Outside...finally

Today was warm enough to go outside for a short time, finally!  After Calvin woke up from his nap, I suggested we wear sweatshirts, hats and mittens and take a walk around the neighborhood ... "walk" in the kid's world means riding their trikes all over the place.  They were SO excited!  The hustle to the door was more like a stampede.  I pushed Vanessa in the stroller while following V and C on their trikes ahead of me.  Just like "old times" Violet took off down the hill and rode with no feet on the pedals til she hit the bottom of the hill (heading south on the sidewalk past 10 houses is a big downward slope).  Calvin was concerned that she was so far ahead of us but I told him I'd stay back with him, and he seemed OK with that.  She waited for us, then we all rode further.  We noticed a house starting to be built, and Calvin got pretty excited about the big dirty digger thing next to huge piles of dirt.  We got to walk up close to the big hole the construction people were digging...which the kids thought was pretty exciting.  I started picking up scraps of garbage in my line of sight along the sidewalks and putting it in the stroller basket, so the kids decided to be my little garbage picker uppers too.  Every 20 seconds it seemed, they were both hopping off their trikes and throwing scraps of things in my stroller basket.  It occupied them so I just went with it - we collected lots of styrofoam peanuts.
It felt pretty chilly in the wind on the wide sidewalk near Greenhill Rd, so we excited and stayed on the sidewalks by the smaller streets.  Both kids seemed ready to go home so we finished up our walk (and of course, had to go back UP the big hill they floated down at the beginning of our walk).  One house away from ours Violet stopped her trike and got off, and started examining something carefully.  When I got closer, she told me she found a dead bird.  It was disgusting - it was obviously freshly dead - bright red bloody parts strewn across its feathery body and wings.  EW.  They were obsessed with staring at it, but I was quick to shoo them away.  Calvin didn't stop talking about the dead bloody bird all night.  Conversation between the kids was how the bird died. 
Anyway...we had a refreshing time outside, it felt great to get out.  Vanessa was a trooper and seemed to enjoy the walk too.  I dressed her by putting one of Violet's pull-on fleece sweatshirts on her - the long sleeves were too long but kept her hands warm and I didn't have to fight her to keep mittens on.  Worked great!  I thought she might sleep on the walk but she stayed awake the whole time, so her 2nd nap of the day was pushed back from 3 to 5 pm.  She still went to bed at 9 pm with the other two.
Great day!  I hear tomorrow is going to be warmer!