason tonight if he thought I've been more chill since Sunday and he said "DEFINITELY" and kinda rolled his eyes. Jury's out as to whether I oughta smack him for that , (hahha, I'm joking!), or just agree and hope it isn't just a hormone fluctuation and that I really don't have any control over it!