Springtime has come and gone

Last week was low 90s, this week we've been hanging around 97 and next week's forecast is in the 100s on most days. I guess spring is gone!

Those moving boxes are still great sources of fun! 
The most recent project involved finger-painting the outside and then writing on the box "No cats, yes children."  This morning I saw almost 10 of them spread all of their bedroom with odds and ends in many of them.

Easter = Easter eggs, bunny masks, colorful dresses and book club. 
Some colleagues kids' hid the eggs in the yard repeatedly while the adults had book club inside.  My mom actually jumped when first coming online for Skyping due to the somewhat creepy bunny masks.

We had been looking forward to these little guys for quite some time.  First-time mom "lost" them after only one day.  The girls stared at them for a lot that one day, but we're pretty sure a tomcat must have got them right off the back porch last night.   The girls have rebounded, but Randy and I are still a bit sad.

RED (shimul trees) and WHITE (zoo animals)

Laid back spring break= lots of blog posts. Here's a few pictures from the last few days of flower-gathering and zoo-going:

Shimul tree flowers are dropping everywhere!  They're huge and red= FUN! 
The shimul tree is also known as the red cotton tree and I read that some people even use the blooms' fibers to make pillows.  Anastasia and Talula tried them out at the zoo as bear toys, gazelle fodder and ornaments for the duck ponds.

Wording of the signs pictured (including use of capitals):
"Whoever is kind to the creatures of ALLAH is kind to himself."
"Sure, they're happy to see you.  To them, you smell like food."
"Whoever is merciful even to a sparrow, ALLAH will be merciful to him on the
DAY of JUDGEMENT." 

Anastasia loves red (see flowers above) and WHITE?! (see animals here).  Every white animal at the zoo got special preference.  She even argued that the "normal" tigers and peacocks were "boring."  I was repeatedly instructed to take photos of all white animals. [Weird kid?!]