ducks in the pond quack a happy (birthday) song

Laurel has this primary song she LOVES. I had never heard it before, but she sung it enough (and I helped in nursery enough) that I found it online and we have learned it. Of course, it's adorable. Anyway, after some big storms in the last week or two our family has been particularly interested in our neighboring retaining pond, since if it overflows the water runs to our house (and our crawl space) and my husband freaks out. Well, in checking out the pond one day we learned there are ducks that live there! Laurel saw them, and said, "Mommy! Ducks in the pond!" And I realized she was saying the lyrics to the song...

Ducks in the pond quack a happy song
Mother hen cackles the whole day long
Birds in the nest and wind in the treetops
All join in singing a happy song.

It's ah-dorable.

So. We had some stale bread in the freezer that I should have thrown out long ago -- and boom! Bread for ducks! We thawed it and tried to feed them. She can't really feed them, since there's a huge fence there, so for one, I sorta have to hurl the bread pieces over the fence and hope they land in the water. And two, six to eight ducks hang out in the pond but they like to swim on the FAR side. The first time we went none of them came close enough to eat any bread. Luckily, once last week two of the ducks swam close enough to see the food we provided. The one with the green head, he's the prettiest and by far the smartest. He always comes over now when we're there.

These were taken last week... 3/13... you can totally see them eating our bread.

WELL, this MORNING, we had another friend over for Wesley and we were all playing in the backyard during a light drizzle, and I'm talking to the kids and such, and VOILA, the ducks appeared on our fence. I really think that green duck KNOWS MY VOICE or something.

Then they hopped down INTO our yard...

Yes, the thought crossed my mind to run into the house and get the bread and feed them, but I decided against it. I already know that green one is a smart duck. If I gave him bread, they'd probably move into our backyard and I don't think we WANT that necessarily. So we just watched them.

Eventually Laurel chased them :-)  You can see his beak open "quacking" in some of these photos. Hilarious!!

And then he's off!

What a funny morning!!!!!

In other news, St. Paddy's Day was a huge success because 1) all of us wore green, 2) we had green eggs and ham, and 3) it was Shane's 36th birthday! Awesome!

I got him a cool remote control helicopter (a nice one from a hobbyist store) to replace the cheap-o one he bought himself at Christmas that has since died. The kids each picked two things from the dollar store -- a fun activity. Laurel picked a 7-pack of sponges which she was CONVINCED Shane needed. (The kids helped him wash his car last week so I think she thinks he needs more sponges to wash his car?) Laurel picked out a cup, and Wesley got some towels (also for car washing) and a 6-pack of small Kleenex packages with the Planes characters on them. Awesome.

The birthday boy requested pie instead of a cake, so I made apple pie yesterday morning. He was thrilled and said it was really good :-) We also used trick candles so they kept re-lighting. Wesley had a hard time with that and kept telling Shane to blow harder. Then he sorta got serious and was worried he wouldn't be able to eat pie because Dad couldn't blow the candles out. We need to work on helping that kid have a sense of humor.

He and I got a sitter and went out to eat at a Thai place for dinner, and it was fun!!! We had like, a nice conversation and no one climbed on us. A great birthday outing.

I am not sure I'm ready to tell Wesley he's "next" when it comes to family birthdays... I think he'll milk that for all it's worth.

March is great! Love it!