Block Party

Sunday was our annual neighborhood block party-a first for us since we've only lived here a few months.  Although we've met many of our neighbors since moving in, it was nice to get to know the ones we hadn't met yet.  We have new neighbors down the street with six kids, one of whom is a little girl named Grace.  Dave also realized his old department head from SVSU lives in our subdivision, too.  We are blessed to have great neighbors here.

I wish I had taken photos of the amazing food at the party.  There was pulled pork and grilled chicken, along with the dishes that we all brought to pass.  There was popcorn and snow-cones for the kids, as well as a pinata.  We also had bicycle decorating, and later, a bike parade for the kids. 

Graceyn is on vacation, so Grace got to hang out with some of the other girls that she doesn't play with regularly, which was a nice change.

Dave, Angelique and Todd (Todd was in our wedding 11yrs ago)

I wanted to take this little guy home

There is no shortage of neighbor girls

 

Grace taking her turn at the pinata 

Candy in the landscaping

Kaitlyn, Grace and Alivia enjoying their treats

Not sure about the face here

Newborn

This sweet, little babe was in our neighbor's woods today.  I wasn't as close as it appears in the photo (lots of zooming and cropping). 

  

Timberrr!

We had a number of trees cut down  this week.  Most of them were dead or close to it, and needed to come down before they hit our home or one of our a neighbors' homes.  I'm relieved they're gone.  We've had so many bad storms lately, it's been a bit unnerving to watch them swaying with the high winds.

The whole time the men were working outside, Grace stood inside, face glued to the windows, fascinated by the chainsaws and tractors and the huge trees falling to the ground with a house-rattling thud.  I was just thankful none of them fell the wrong way!

I was glad to see this one fall

Always jumping...

A huge hole from our neighborhood Woodpecker

 Beautiful wild trilliums have blossomed in our woods

Finally

It looks and feels like spring is finally here to stay.  We enjoyed some outdoor time this morning (until TruGreen came to spray the neighbors' lawn).  I am anxious to get some flowers planted, and am thinking about a vegetable garden as well.  Any suggestions on what to grow and how to do it would be greatly appreciated! 

We've met most of our neighbors, and they all seem great.  We even discovered that Dave's old friend, Todd, who was actually in our wedding, lives on the next court over from us.  He and his wife have three kids under three years of age.  Our next-door neighbor girls watched Grace for us last Saturday so we could go to a party at their house for a while, reaffirming, again, just how much we love our new neighborhood!

The buds are finally opening up

Swinging

Happy girl!

Sightings

A bluebird (I think)

A red-bellied woodpecker

Sightings

We saw this yesterday morning...

(Pileated Woodpecker)

and these tonight.