It finally feels like spring, and even with days like yesterday and today where the weather is wet, I can't complain because at least it's not snowing. Plus there have been a lot of really nice warm days where we've been able to enjoy being outside. Kate has been riding her little bike everywhere during the past week since she got it, and has been pretty disappointed when I've had to tell her that the grocery store and Grandpa and Grandma's house are too far for us to ride a bike.
In honor of spring, we decided to do a family cookout and campout last Friday night. Our paper shredder broke quite a while ago, so we needed a good excuse to burn the shred pile. We put a fire ring together with broken cinder blocks that we dug out of the backyard last summer, and got a fire going. We cooked hot dogs, and Kate loved helping with everything. I have to say, as ready as I am for us to tackle the backyard this summer, there have been moments the past few years where it's been kind of nice to just do what we want back there without having to worry about logistics. Build a fire ring? Sure, no problem. Pick a spot. Seriously, anywhere. It probably helped that backyard looks the nicest during the spring when the layer of small bright green weeds can still pass off as faux grass. I'm sure this feeling of benevolence will be short lived as the weather warms up and the backyard returns to a sunburned wasteland. :)
After we ate, Kate played on our dirt mountain for a bit while Kerry and I sat and chatted, and then we slowly added our shred papers to the fire. Kate thought that was pretty awesome.
We headed inside, got Kate ready for bed, and then set up our tent in Kate's room for us all to sleep in. It's still too cold to sleep outside, and our backyard isn't fenced in, so we planned to do an inside campout. It was all so cute: Kate was in her jammies, we had laid out blankets for our beds, Kerry read her the bedtime story in the tent, Kate thought that life was amazing and was so excited to sleep in a tent. 
But the happy pictures that you see are where the fun stopped for the evening, because Kate didn't go to sleep till 1am. We had forgotten that she had inadvertently had a late nap, which guarantees a rough night for her. So that was sad. We were all zombies the next day. Fortunately, by about 11pm we scrapped the tent idea completely in favor of having everyone sleep in thier own beds. There was no way that either Kerry or I wanted to go to bed late plus get kicked all night by a little girl who probably wouldn't be sleeping very well. We'll try the campout again another time, because it would be really fun, but next time we're going to make sure that Kate is very tired by bedtime.
In other news, we repaired our main bathroom a couple weekends ago! It crossed my mind to take before and after pictures, but I thought better of it because then I would have solid evidence of how bad it's looked for so long. It has needed some attention since we moved in 4 years ago, but has been one of those things that you stop noticing about your house. However, it got to the point where we were legitimately concerned about the easy access kids have to large chunks of paint that were peeling off one section of wall, and we got fed up that more than half of the tile border that went around the walls had fallen off. After a full day's work and 2 tubs of spackle, it was ready to repaint, and turned out really well. The only thing we have left to do is figure out how to attach the new trim to the bottom of the walls. Those same sections of walls are now made up almost entirely of spackle, so we're not sure if nails would work, and in other sections it's the original plaster, so we're still deciding whether we can nail it on or if we need to look at maybe gluing it on.
We also enjoyed celebrating Easter this past weekend. We did an egg hunt with our friends the Bowles, and then on Sunday we had Easter baskets, church, and then dinner with my family in the evening. Kate was all dressed up for church, and I tried a new fancy hairdo on her that turned out well.
She was feeling all cute, as evidenced by her new pose:
Notice basically the same pose later that day:
And these are just a couple random pictures from the last couple weeks that I loved. :)
Oh, just a quick update about Tam and Yeb: Both their cases have been submitted to the US embassy, and Tam's case cleared within a week. That means that his case is DONE! Now we're waiting on Yeb's case to clear, which will probably be a little longer. They will be interviewing his birthmom, and from the information the embassy sent us, it sounds like the interview appointment slots are usually filled about a month out. What this really means is that we have no idea when this will happen, but it feels like it's getting closer!
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