A Good Day for Mail

St. Patrick's day turned out to be very nice.  The sun was shining off and on, and melted most of the snow on our front lawn.  We can easily start to believe that Spring is now on its way. 

Being March Break this week, the kids and I have spent much time out of doors.  Even in mud puddles.  My winter boots still keep me warm, but are no match for the puddles we have been presented with on our walks.  Some of them we can jump over, and it's fun trying.  But you know those puddles that are a few sidewalk squares long, and stretch from edge to edge?  I tried to be smart and go around it by walking on the grass, which was so saturated with water that my foot smushed into it like mud and all the water gushed into my boot anyways.  ha ha.

I was looking forward to getting something in the mail this week, and was not disappointed.  In fact, today was like a jackpot of mail.  We received 2 parcels and one postcard, all in the same day!  All from my Ravelry friends.

The post card was from Cornwall, England.  It's a picture of Pendennis Castle from the air.  My family has a thing for Castles, and medieval themes.  One day, we would like to take a tour of some of Europe's old castles.  We might to wait for retirement before we get there, but it's on my bucket list.  Evan (now 7) was so impressed when Pippay wrote about being able to see the castle from their house, that he looked intently on the postcard to try and spot where the house might be.  He was so impresed with how much detail you could see in this photo!  Especially the cannons on the ground by the castle wall.  We might have to get a frame for this post card...

Then we opened our first parcel, which was from my Ravelry Winter swap pal SaucyMinx.  It was a Valentine's package with some goodies inside for me, which I shared and then hid to save some for later.  Look at the beautiful card she made for me.

Inside the parcel was a 2-DC mix she made for me.  I was quite impressed with this.  Way to do your homework... all the songs contain the word 'blue' in either the title or the artist's name.  How fun!  I will listen to it after dinner, when the kids have settled down.  Check out the song list!

And here is my little Emma showing off her smile while displaying the Sweethearts candy and blue sticky notes from our Valentine's pack. 

I love the little blue sticky notes - I'm using them to flag pages in my knitting books for patterns I want to knit.  This will help remind me better, as my bookmarks fall out too easily when I stuff these books into my knitting tote.  These Sweetheart candies were very sweet.  I haven't had these since high school.  I told Emma no, so when I was reading my greeting card she quietly reached over to try and sneak one.  She is very good at noticing when I'm distracted.  It was a nice day to enjoy treats, as I had none left in the house.

Then I opened the next parcel.  I couldn't figure out why GuapaM had sent me anything, as we were not in any current swaps together.  What an unexpected treat.

What a lovely tulip.  It reminds me of some of the Dutch tulips that my sister gave me for my garden.  Dutch tulips are my favorite so far, and here in Canada we have a lovely tulip festival every year in Ottawa (which I have yet to visit).  The tulip is a symbol of beauty and friendship, and our city has something called Kitchener in Bloom - you can nominate your favourite residential gardens to be entered in the city wide contest.  I believe the winners are entered into Cities in Bloom, which competes against other cities for the best landscapes.  There are several categories, and I'm very glad to see that one of them is for environmentally friendly practices, or drought resistent gardens.  My tulips are not one inch out of the ground, so I look forward to watching them grow.

The Kinder Schodolade was a much coveted treat for the children.  I read the card aloud, and got to the part that said "I added a little extra for your kids" and the kids got so excited that they were jumping up and down and screaming "Yay!".  They knew it was for sharing.  This Kinder Schokolade was made up of 8 little bars, so the kids got to each have their very own chocolate bar, with extra for me as well.  They were so delicious!  My little Emma loved it so much, she would not accept the fact that hes was done when she had finished eating.  She kept looking around and asking, "chocolate? more?" until I showed her the empty box.  I have kept the box because now and then she still asks about it.  It's much easier to show a toddler the empty box so they know there is none left, than to try and reason with them through a fit when they are sure there is more.

Look what Emma is doing with the box now...

After the Valentine's Swap with GuapaM, I had mentioned to her that we had never heard Lena's music before (she sent us a Lena CD) and liked it very much.  Evan and I sing it together in the car, and I really like to play it while house cleaning.  Lena had recently come out with more songs, and GuapaM was so nice as to send me the newest CD.  Wow, that was so unexpected, I feel very spoiled! Here is a pic of Evan showing the CD.

So thank you all for spoiling me and making this day brighter!