Spring has sprung in Kentucky

I got home from work today and promptly had Ethan open the window while I opened the backdoor and proceeded to get both boys dressed and shod (I think that's the word) to go enjoy the beautiful weather.  Ethan went out back and immediately said, "MAMA!  The fwowers growed!"  (he totally had to repeat that 3 times for me to get 'the flowers growed' out of what he was saying).  Alex's shoes were not totally on yet when Ethan went outside with a ball in his hands which made that process take longer.  Alex freaked totally thinking 1) his brother was leaving him & 2) he was going out to play without him.  Ethan actually had to come back in and sit with Alex so I could finish getting his shoes on.

The boys had so much fun.  Alex was just wandering around checking out the different balls that had spent the winter in Ethan's play house which were now spread out since Ethan's first order of business was to clean out his house.  Ethan proceeded to ride his "mococycle" (big wheel) and showed me that he is now big enough and strong enough with enough coordination to actually pedal - such a good boy.  Then he remember the important thing - there's sidewalk chalk inside the seat of the bike.  YEAH!  Both boys proceeded to write all over the patio.  To be honest, Alex kept coming inside to try to write on the table and kitchen floor as well.  Ethan & I finally convinced him the chalk was better OUTside.  We have 2 old sponge mops outside the backdoor - mostly because we forgot we had one when we bought another and put the first outside and forgot to throw it away and then noticed a nasty odor in the laundry room and discovered it was the 2nd mop - then forgot to throw it away as well.  Not to worry, the boys put them to good use as erasers for the chalk. 

They continued to play while I started dinner.  All of a sudden I heard from the backyard [no they weren't unsupervised; I could see them out the window, the door was still open and the backyard is fenced and locked with a padlock - they were trapped], "MAMA!  HELP!"  It wasn't a panicky "help" but empathic none the less.  I went to see what he needed as he seemed fine in the window - turns out he was trying to get in the swing and it kept moving on him.  OK - no biggie.  I helped him get in and tried to push him but only got 1 small push in for him before Alex planted himself in front of the swing and refused to move while he tried to either pull Ethan out or climb in with him.  Since this is definitely a one person swing, Ethan agreed that he would let Alex swing for a bit and Ethan would swing later. 

He had alterior motives - he wanted to push his brother.  They both enjoyed this immensely as you can see in the pictures below.  In the video, Alex has just stopped laughing and Ethan was going to push again but was trying to pose also (a habit of his when cameras come out) so I had to tell him to go ahead and then he needed to make sure his brother understood what was going on so said "laugh Alex" at the end.  It would be a longer video but I had to delete pictures off the camera which I've now done so won't have this problem if the situation presents itself again tomorrow.

Ethan, as you an see, proceeded to slide when he wasn't pushing his brother on the swing.  They both played until dinner was ready and apparently worked up an appetite as they then both ate their dinners without much coaxing.  Popsicles for dessert in the backyard and Ethan's turn swinging rounded out our relaxing evening.  It was really wonderful.  So glad for Spring and a backyard in which to enjoy it!