Perfect Weekend.

My firm gave everyone Thursday and Friday off, an accountant's holiday after a busy tax season. It was nice having the extra day off. Yesterday I bribed the kids into picking weeds with the reward of lunch at our favorite new ice cream parlor. They didn't do a very good job on the weeds honestly but I wanted to go to lunch and have ice cream so bad that I let it slide. We had a great Good Friday yesterday and that was a yummy part of it. My friend Kim works at the ice cream parlor and she made me the most wonderful sundae with extra hot fudge just the way I like it, I was in ice cream heaven!

After I don't even want to tell you how many times he asked, I finally got over to the tennis courts this morning with Wyatt. It's been the last thing he says before bed every night for like I said I will not tell you how long. "Ma? When are we gonna go play tennis?" Well lookie here, I finally dragged my lazy buttons off to the court this morning with my poor little tennis starved boy. I totally forgot how much I love that game. Wyatt was the happiest kid on the planet, he kept telling me that this was the best day of his life! The kid has talent too, I'm totally putting him in lessons! It may have been the best morning of my life too.

After tennis with Wyatt, I took my three most recent born to an egg coloring party at a friend's house. That is another thing that I often neglect. It'll be the day after Easter, or many days after, and my kid's will say to me, "we didn't color our eggs yet!" So we will do it many days after, or not at all. Funny, that happens in the fall with our pumpkins sometimes too! Bad mama--not this year!











This is the first year that we are celebrating, with our presence all three days at church anyway, the Tridium. Sarah was an altar server at the Holy Thursday mass and yesterday, Emily was Mary in a live reenactment of the stations of the cross, despite the drizzly rain it was beautiful. The young people do such an amazing job of the portrayal of Jesus' passion. Emily was extremely nervous when she was getting ready to go to the church and was getting very cold feet, but she pulled it off. I was super proud of her!





Tonight Sarah is serving again at the Easter vigil and this will be the first time we attend this mass since before we had children, I think. To me this is the most beautiful time of year.

I walk around the house nowadays and laugh/cry to myself, I am not even trying to pretend that my house is clean anymore. And worse, I'm trying to blame it on my job. I think I have reached the peak of housekeeping chaos/ridiculousness, with having four little pigs mess-loving kids (and a husband) and trying to teach them to clean up after themselves and do their part of making our home a nice, clean place to live. So far it's not working out so good, so very very not so good. Eva is especially hard to convince and she tries to use her evil sweet five year old charms to wriggle her way out of everything! She's a menace I tell you! I don't need a Dennis when I have an Eva! Here is a perfect example: she recently had a friend over and her room was as if a super-natural disaster had occurred. I asked her to clean it, and to that she proclaimed that it was obviously her friend's fault and made a sign to put on her door that says, in her cute little bubble letters, "NO PEOPLE ALLOWED or FRIENDS," and to her this solved the problem completely!



Happy Easter. I hope it's beautiful for you too, with all your people and your friends, even if they tear up your house. Let it be, enjoy the moment, and clean up sometime afterwards.

4.8.11

Some tidbits and goings on around here:

I love my job! So far, all is well and I'm enjoying it more than I thought I would. I'm really learning a lot, making my way, and trying to bring value. It still seems funny that I have somewhere to go everyday after the kids are dropped off at school. I did take an awfully long break from working. At least once a day I stop to look around my office, and think of pinching myself.

Wyatt played a game last night that didn't end until 9:30 with record low temps. It was freezing, and way past his bedtime, but he still played great and his coach gave him the game ball!



Tony took time off work this week to build the raised beds for our garden. After two years of talking about it, it's finally getting done! He even built me a special bed to grow flowers for cutting and a nice big compost box. My kids and the neighbor kids are absolutely having a blast with all the shovels and the mountains of dirt.




Tony is such a good sport about it, he lets everyone help!

We were sick off and on for a couple of weeks which kept us away, but we finally made it over to visit our friends and see baby Lucas. Or as I like to call him, the little old man. Isn't it funny how newborns look like little old men? Irrespective of that, he is absolutely one of the cutest babies I have ever seen, I couldn't take my eyes off of him. Such a blessing! I'm proud to know you Lucas.

Yep, like I said before, the kids have been in the pool. Here's some action packed proof from the first day of April.



Seeing the kids in the water again makes me miss my dad. The time he spent with us last summer really made a strong positive impression on my kids. They talk about him often, especially when they think of the pool or swimming, they spent every day out in the water with him. I talked to him today briefly and I told him so. I also told him to think about coming out again this summer. He said he would try and he told me to tell my kids that he is anxious to get back out here and play monkey in the middle with them again in the swimming pool. I hope so.

Emily is getting confirmed next month. She is really an amazing and beautiful young lady and surprises me almost daily with how she is growing into a thoughtful, compassionate person. I know a few of you that just know her in the context of bossy big sister might have a hard time seeing her that way [sometimes I struggle to get past that too], but she has many facets, lots of them brilliant.

Ok April, you've had your break. Now for goodness sake warm up a little!

Six People in March.

Not great. I don't love it (of me), but it'll have to do. Great picture of my husband, right? Time was running out on me once again, I asked all of them to stop what they were doing and get outside with whatever they had in their hands, on the 31st of course. My family is so wonderfully considerate and patient with my crazy camera habits and goofy ideas! Wyatt ran back to put on a shirt but it was a pretty accurate snapshot of an ordinary late afternoon weekday, when things were finally warming up around here. The kids have been in the pool almost every day in April. Though it's much much much too cold for me. They only last about five or ten minutes before they're begging me for the towels that they forgot to bring outside with them. Where the heck did March go anyway?