The First Day of Spring

Today is the first day of spring and it has been a glorious day. Daniel came home early from work, so he decided to get some much needed yard work done. I say much needed because it has been bothering him for a while now and we have been out of town so much that he hasn't had time to get out in the yard and work. He loves getting outside and doing yard work. This afternoon he did some digging in our flower beds out front. On one side of the flower bed in particular we tend to get an exhorbitant amount of weeds. He also wanted to dig down into the beds a little bit to make it deeper for mulching purposes. Patsy sent me some beautiful hibiscus plants from QVC for an early birthday present that Daniel is going to hopefully plant for me tomorrow. They just came in yesterday. They don't look like much right now, but they should start growing soon after we get them in the ground. One of them can grow to be as tall as 6'. The shortest one is 3' and the others are about 4 1/2 '. I can't wait until we get them in and they start blooming. The blooms are about 12" in diameter. Bud is going to come over tomorrow morning to help Daniel in the yard. We have a massive mess of azaleas that have overgrown in the backyard and Daniel wants to get that cleaned up. Who knows what else is growing in that mess.

While Daniel was working in the flower bed this afternoon I thought it would be nice to take Taylor outside and us just enjoy the beautiful weather that we are having. At first she wanted attention from her daddy, but then she just started running around and playing. At one point she was digging in a little hole in the driveway. She sat there for at least 30 minutes digging with her stick.

Taylor has become quite independent and does not mind very easily, especially when we tell her to come. She had ventured down to the shed and would not come out when I called her. I was afraid that she would get into something that could harm her. She continued to talk back to me, so I spanked her bottom. I carried her back up to the driveway and she went straight to Daniel. I explained to her what she did that was wrong and that she needed to obey Mommy and not talk back to me. We made her apologize and then I got a kiss from her. A few moments later Taylor was playing with a broom and was hitting one of the bushes with the end of it. This would not have been a big deal, but Daniel had previously seen wasps in the bush and was afraid that there might still be some in there. At first Taylor said "NO!", but then she did the funniest thing. She gave herself a spanking and said, "Obey." We cracked up laughing, which, in turn, made Taylor laugh. We told her that was right, that she did need to obey. Maybe we are getting through to her afterall.

After all this I went inside to start dinner. When I came back out I found Taylor digging in the dirt in the flower bed, but this time she didn't have a stick. She was grabbing dirt with her fingers and eating it. I wish I had gotten a picture of this, but I didn't have my camera handy and all I could think about was getting her cleaned up and giving her something to drink to wash all that dirt out of her mouth. YUCK! The crazy things kids do.