April Yellow

April puts me in mind of daffodils and lemon desserts, even though the view from the kitchen window on the first day of April was about the same as it has been for the last four months:

The boys and I had a snow day April 1, which we all relished, once we'd gotten all the mileage we could out of, "It's only a two hour delay, get ready for school...April fools!"

We decorated for spring in the morning.

E and Z spent most of the day playing Easter bunny, taking turns wearing and old rabbit costume and hiding plastic eggs around the house.

They took a short break from Easter Bunny duties when we all went out into the snow.  E and I got busy building a snow bunny (not the first around here),

And Z promptly demolished it.

Once they had exhausted themselves with snowball fights (I have never seen the appeal of getting hit in the face with clumps of frozen water, have you?), they set to work trying to pull all the snow from the roof down on top of themselves while I attempted to go for a walk in the woods.  The snow, still up above my knees in some places, was not especially fun to walk in (I didn't think to wear my snowshoes).

I asked C to bring home some daffodils from the florist's, and he brought three big bunches.  I will get flowers at the farmer's market in the summer, but otherwise I don't buy cut flowers very often--it seems so wasteful, and I worry about the chemicals used to grow them, but it was nice to have some springtime inside (even if not outside).

We hadn't had a spring feast on the equinox, so I decided to make one for April 1--trying to coax springy flavors from winter foods:  sweet potato souffle (using this recipe here, subbing steamed sweet potatoes for the carrot. PS, if you make it with carrots, I recommend cooking them first too, rather than grating, otherwise it comes out all fibrous and paper-pulp-like in texture; otherwise, it is delicious), lemon-blueberry muffins, cabbage salad with grapefruit and a sprinkling of fresh cilantro from out sunroom garden.

The tablecloth I found on Etsy--I really wanted a spring-like vintage tablecloth.  I had in mind bright yellow with tulips, but it is pretty hard to find a vintage tablecloth big enough for our table (this one, a Vera, is, but just barely), which I don't get, because didn't everyone have big families in vintage times?  It started me on a bit of an Etsy shopping spree that I'll tell you more about later this week!

By the end of April, surely, we'll have our own daffodils, or at least crocus (I planted tons of bulbs last fall).  I'll make lemon bars for Easter.  The sun, our yellow friend, will spend longer days with us, steeping us and the ground in warmth and hope.