An Easter tradition.

"A good snapshot keeps a moment from running away."
-Edora Welty



















Last year I did an impromptu photo shoot with the boys dressed in their Easter outfits in my living room. Some of those pictures are hanging on my wall now. It seemed like a good tradition to follow again this year. So last week when the weather was still pretending to be spring, we dressed in our Easter best and drove to a location I scouted one day after preschool, the boys in the back of the van ooohing about how pretty it'd be. It was a little chilly, and the boys under dressed, so we hurried through the pictures. The prize for them: pine cones. The prize for me: photos for my walls. A win, win, I'd say. And an Easter tradition has been born.

Spring, is that you?

"Spring passes and one remembers one's innocence. Summer passes and one remembers one's exuberance. Autumn passes and one remembers one's reverence. Winter passes and one remembers one's perseverance."

-Yoko Ono

Last week the temperature rose above zero for the first time in what felt like months. Thirty degrees felt like a warm summer day, and we soaked it up in the feet of snow in the backyard. Content as we were with this new bearable temperature, we didn't realize the following week would be even better. Forties and then fifties settled in and the big thaw began. The feet of snow has melted to form puddles the size of kiddie pools and mushy, soggy ground. My kids couldn't be happier. My washing machine hasn't worked harder since the last Big Thaw. 

But even as we merrily trudge through the mud, yellow dump trucks coated brown and neglected shovels finally seeing some daylight, we hold our breath. Spring, is that really you? Or is this just one of those cruel jokes, a tease of what waits on the other side, only to wake up one morning to a frenzy of white out the window, the dead brown grass once again blanketed in feet of snow? I know you, Winter. You can't fool me. So while we wait for the impending blizzard, we will covet every single second of this tease. It is our lifeline.