Easter and Eggs.

Easter was nice, a little bit traditional and a little bit not. Except for the part where Eva fell down backwards while singing loudly before it started, mass was lovely. Emily and Sarah sat as part of the children's choir and tried to sing but mostly rang little bells. They also danced and skipped down the aisles and around the altar with ribbons flowing to ‘Lord of the Dance’. It was wonderful. It was largely unrehearsed, uncomplicated and pure. It’s a tune I have heard many times [the perfect Easter song really, I don't know if it's a jig, but it reminds me of a Scottish or Irish jig] before but have never paused to consider the lyrics. I put it in the playlist at the bottom of my sidebar if you want to hear the version I am thinking of. Partial lyrics:

I danced in the morning when the world was begun,
And I danced in the moon and the stars and the sun,
And I came down from heaven and I danced on the earth,
At Bethlehem I had my birth.

Dance, then, wherever you may be;
I am the Lord of the Dance, said he.
And I’ll lead you all wherever you may be,
And I’ll lead you all in the dance, said he.

I danced on a Friday and the sky turned black;
It’s hard to dance with the devil on your back;
They buried my body and they thought I’d gone,
But I am the dance and I still go on.

They cut me down and I leapt up high,
I am the life that’ll never, never die;
I’ll live in you if you’ll live in me;
I am the Lord of the Dance, said he.

To see my girls ‘dancing’ with long ribbons flowing from their hands, *sigh*, gives me cause to hold my heart.

Anyway, that was the traditional part of the day I suppose. The not so traditional part was spending part of it at urgent care with Sarah. Last week she had a pretty bad flare on her hands with small open sores. Eczema kids are prone to staph infections on the hands and we think that’s what it was. It’s a lot better since the weekend, the antibiotics kicked in right away. She had a really bad week last week and Sunday morning when she woke up with a slight fever and one of her hands warm and swollen, it was enough for an appointment with the Doctor on Easter Sunday. It was scary. Her hands looked like they had been burned and I’m sure to her they felt like they were on fire. She went to school last week and we thought we were getting ahead of it, until Sunday morning.

It was after 2:00 in the afternoon when we left the pharmacy, we hadn’t eaten and Sarah insisted that we go to Red Lobster. We have only taken our kids there once or twice, they are fond of the place and very often request it, but it’s too far to go for lunch on a regular day. Though at first it seemed like a funny place to be in the middle of the afternoon on Easter Sunday. I would have opted for the closest drive-thru and fled back home where Tony and the kids were waiting for us with the rest of his family but I couldn’t say no to her that day. It was good decision. Sarah enjoyed her popcorn shrimp, applesauce, and cheddar biscuit so much. It was really nice to be there just with her alone.

Those kind of opportunities don’t come by too often. Usually they are all four fighting for my attention with wants and needs of every sort, and for the moment I was happy to concentrate on just hers.

So we made it back just in time for yet another egg-hunt with Tony’s family, ¡Feliz Pascua de Resurreción!, and that was that.

This week is spring break for my girls so we are all home together. Tony might take off Thursday and Friday and we think we may end up in San Francisco or Carmel. Emily, as with all fourth grade students in California, is studying missions and we are planning to visit one or two. We are so glad we visited the very first mission in San Diego last August, it gave us perspective.

Finally, in case you were wondering, we colored our eggs on Monday [after Easter, yes].

Bunnies and Other Animals.

News flash! We didn't paint eggs yesterday! What is it about painting eggs that makes me procrastinate so? Instead, we ventured out to have shrimp tacos for lunch with Tony and afterward visited him at work where they had a carnival style Easter egg hunt. There was popcorn and lemonade, face painting, bounce houses [my kids call them jumpy tents], pictures with the bunny, and of course the egg hunt, which isn't a hunt but a mad dash for thousands of plastic eggs in plain sight, in piles even, thrown out on the lawn. There were hundreds of kids [and their parents too, *cringe*] racing for eggs and it lasted about seven seconds. Kinda weird really. For us, the festivities ended with a giant musical chairs game which Emily came in 5th place. It was cute to watch the faces the kids make as they are eliminated, some just smile, but most looked mad or tearful as the announcer said "sorry you're out" in her most compassionate voice.

