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[This is the last week to win the $100 Visa gift card!]
[This blog is nominated for two BlogLuxe awards (Eye Candy & Blog You Learned the Most From) while Chronicles of Munchkin Land is nominated for Most Inspiring. Vote if you feel so inclined.]

I’ll publish this now to give me hope for the next week!

(I’m visible in this photo! Upside down but visible!)

I know I keep taking pics of these but, man, they’re my favorite.

We taught BigBrother the magic of throwing helicopters in the air.

FireDad took one day off this week which meant he didn’t have to shave for five days. Hello, Sexy.

T-ball started again. Someone is happy.

Someone would be happier if he could actually play.

In fact, we’re all happy.

Did I mention this guy is happy?

I’m a day late posting these this week because I was gone all day yesterday. Here’s hoping we have another fun week of happy, outside memories!

We were out geocaching recently with the boys. We walked through a field that had seen better days. LittleBrother (two-and-a-half years old) yells out, “SOMEBODY LITTERED!” He pointed at the offending piece of trash and looked at me with his big green eyes. He was upset. Then he and BigBrother launched into a Very Important Discussion about litter, trash and why we don’t drop things on the ground. Later that day, as BigBrother finished up his juice with a snack, he looked at the bottom and said, “Mommy, we have to recycle this. It has the recycling sign.”

I’m raising little tree huggers.

I love to be outside. I’ve always loved to be outside. I also love to be outside when it’s clean. I don’t know when I exactly taught my kids the word and concept of litter and littering. It’s just part of what we talk about, what we do. I would suggest not to litter in front of them because they will totally call you out. They have no shame and they are also showing a love of our Earth. I’ve been so pleased that, given the choice since the weather has warmed up, they prefer to be outside.

We got a few new books about the environment this month in preparation for Earth Day. Curious George Plants A Tree is actually my new favorite. While the story is cute, a list of 20 things that kids can do to help keep our Earth safe and clean provides BigBrother with lots of talking points. He has apparently told his preschool teacher that they need to recycle their paper. Our Earth by Anne Rockwell is another book that we’re enjoying. BigBrother really likes the pages about the dessert. And, obviously, we’ll be reading The Lorax tonight.

We’ve done little things over the years to help reduce our impact on the environment. We cloth diapered. We being green versus just buying green. We try. I talk about these things with my kids because it’s important to me. Some of my favorite memories with my family come from times we spent outdoors. I want them to be able to have those memories with their children in the future. More over, I want to make those memories with my grandchildren someday. I hope raising them with an awareness about things like littering, recycling and environmentally responsible choices will make a difference.

Happy Earth Day! We’ll be spending some time outside today. Not littering. Promise.

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Need some ideas on how to celebrate Earth Day? Visit my post at Mom Central Technology for 5 Ways to Use Technology to Celebrate Earth Day!

A lot of these are nature shots as Spring has fully sprung but there’s some cute kid goodness as well.

This photo is evidence of my favorite iPhone app, Hipstamatic. More on that next week!

This is the storm that has rendered our Apple Tree done. I woke up this morning to find that she is mostly brown and frost-bitten now. So sad. I am pleased, however, that I photographed her from beginning to end this year. I’ll get some brown shots today for a total view.

In sharing these, I’m amused at the total lack of my presence. I didn’t even do any self-portraits this week. It’s amazing that the photographer in the family (being me) can go for months on end and never show up in a photo. It’s almost as if I don’t exist in this family.

Except I do.

Enjoy your weekend!

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I’m wearing purple today and our hearts go out to the Spohr family today, as always. The pinkish purple of these flowers, in full bloom now, seem a fitting tribute.

He/she/it/they is/are living in the pine tree at the corner of our yard. I didn’t know about their nest until yesterday evening. I have experience with mockingbirds as my parents have had two sets on The Farm, nesting behind their house for the past few years. I slept at my parents with the windows open once last year and woke up with a bird frantically cycling through multiple bird songs and random sounds. Over and over and over and over. By 9:15, I wanted to shoot the thing, ala Failure to Launch. I didn’t. I can’t even shoot a water gun. Wouldn’t have worked.

Last night, my mom and I were sitting on my deck, talking over some coffee. I heard a siren. I listened closely because that’s what fire spouses do. Nothing. We went back to talking. The siren sounded again. Just the two woo-woos that you normally pick up on first. I stopped talking again. Nothing. A few seconds later, the siren went off again. In the pine tree. Followed by the awful sound that is the mockingbird’s actual bird call. I twitched as my mom said, “You have a mockingbird!”

Great.

