A perfect evening...

This evening after Abby finished dance class, she and I stopped by the recycling center. She was quite pleased with herself as she helped me sort our recyclables into the correct bins.

Once we completed our sorting, we headed over to Lowe's to pick up some variegated liriope. It seems luck was with us tonight, because the racks of clearance plants were packed full. In addition to the six liriope we chose, we also brought home one indian hawthorn, two yellow jasmine, one petunia, two heather, and four columbine. We already had three lavender plants at home that needed to go in the ground. At six o'clock in the evening Abby and I began our race with the sun to get 19 plants in the ground before dark.

While we were playing in the dirt, Trevor decided to grace us with his presence. After admiring the four plants we had already placed in the ground, he decided his super soaker water gun would be the best way to water these new plants. He soon became my taskmaster as he urged me to "dig faster" and "hurry up and get that plant in the ground" because each plant I finished was a new plant he could blast with water. During his over-zealous watering spree, he managed to spray me in the face with a blast of cold water. He quickly acquired a pair of shoes so he could change to a position that did not include me in his line of sight.

As soon as Abby realized I needed a water hose to water the new plants, she immediately ran upstairs and woke her daddy up (who is working third shift this week) so he could get a hose for me. After I placed the sprinkler on the hose it did not take long for Abby and Trevor to start playing in the water. Their mirth bubbled over as they ran and bounced through the muddy flower bed in the spring twilight. The sun finally won the race, and I had to admit defeat less than halfway through our planting frenzy.

After cleaning the tools and children, we had a tasty dinner of tortellini. By this time it was 10pm and time to see Charles off to work. Trevor remained outside in the driveway performing a bit of impromptu martial arts choreography which included a six foot long stalk of bamboo that I did not want in the house, as he had been dismayed to discover earlier.

With the kitchen clean and kids happy, I settled onto my porch swing with a cup of chai and the hardbound copy of Rilla of Ingleside I had acquired a few days earlier from our public library. It wasn't long before Abby joined me on the swing with her own book - Dora the Explorer Subtraction with a magic decoder to reveal the answers. When she tired of this, she brought out her Kumon Stick and Paste book. Time passed quickly and pleasantly as I cut and she glued on over twenty pages of her book. I was quite surprised to discover it was after midnight when Toby joined us outside to have a chat about Pokemon and other things of interest to him.

Soon it was one o'clock and Abby was starting to get frustrated with her gluing, so Toby and I helped her clean up her work, and I tucked her in bed while I reflected on the perfectness of this evening.