In another egg hunt on Thursday, I took Eva because everyone else was in school. It was my mom's group that held this one. Eva hunted and gathered up a grand total of two eggs, she was so intrigued by the first one that I had to strongly insist that she pick up another! That actually was fine with me [with four kids we never have a shortage of candy, trust me] but two big girls with enormous baskets filled with eggs came to Eva and very generously let her take eggs from their baskets, it was sweet really. Eva was one happy little egg-hunter!

We also hit the animal appreciation day at school where Wyatt had a friendly little staring contest with a camel and the llama's were quite taken with Eva. I told Eva, "look, that llama likes you, he wants to meet you!" Her reply was [this is funny, get ready] "no Mommy, I don't want him to eat me." I am worried now, because I repeated it several times, that I may have created in her an unnatural fear of llamas. Well, they do have big teeth! More pictures of my kids and the animals here.

So, maybe we will paint our egg masterpieces later today. I have an appointment with my sister-in-law which is very important to my well-being and will take many hours of my afternoon, then we will see.

Cheers to my cousin Jerry, now the father of two fine boys as of yesterday! Congratulations to Jerry, Kris, and big brother Wilder! Tony, myself, and my kids send you our love. We are all so very happy for you!

To everyone else, Happy Easter. I hope you enjoy the day on Sunday. All the special meaning and bright beauty that the day holds, I hope it shines on you. Peace.

Whoooooosh.

And just like that it's Easter week! This turbo speed year needs to cool it! It's even St. Patricks Day! I'm not so much into this holiday, which is a little bit sad because I think I'm Irish. I'm wearing orange today, though I do love green and thanks to Renee, [hi sis!] I've been wishing I had one of these today. I was the kid who always forgot to wear green. I can hear my child-self saying to my classmates "no look, I have a green flower on my sock, it's green thread, really!" My mom always made the corned beef and cabbage, I've never tried to make it though.

I am really happy about the first day of spring coming up on Thursday, very happy about that. And Friday, Good Friday, yes, I just love it. It will be especially GOOD for this family, I think Friday is a great day to have a baby.

Friday we will decorate eggs. My children have been deprived the last few years, for some reason we have not remembered to dye the eggs until Easter had passed us by. This year we are way on top of it and have set the date.

This very COOL egg, I made myself. No really, I dyed it and poured in the wax.


OK I confess, it was in a group setting and I didn't do the prep or the melting but I think it's pretty awesome and I have managed to keep my candle egg out of the hands of little children. It was surprisingly uncomplicated. Next year I think I will make lots and lots of these and give them to my friends in egg cartons, seriously.

Emily is playing basketball and she is loving it. So the really cool development in our family's history this week is the basketball thing we just spent two days assembling. You know that thing with the pole and the hoop at the top, I just don't know it's real name. I'm hoping that we won't loose our basketball to the neighbor kids since I assume basketball does not involve kicking or batting them over the fence.

I tried to get a photo of Em playing in her game last week but those girls just move too fast and my little camera just isn't built for speed. I guess that's what I get for announcing to the world I like blurry pictures! That's Emily in front there running with the ball, just squint your eyes a little and you can see her clearly.


It's so much fun to watch your kids play sports. Emily has three or four more games and Sarah and Wyatt will start T-ball in April. That'll be fun because they will be on the same team, very nice!


I am loving all the blooms and blossoms this time of year, things are really greening up and it's becoming almost perfect around here weather wise. So pretty when everything comes back to life, I love love love spring, I'd say love ten more times if it weren't so silly. Who cares, I am silly and proud of it!

Speaking of greening up, today is GREEN day so I think I'll go outside and enjoy all the new green things. Maybe play a little b-ball with the kids, sounds like I know what I'm talking about, no? I AM going to get out there today, if I could only find that darn ball. Where is that ball?

Ball and thing update: I just looked over the fence, it's in the neighbors flower pot! Aw maaan! After checking the box, I can now report to you that it says "complete portable basketball system." Wyatt has now found a soccer ball and we are off to use the CPBS!

Snowtime.

Our annual weekend cabin trip in Strawberry with our friends Victor and Nena and Emma was more memorable than ever.

We got more snow time in than before, and somehow, it seemed more relaxing than the previous two years that we have rented the cabin. I'm thinking that it was because the kids are getting older and easier to manage in that away-from-home environment. Plus, we have become pretty efficient with the packing in and packing out.