I didn’t even know that mockingbirds could imitate sirens. This is not a good thing. Every time I hear a siren in the background of a song on the radio, I think I’m being pulled over. When my children are playing with one of their many fire trucks, most with obnoxious sound effects, I think that there’s an emergency on a nearby street. Now when I’m outside, free from noisy-tech toys, I’m going to think that a fire truck is about to careen through the pine tree. Except that it’s not.

As I read more about the mockingbird, I’m further annoyed.

They sing a long succession of notes, and phrases, which will be repeated several times, and then changed. The call phrases can be imitations of songs of other birds. Other sounds are a raspy chijjjand a harsh chewk. The male sings in the spring, and both birds will sing in the fall. They will often sing long into the night.

Long into the night? (Quote: What the [heck] kind of Devil bird chirps at night?!) Sirens and long successions of notes and phrases? And eventually more than one? To make it all the more awesome, they dive bomb anyone who comes near their nest, humans included. Sounds fun. (Speaking of sounds, you can listen to a long phrase at this link. No sirens though.)

Whatever the case, I find it somewhat amusing that a mockingbird with a specialty for fire siren sounds has decided to nest in the yard of a firefighter and his family. I would say it was fitting or appropriate if it didn’t make me so twitchy. I will, however, try to catch a photo of the noisy offender in the near future. With or without water gun in hand.

One of the parks was the Columbus Park of Roses. I didn’t know it existed. Despite the fact that no roses were in bloom (it is only March, after all) it was still fantastically beautiful. I caught some beautiful photos of the rose bushes that will soon spring forth with beauty, color and new life.

Throughout the park there are beautiful pathways. These pathways have 12×12 (and 8×8) engraved stones that people have purchased in honor or memory of someone in their lives. I enjoyed reading some of them as I walked and soaked up some much needed sunlight. Some included eulogies, like my favorite, “She never slowed down.” Others were wedding dates and names, most likely having been married during blooming season at the park.

And then I tripped over this one.

I literally read it as my foot passed over it and I had to stumble backward and reread it. I took a few pictures. I stood there for a few moments and wondered what individual or group of individuals thought to dedicate a stone in a park of roses to these firefighters. Was it someone who lost a loved one? Was it another firefighter who, living in Ohio, felt helpless in 2001? Was it a group of firefighters? Was it a family who felt a tug to honor their heroes? I don’t know the answer. Someone spent $200 to forever remember those firefighters.

I wish I could thank that person myself.

Fire life seems to touch so much of my own life. As we walked down the Short North last night after supper, a group of Columbus fire trucks raced to a scene that I assume was a false alarm. The aerial truck responded and a bit of fear pulsed through my veins. I didn’t get a picture because my fingers were frozen at this point, the sun having dipped down behind the buildings. But, like the stone in the park had said earlier that day, I gazed upon the scene with a hopeful heart that everything would be okay and said a prayer and a brief thank you. They may not be my firefighters from my department but they’re still part of our fire family, wherever I happen to be.

Even in a rose garden.

I’m tired of being stuck inside. I’m tired of the snow. I’m tired, mainly. I need fresh air that doesn’t burn my lungs. I need a little more green, it being my favorite color and all. I need more color than various shades of grey. I need Spring.

I’ve been feeling kind of down in the dumps, overwhelmed with our four walls and constant company. It’s not that I’d just turn my kids loose outdoors and not watch them; it’s that we need more space for our voices, our personalities. We need to stretch and run and spend that energy. It’s been a hard winter, too, having lost two family members. I need that hopeful feeling that the new growth of Spring brings.

And it’s so close I can almost taste it.

Buds. They’re coming. I can almost imagine the blooms that they will soon bring. I can almost imagine our apple tree in full bloom, buds pushing up through the grass. I can almost imagine grass. Snow is melting, here and there, and I can see the dull, dark browns and green from a winter of halted growth. Will it green up soon? Will it soon outnumber the patches, piles and inches of endless white?

I have this lament every year, like last year when I was worried about snow falling on my day lily sprouts. They came up on March 17th. That’s only thirteen days from now. Surely that means that hope is just around the corner, just waiting to be discovered. Right? Surely that means that the sun will shine more than just today. That soon the snow will melt. That maybe, just maybe, Spring really is coming this year, not leaving us in this frozen tundra of gloom and doom forever. Right?

This has been one of the worst winters I can remember; not just snow wise but emotionally as well. Maybe not the worst but it ranks up there quite high. I’m ready to feel new again myself. To shed my winter coat and stand with my face to the sun and let the bright rays of hope remind me of who I am and what it is that I am doing here.

I’m ready. Is Spring?

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[For more hopeful photos, visit today's You Capture Challenge at I Should Be Folding Laundry.]

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For more Wordless Wednesday, visit 5 Minutes for Mom.