Nobody is sick, correct? You are all headed to school after breakfast? Okay, pound the Fat Tuesday goodies!
Rose: “Slurp away girls. I’ll be going in for seconds before you two are done wasting your time with the cocoa.”
12 hours later, gathered again at table. This time to eat through a poorly planned, and let’s face it, sadly looking King Cake. The purple frosting did not quite mix up as desired. More of a festive gray.
I meant to remember the frosting color on the baby’s section so we wouldn’t be “forced” into eating through all of it…
The actresses feigning frustration.
Darn! A winner!
They found their Playmobile baby Jesus. And the decoy. A little too quickly for my tastes.
Lucy carried Fat Tuesday into Ash Wednesday.
Lucy: “Ahhhhh, the binding, it’s like a fine crust.”
Lucy: “What? Does this count as a meal?”
Lucy: “I’m not trying to be accusatory, and neither should you considering it’s Lent, but why haven’t you made this one? It’s absolutely delicious!”
Lucky for us, a good Lent earned an elaborate, and colorful, St. Patrick’s celebration.
I can’t remember if Rose was cooking sick… or forgot her mask was still on after school.
Belle/Cate: “Saints alive!”
Yes, Cate, Saints are alive!!! Excellent catechesis!
Now some liturgical music…
and wrap it all up in gloriously green packaging.
Hopping over our Spring Break road trip and Cate’s 6th birthday for the moment, we close with a few pictures from our Easter celebrations.
Early bird gets the egg…
the book…
AHHHHHH NOT THE CANDY!!!! Drop the camera she can reach the candy!!!
Lucy: “If I got it once… I’ll get it again.”
Lucy: “Just need a few measured lunges…”
“and a deep breath…”
Lucy: “This isn’t even close to over.”
She’s right. It’s only just beginning.
Cate presiding over the dullest egg hunt in history.
Clearly just a cover, as the mastermind plots her next candy coup.
Me: Lucy, sure. But the others? Jane’s waited ten years to realize her dream, they weren’t going to carry on all night! And if they weren’t internally motivated, think of the girl staying over! Vetted for four years, principal’s house… sung to sleep by the school music teacher…
This is how I found the bedroom in the morning!
Not to say there weren’t some bumps in the road after breakfast. Me, alone, with 5 girls on wheels…
Picture Lucy and I stranded on the curb (having forfeit my shoes to the rollerblader), wrapped in blankets and looking homeless in 25 mph winds. Naturally, the girls built a fort out of earshot and refused to look in our direction and risk being called home.
Thankfully, one still pledges a strong, loving allegiance, with an affirmation cycle every 20 minutes.
Just the messenger we needed to get home!
Even if it meant taking part of the fort.
Sleepover first impressions were nothing like animal first impressions… oh Rosie!
Changed by First Grade.
Rose is busy planning a farm of her own one day.
She’s even asking when she can start riding lessons.
There is still some unresolved tension…
but she is challenging her comfort zone little by little.
Personally, the dung heap just over her shoulder was outside my comfort zone…
but if you surveyed the condition of the riding facility, well, it’s a horse blinder type of place.
Case in point, I am not saying how many litters we’ve seen from the dog in the last 12 months.
So many firsts… it’s time for seconds!
The smile is fake. Rose raged over the pavers. As if you have anything to fear?! You are already missing teeth!
We needed to take her rollerblading the week before when the dangler turned gray, having clung on far too long.
Teeth are coming and going all the time at our house.
2nd tooth lost, eventually. She grinned, and beared it!
Second tooth gained, and wielded…
A 2nd place!
3rd string? Cate joined tennis lessons!
3rd degree?
41st
C.S. Lewis’ memoire on his conversion to Christianity is titled, “Surprised by Joy.” Mine would be, “Surprised by Domesticity.” I never imagined something so seemingly unremarkable, could be so enormously satisfying. Even on days my coffee tastes like hairspray, I love (Jane), love (Rose), love (Cate), love (Lucy) raising these girls!
Lucy: “Did someone order another Christmas while I was asleep?”
Lucy: “I wonder… could it have been that call I made earlier…”
A lot (of love from Grandma) to process.
Once you pop… you can’t stop.
Seriously.
They felt the love, and Cate a double dose as she dove into her her first school project: Valentines!
The other two felt something as well… craft envy.
Jane heard the snipping from homework headquarters.