It was a really busy weekend. We made three separate outings for sledding and snow play this year. Sarah won the award for most daring this year, [when you see the photos you'll know why, yikes!] We all had a blast, it was so so worth all that good effort.

Pinecrest Lake was frozen and frosty and I had time between all the snow throwing, picture taking and sliding down hills to remember my first visit there at about this same time of year with my dear old friend Sabrina. That trip was more than twenty years ago. It's also the same place we camped in our tent last June and nearby is the Girl Scout camp that my big girls and I have spent a weekend in October for the last two years. In the summer photos of the lake taken from the shoreline, you can see round white buoys in the distance and we uncovered a few of them in the snow while we were playing.

The most relaxing time for us adults is the time after the kids have their dinner, their pj's on, and begin to wind down with a movie. That's when we finally get to sit down together for good food and really enjoy the evening all together. Victor brought my most favorite thing to drink, Frangelico, and, for that, I will always be grateful. Heaven, it truly was.
After a short trip to the neighborhood ski resort, the men think it's time to get onto the slopes with the kids, [ahem] so we'll see what happens next year.

The only kink in the goodness of it all was that crazy mixed up daylight savings meanie! [Who's idea was it to move it up to early March and what are they trying to do to us?] It stole an hour from us as we were trying to enjoy our Sunday morning in the mountains. We packed up and cleaned up the cabin with so much speed it left me spinning. Then it was a short drive to another little mountain town called Twain Harte for mass. I admit, when I visit a church I have never been to it sort of leaves me with a different feeling about the experience of the mass, somewhat more inspired, as if I have seen a new beautiful light in my faith that wasn't there before. Lovely, for sure.

One more stop in Sonora for pizza and ice cream was just like good butter cream frosting on the chocolate cake. The cake here of course is a perfect weekend [only one or two meltdowns] with my sweet family and my very good friends. Happy, I am.

Getting great pictures with my tired and battle scarred little camera makes me happy too.

I Like the Blurry Ones.

Of me anyway. There is something soothing about them, without the hard sharpness of reality. The clarity is still there, in fact sometimes more so. They can tell more of a story about a person than the perfectly focused ones.

Today, my four year old photographer decided it was a good day to take pictures of me. He did a fine job for sure. A black and white photo has such a nice texture, sort of dreamy by default. Hiding us and highlighting us all at once.

These are my favorite non-blurry ones [or rather, the ones I don't hate.] It sounds funny, "Oh look! Here are my favorite pictures of ME!" Whatever. I am comfortable posting pictures of myself without going over the top with giddiness. Hee hee hee.

Why do we have a hard time with pictures of ourselves? Maybe it's the vulnerability it leaves us with. It's a permanent record, a you that it's OK for others to hold and stare at or find flaw with. When people look at their own image, it seems to bring out all that self-conscious junk that weighs us down.

I can honestly say, that at this point, at this age, I am more comfortable in my own skin than any other time of my life. I just know I'll never be perfect [and don't want to be], I'm not so young anymore [and don't want to be], funny little flaws all abound [not going there hee hee hee!]

I still do like the blurry ones. Thank you my little sWeet photographer, you did a good job.

Princess Update.

This week last year I took this photo of Sarah [we call her princess because she thinks she is one and it makes her smile.] It's hard to share it because it's just plain hard to view myself and to remember the heartache that we felt for her last year.

This time last year we were busy ripping out carpet and visiting specialists, just trying everything we could think of to ease the grip of this eczema. They say that it's inherited, but neither Tony or myself can come up with a single relative that we know with it now or who had it as a child [if you happen to be related to me and you know otherwise, I would love to hear from you.]

Three of my four children have eczema. I know there are many kids who have it much worse than mine do. I am thankful it isn't worse and that we have the tools and resources we need to manage it. This year Wyatt is doing great, but Eva has a good portion of her body affected [off and on.] Basically, what it means is that they are uncomfortable some of the time, sometimes more of the time, with lots and lots of scratching [and whining] going on. And, it means we spend a good chunk of time on skin care regimens, from morning to bedtime we have rituals. I have also heard that some kids grow out of it. I'm praying for that!

I can't tell you what a relief it is to see her look so good at the most difficult time of year for her skin. Just look at her! Look at the difference! Ah...but for those little hands.