First signs of spring

For those of you who have followed this blog for several years, you know that this time of the year I like to post pictures of the daffodils flowering in our yard...Some would say this is to tease, but I disagree--for those of y'all in the snowbound north, this is an inspiration that spring is coming...  The other thing that comes with spring here in Arkansas is severe weather, as you can see from some of the tornado damage near a small town about an hour from Monticello:

Not to worry, we have been safe from the worst weather--mostly heavy rain in a few instances that has left our backyard soggy:

Given how dry we've been the last couple of years, a wet spring is a good thing for us.  Another good thing--Super Bowl parties!  We held our annual party that day.  The picture below is of a pot of brats boiling in beer and onions--the cool purple color is actually how my camera interpreted the lighting of our kitchen and adjusted for the heating elements from our glass-top stove (which were bright orange, according to my eyes!):

Spring also means some of the scouting events start to pick up.  Here is Kenny in his Webelos uniform and Hope in hers at a recent fundraiser for the local scouting district:

Kenny was there (missing part of his school lunch period) to help with the flag ceremony, after which he returned to school:

Kenny also did well with his recent Pinewood Derby effort, taking second place in his group:

Spring also means getting our tax refund and dropping most of it on the house...  This year's spring project is a kitchen remodel, which started with a window replacement:

This window was the last of the original single pane, aluminum clad windows that came with our house--we have since replaced them all with double pane, vinyl windows that are much more energy efficient and easy to open.  For the rest of this remodel, you'll have to wait for the next blog, when we get the whole project completed!  We didn't spend all our tax refunds on the house--I paid off my truck, we got Hope a beautiful antique silver cabinet to store things in, and I purchased a new Canon digital SLR camera to replace our previous Panasonic camera.  Actually, Kenny has inherited that camera, which still takes pretty good pictures even with some water spots on the interior (and inaccessible) parts of the lens from a swim in the Saline River a couple years ago.  The picture below was taken this morning with the new camera, and shows the kids and me piling some firewood:

Although people up north wouldn't consider it very cold, last night we got down to about 20 degrees, and tonight is supposed to be cool, too, so we've been having some fires in our fireplace.  The kids love the warmth of the fires, but they sure do gripe when they have to do a little bit of work towards it:

As you can see, they're completely exhausted!!  I'm sure glad we didn't complain to our folks when asked to do chores around the house ;)