The coloring room quickly became a battlefield as the bigs launched a V-Day invasion.
They couldn’t give Cate enough pointers/help/directives.
Another week went by and their teachers sent out the instructions/request. Interestingly, Cate was not offered a seat at the table. Pity. She churned out some great cards!
Rose added hearts with happy, carefree, first-grader abandon.
Jane worried she was too old to pass them out but eventually came to her good senses. SO WHAT! Go down in popularity in a blaze of sticker glory!
Finding a balance as they grow too fast is giving us plenty of grays, enough to share with Cate for her 100th day.
Her original idea:
We reached a granny-chic compromise, so long as she could wear Rose’s dress, and take Lucy. Turns out she was completely in character… for dress like your mom day.
Gray hair, crazy hair,
pulling hair…
Pulling punches?!
No! Pulling your leg. And hers. ALL DAY.
She knows she’s scooting towards a forbidden target. See how she plays dead when caught?
Very clever, this one.
Too clever.
But still some room to grow, faster.
Back to the jumper.
Very soon she’ll be ready to take some giant leaps with her beloved sisters!
it was this morning! But setting an alarm? And hoofing it?
That could only mean one thing… America bound!
But not before a mammoth day/night covid certified, blowout fortified, travel bonanza.
I thought for sure my oxygen mask would drop from the ceiling. It’s never a good time for diarrhea, but there is such thing as a bad time. Lived it.
The girls piled into their chariot transport headed from Miami to Ft. Myers. And the well-worn phrase, “They lived happily ever after…” just about sums it up.
Ken and I would shoulder the lost luggage, jet lag,
and a return flight waiting for us like the grim reaper.
At least we didn’t know at that point we would be two weeks in base imposed Omicron quarantine. And to think, we took so many precautions! Not really. You just can’t believe what kids dig up to pass the time waiting for traffic lights to change.
Kids.
The girls spent the majority of their time at Nana and Papa’s house, save for a few trips to search out Florida’s famous wildlife.
The alligator count kept the kids interested…
while the color printout could not make up for the lack of manatees,
and glaring December sun.
It was time to herd them back inside.
Lucy: “What’s this creature? It looks like an adult… and yet its face is wide-eyed and animated! What a rare species!”
They were perfectly content at the pandemic compound where they loved to tea party,
fish????
Truly!
sew,
manicure,
Barbie,
swim,
and…
It was important to keep a low-ish profile, we were saving our immune systems for a final Florida HURRAH!
Santa (ahem, or Papa)
would hardly approve of all of the pre-and post-Christmas antics.
In fact, as Christmas morning got underway…
the girls looked over and cast off the teasers like they were handed lumps of coal.
They could not understand why the man who supposedly knows all… would gift them Mickey Mouse themed trifles?! Did he lose our letters? Is he deranged? Where are the presents?!
It looked like they would actually find more pleasure in giving than receiving this year.
With the sleigh sinking we thought a fun puzzle would lighten the mood.
A gift that’s not even here? No thanks you two! Hisses and heckles were moments away.
It was time for Santa to intervene…
with a trip to the Magic Kingdom!
Wake up, Lucy! We are going to Disney World!!
And the surprises would just keep coming. Uncles and cousins gathered for a family-filled home for Christmas moment.
Kid life… segueing from one Happiest Place on Earth, to the next.
The crowds were REAL, the lines were long, the girls were… ENCHANTED!!!
From beginning
to end.
They gave everything they had,
and it was exactly the wish upon a star kind of day we hoped to give the girls.
Just after Disney we said our last goodbyes
even slipping in an extra special visit enroute to the airport.
My our kids have grown! Only love and longing for our cherished PR friends.
The bond is stronger than the long distance and what tremendous encouragement to hug my kindred mom in the parenting trenches,
pouring it out day after day for her amazing kiddos. What we wouldn’t trade to be neighbors again! These two shed the awkwardness within minutes and were ready to pick up where they left off six years ago.
But the life we are called to, was calling us home.
Where we were greeted by three recently career-inspired kids, recognizable only by their unremitting energy. Who else would be amped to role play the minute we got home from 24 hours of travel? Must be ours.
Ken: “I want to crash. Really, I do.”
Jane: “Just in case, we have to get this seat belt fastened.”
No rest for the weary! Mr. Super Immunity nursed us all through Omicron… it must have been the life vest they gave him.
New Shooters 2022-2023 