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We've been having the most unseasonably warm weather in anyone's memory here in Minnesota. In the middle of March, the temperature and "feel" of the air has been summerlike. On Saturday afternoon, while the children were playing outside, I was taking care of some various cleanup tasks. As a part of that process, I had Grace help me pour bird seed into the small bird feeder which we have on a shepherd's hook outside our screened porch. The procedure was to take a small tupperware container, dip it into the bag of bird seed, and then dump the contents into a makeshift funnel (a 64 oz juice container w/the bottom and top cut off) which then caused the bird seed to pour into the feeder. I told Grace "wir geben den Vögeln Lebensmittel; sie essen Samenkörner" / "we're giving the birds food; they eat seeds".

The next morning before church as the children (no longer babies!) were eating their french toast for breakfast, Grace "randomly" piped up and said "I helped Daddy give the birdies Lebensmittel (food)." I told her that yes, she had indeed helped me. Then, about 1 minute later, as if by the hand of providence, a group of about 6 small birds descended upon the feeder to eat for the first time. I quickly turned all the childrens' chairs around so that they could watch the birds, and then got a big kick out of seeing and listening to them.

Yesterday (Monday, March 19th), Joel stayed home with me while Ginger took the girls on a shopping trip. Joel first helped me to change out the license plates on my car (Mommy had previously told him that when Daddy got home, he was going to help me "fix the car"). Then, the Boy helped me vacuum the living room. I later reported to Ginger that he did surprisingly well. I held the cord, and he operated the vacuum. Although he was slow, and tended to vacuum the floor in a pattern similar to the way a cat gives itself a bath, he was pretty effective and got most of the floor covered.

Last week, I took the children to the park which is about 1/3 of a mile from our house. Because we were there a bit earlier than normal, he had the park to ourselves. Joel and Ella began playing a game during which one of them would pile woodchips (the "bedding" in the park) onto the bottom of a small slide, and then the other would slide down through the pile. They continued that game for quite a long time, and played very nicely with each other. A few days prior to that, while at the park, Ella saw some young teenage boys walking on the ice of a drainage pond just past the park boundaries. Because we warn the children to not go playing by the water, Ella knew that this was not correct behavior (it is actually STUPID behavior to be walking on ice when the air temperature is in the 70s!) Ella pointed to them and told me that they were being very naughty :o)

We read scriptures to the children each night before they go to bed out of a picture bible which Grandma bought them. I was reading them the story of Cain, Abel, and Seth and was translating the English text to German "on the fly." As part of the narrative, I told them that Cain "war ein sehr schlechter Mann" / "was a very bad man" and that Seth "war ein sehr guter Mann" / "was a very good man". The story went on to talk a little more about Seth. Grace interrupted me and (in English) said: "he was a GOOD man."