Rosemary is FIVE!

There are no words to explain how wild it is to have a five-year-old. Rosemary's fifth birthday was a Car Wash themed party, complete with car-wash hand-made by J and Grampy, plus plenty of sponges and buckets and baby pools for all kinds of car washing fun. It was a BLAST.

Memorial Weekend Trip to Ohio

For Memorial Weekend Surf and Cali had a wedding to attend in Ohio, so they called around to see if any of the rest of us could head up that same weekend. Sure enough, we were able to wrangle an almost-complete family reunion out of it. So J and I packed up the kids and headed to Ohio as soon as the semester ended in order to meet up with Surf, Cali, Li'l T, L, A&M, G, Trucker, and our newest nephew that I don't think I've named on here yet but will call C, Geg, and my parents.

On top of that, A&M had C baptized at my parents' church (a lot of the cousins have actually been baptized there, it's almost tradition now to bring the babies to Ohio to be baptized).

AND, on top of that! Cali's parents happened to also have a wedding (they live in Florida) and Cali has a bunch of family in Ohio too, so my parents had a baptism party at which they invited Cali's family to visit, and it was really, really nice to get to see our extended families--my aunt, uncle, and cousin who drove up for the day, as well as M's parents who drove up for the baptism, and Cali's parents who happened to also be travelling nearby.

This was the first time we'd met L and he is a complete CHARMER! R was absolutely enthralled by him and cried and cried when we left and had to say goodbye, because she was going to miss him so much.

Trucker continues to melt my heart as the biggest imp in the family and that's saying a lot because there is quite a lot of impish behavior among these kids!

Here's Li'l T and RUS chowing down on goodies from the market.

Grandpa with RUS, Trucker, and R during the baptism picnic.

Cali's mother with L, who, at 8 months, was just starting to eat table food. I think this was his first taste of watermelon!

 My parents. LOVE THEM.

My mom and my uncle W and aunt C. This was another huge treat--getting to see members of my family that I see far too rarely.

A with two of his boys. I love this picture!

 M, her mother, and Cali with C and L just after the baptism.

Surf and Li'l T, who really did not want me to take his picture (he was actually hiding behind the hat most of the time!)

Florida!!!

I had the opportunity to visit my friend D in Florida, and it was so luxurious and decadent, exactly the vacation I needed as I moved out of the weekly routines of the semester and into a summer schedule.

I wasn't planning for it to be a vacation--she was due with her second baby any day and I wanted to be there when the baby was born and to help in any way I could once he arrived. Unfortunately he didn't come until late into the night on the same day I had to leave to come back to Delaware. I was really disappointed to miss meeting him, but there will be other opportunities.

Because I went by myself, and J stayed home and watched the kids, my few days in Florida were really an indulgent vacation for me. I stayed with D and her son at their condo just across the street from the beach and complete with pool. I did plenty of swimming in the pool and on the beach, gathered a bunch of shells to bring home for the kids, and got to spend one day at the Tampa Zoo during their $5 Sunday special.

Some of you will laugh, but I put this picture on here because there are always all kinds of things that people reference that you just can't really picture until you've actually seen them. This is one of those things: Spanish moss. It hangs from trees all over the area and I found it to be the most fascinating thing. 

Best picture I managed to get of D's son A, who is only a few months older than RUS. He is the sweetest--and most impish!--boy and it was so much fun spending time with him. He knows how to do things with an iPhone that I haven't even figured out yet!!

These last two pictures are photographic proof of how hard it is to get an almost-three-year-old to smile in pictures!!!

Happy Mother's Day!

As always, J and the kids spoiled me on Mother's Day. J made my favorite chocolate chocolate chip pancakes and he and the kids completely surprised me with this ginormous card hanging over our kitchen doorway in the morning!

Sunny April Afternoon at the Neighborhood Park

 

Spring in my Neighborhood

Easter Morning

Easter Basket Cupcakes!

Dyeing Eggs!

We dyed our Easter eggs tonight, with only two egg mishaps--once when RUS got too excited and leaned on the table while holding an egg in his hand (oops!) and once when R colored on her egg a little too hard with her crayon (uh-oh!)--so there are 10 gorgeous eggs waiting in our fridge for the Easter bunny to hide on Sunday!

Spring Celebration

R's pre-kindergarten class at day care had a Spring Celebration today. She was so excited to share with us the basket she made and decorated for the celebration that she came running out of bed to tell me that she wanted to keep the basket in her room. I decided right then and there that I ought to take a picture to document how awesome the basket was and throw it up on the blog. So here you go!

GUESS WHO the kids saw at school today!!

Yep, Elmo and Super Grover!!!!! You can see part of Super Grover behind Elmo in the top pic. A mom of another girl in RUS's class headed over to the school to see the visit and shared these pictures of RUS with me. RUS and her daughter (the girl in the yellow shirt) are BFFs. They have been in the same class since RUS started day care at 10 months old and they hold hands and hug whenever they see each other. It's adorable.

Anyway, RUS was so excited to tell us all about his time with Elmo and Super Grover today! R also got to see them, but I don't have pictures of the pre-kindergarteners with the characters--this is just the toddler group.

According to R, they did exercises and everyone did the Hokey Pokey together! And then they all got to give them hugs. RUS informed us he "not give Super Grover hug" although I'm not sure if that was intentional on his part or just because in the interest of time they only hugged one character or what.

 I absolutely LOVE how up-close and personal the kids were able to get!!!!!!

What's Been Going on With Us?

Tulips and daffodils on my walk to school the other day.

So. J and I have both been really consumed with life and work and that hasn't seemed to leave much room for introspection and sharing on the blog, and I apologize for that, not only because I like hearing from all of you who read the blog and keep up with our lives this way, but also because it was our high-tech version of a photo album.

I'm slightly worried I'll end up being one of those moms who keeps a photo album for the first 4 years of my kids' lives and then everything else goes undocumented!! I love looking at old pictures and reading the old stories. I have just had to let some things go in the last month and unfortunately, keeping up with our lives in pictures and stories was that thing. I'm going to throw up some posts now, all recent, because when I wasn't blogging, I also wasn't taking any pictures, either. I feel like my memories are all tied up in physical reminders--if I don't take a picture of what I've done, I fear I won't remember it later.

Love is . . . Reading with Grandparents

Old MacDonald Had a Farm

R at 2 years and 4 months old.

RUS at 2 years and 4 months old.

Visit Day at R's New School

R just had her visit day at her new school--we are enrolling her in a private school near us. And as part of the process for parents of determining whether the school is a good fit or not, they schedule what they call a "Visit Day," where the child comes to "visit" school and spends the day with their new class.

R came home with this assignment she'd written, including writing all of our ages alongside our names and pictures. I do not think she received any help with any of it, so we were all very impressed with her writing and illustrating!

Long story short, she loved her visit day. She made a star constellation viewer and measured her shadow in the morning and again in the afternoon to see the difference in length, and had a soft pretzel for a snack. She came home all excited to start kindergarten already!