The Farm in Spring

We visited my family's farm in Asheville, North Carolina over Easter weekend, it was a visit just drenched in the beauty of springtime, now its already May and I've wanted to do a long-overdue post in pictures of the wonderful time we spent celebrating the holiday there.

The above view of the Blue Ridge Mountains from my aunt's house never gets old, and I love how it changes with the seasons, last time we were there it was Autumn, and this time the understory of the forest almost looks like it has snow on it with those white Dogwood blossoms.

We spent Easter day celebrating with friends and family by the pond, eating yummy food, hunting Easter eggs,

and having good old fashioned egg on the spoon races,

Can't get enough of that spring green!

And I was totally swooning over the spring flowers, everywhere!

Frank did this painting of the view from my Aunt's deck, I love the movement in it!

Whenever we are there so much activity is packed into blissful days spent mostly outside. My aunt takes the kids with her on all of her farm chores, feeding the cows, fish and chickens, along with collecting eggs and whatever else needs doing. Which leaves Frank and I with much appreciated time to hang out together. During this visit we even got to go into downtown Asheville for lunch at a delicious Indian restaurant just the two of us. We usually visit the farm in August, but with baby due this year in August we might try to squeeze a last visit in July, we'll see...but part of my heart is always there.

Pink Blossoms

Today we celebrate the official first day of the Spring season, happy day! My body feels a little confused this first spring in Charleston as it seems like we've been welcoming spring in since February when the early tulip Magnolias started blossoming. It feels so early to me but I welcome it.

Our favorites so far have been the pink ones, in our neighborhood there are massive huge Azalea bushes, which Carys picks from to make endless bouquets.

A nice surprise was to find that we have some small Azalea bushes underneath my favorite palm tree. I didn't realize that they were Azaleas until the buds started forming, it will be fun to watch the bushes grow bigger each year.

Another nice surprise has been these pink fire bushes next to our front steps.

The kids and I did some spring planting in our small front containers with Pansies and Sage. They look so great against this wild bush, each blossom looking like a fire work.

 

See, its like a pink explosion,

Then there is my favorite, ever! I have always loved Red Bud trees, and always wanted one. So last summer when we did our garden renovation I had a small Red Bud tree planted...and then waited all winter to see these blossoms,

Our little tree did not disappoint, I think she's just lovely!

Since I really can't contain myself in my excitement for spring here are a couple of other blossoms, not pink, but so pretty,

This is one of the plants that actually never stopped blooming throughout our mild winter, I know that they are related to the hibiscus plant but I don't know much else about them beside that the kids think they look like fairy lights.

 Spring is here!

Cherry Blossoms everywhere

The part of Brooklyn where we live, so close to Prospect Park, has been full of blossoms this past week, my favorites being the Cherry Blossoms, which seemed to be everywhere I looked...

We visited the Brooklyn Botanic Garden's annual Cherry Blossom festival, braving the crowds so that we could be there for the 10th Anniversary of Frank and my first date. I have always loved that our first date was to the Cherry Blossom festival, and that we also later got married at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden....we love walking around and reminiscing there, but we had some cheeky babies on our hands during our recent visit...

Even so, we had a spectacular time, that felt very romantic, and made us so happy to be able to revisit the festival of our first date with our children.

Spring break

For the past ten days we have all been on Spring Break, with no school, and weather that was not the most inspiring we had great fun exploring together. Coney Island and the NY Aquarium are always a fun trip for us, and stepping of the boardwalk onto the beach adds to the fun, although there is no taking off the shoes on that beach as sadly, there is always so much broken glass. The true grit of city living.

Now we are back into a regular schedule, I'm getting a little bit of studio time again, how I do love my routine. We move three weeks from tomorrow so the packing pace is picking up a little bit, so far we have all of the boxes stacked in the guest room so we don't have to look at them everyday! So I am able to continue on with a big dose of denial as we go about our daily activities.

I am really looking forward to this weekend as on Saturday Frank and I will celebrate the 10th Anniversary of our first date at the Cherry Blossom Festival at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, and we will celebrate the Maypole Festival with our Waldorf Playgroup of Sunday!! I'm loving the many joys of spring!

Birthday Week

This past week with Carys's birthday party, the birthday celebration at her playgroup and her actual birthday all falling on different days, we got to have a birthday week of celebrating! For her birthday party this year she wanted a "ballerina birthday party" which to her meant everything pink, and all of her friends in tutus. I made a pink cake (strawberry inside too) topped with some dancing ballerina cake toppers that I found on Etsy.

There was pink everywhere!

Including lots of pink gifts,

Then, a few days later, Frank and I joined her class at her precious Waldorf playgroup for her playgroup birthday celebration,

Our girl dressed in her fancy best, she was so excited,

Her head teacher told the story of Carys's life, how she chose to join our family, and then lighting a candle for every year of Carys's life, including special details about Carys for each year. Carys was squealing with delight at the mention of all of the little details about her in the story. Then she got to put out the candles, which at playgroup is a big honor.

With a few days of beautiful, bright weather that we've had I finally feel like roaring, "Welcome queen spring!!", at least the flowers everywhere seem to think that she is here to stay!