Just something

I did a search this morning for "day dress with sleeves."  This is what came up:

Is finding something with sleeves really so hopeless?  Or perhaps my computer is channeling Memorial Day....

Mother's Day

Do you remember when you were a kid and you only saw your mom as Your Mom?  And then you grew up and realized she is a real person with real feelings and a past that *gasp* did not include you?  Yes, it's nice to come through to the other side and get to know and understand your mom better from an adult's perspective.  One thing that helped me over the years was going through family photos and not only hearing stories but seeing my mom as a real person.  Here are a few of my favorites:

In front of their house (or possibly her grandparents' house) in Denver in 1944. She would have been four years old. 

The little accordion!  I love it!

Mom at the Grand Canyon in 1948.  They lived mostly in the southwest while she was a child.  My grandpa loved taking pictures.  My mom says he would often make her stand in precarious places for the best shot.  

 

This was taken at Bear Lake when my parents were engaged, spring 1964.  My mom's hair.  I adore it.  She got teased a lot about being a redhead, though.

My parents coming out of the temple after they were married.  Looks like back in 1964 they didn't make quite the production out of weddings that we do.  They just look so fresh and happy.



This is fall of 1964, I think.  My mom with her father-in-law and two new siblings-in-law at the farm in Idaho.  I don't know why I like this one so much, but I feel like I can almost tell what my mom's thinking in this photo.  

My mom expecting her first child in 1966.  She always dresses so classy. 

 

 Our family with the Luke grandparents in 1978.  This is the mom of my childhood, the mom I remember.

 

Happy Mother's Day, Mom!

MIA

I know, I've been MIA lately.  It's suddenly been very busy around here!  I did celebrate a birthday last week and as a gift, C made me a video.  It is awesome.  I will try and figure out how to put it on here.  He even did an outtake reel.  He cracks me up.

So I have not "worked"  - as in a paid job - since I was expecting J.  Yes, that's approximately nine years ago.  Last year, I earned my first dollars since then doing some accompanying work - once for violin students, once for a vocalist, and once for a saxophonist.  Last week, someone commissioned me to make more mermaidens (I sold these at the school auction).  Who would have guessed that I would end up making money on the two things I resisted learning most as a teenager?  Sewing and piano.  Ha! 

We had a LOT of rain last week.  A LOT.  There was some serious flooding around here.  It was pretty exciting.  The boys' dam filled up and someone really loved jumping in the reservoir. 

 She adores these boots.  She wears them pretty much every day.  I will be so sad when she outgrows them.

Spies

So C discovered someone had been sneaking Easter candy and left the wrappers behind the pedestal sink in the powder room.  He decided to set up a sting.  He put a motion sensing camera in the bathroom and waited.  And it worked!  He got a picture of the culprit!  You better watch out, trying to sneak candy at our house.  You never know who's watching....

Easter

We did all the traditional things for Easter, including coloring eggs, hunting them in the backyard, going to church, and eating ham for Sunday dinner.  I really need to come up with something unique for our Easter celebrations.

We didn't have much luck with Easter photos, alas.

Monday, the boys also had school off so we drove out to Harper's Ferry, WV.  We hired a tour guide for G's parents and friends of theirs who are missionaries nearby while G took the kids around on their own tour.  He had done the full tour with the Boy Scouts a couple of years ago.  I love Harper's Ferry.  It's got a long and interesting history, the scenery is gorgeous and there are a variety of options of things to do, depending on the attention span of your kids!  Plus, as the guide said, up to 100 trains a day come through and our kids LOVED that.

Watching the train

From Jefferson Rock

We decided to stop by Antietam on the way back.  I remember it being doable in a short time, but that's because the last time we went, there was no M and the boys were really little so we just let them run around outside.  There is a nice visitor's center with a small museum and an audio tour that would be fun to do, but everyone was tired by then, so we watched a film in the visitor's center, walked around outside for a bit to look at monuments and cannons, then drove over to the observation tower.  I just realized I took the other pictures there with my phone, so this is it:
 

 

They were pretty tired by the time we got home, but I'm really glad we went.  I'm looking forward to more adventures this summer, now that we have no naps and no diapers to contend with!

Spring Break

By the second week of April, we were finally enjoying spring-like weather.  G's parents came into town and we were looking forward to a trip to southern NJ for spring break. 

Before we left though, we stopped by the elementary school for J's Bio-Wax museum.  All the 3rd graders researched an important person (mostly from history), dressed up, and "became" that person Friday afternoon.  They were frozen until we pushed their buttons, then they gave a short talk about themselves.  Can you tell who J was?

Most people couldn't.  He was the Swamp Fox, Francis Marion!  I love Francis Marion.  I had a huge crush on him in high school (I know; that's probably why I didn't date much...) so I was very pleased when J came up with that idea all on his own.

He did awesome, and it was fun to go around and see who all the other kids picked.  There were a lot of Rosa Parks and George Washingtons, of course, several Oprah Winfreys, two girls who picked Elizabeth I, and a great Elvis who was Indian.  Awesome.

Monday morning, we packed up and headed for the beach.  We got there in time to run around in the sand for a while in the afternoon.  It was nice and shallow, so there was a lot of beach at low tide.  We saw some snails crawling around ("Those shells are moving by themselves, Mama!") and found some really nice shells.  The boys loved that there was "quicksand" that they kept sinking into.  Yuck.  I don't know if that was oil or what but it was not sand or normal dirt.

But we were lucky to have that afternoon because Tuesday it POURED rain.  During one break in the storm, we went out to Cape May lighthouse and climbed the 199 steps to the top.  The boys loved that, especially the gale force winds at the top.  They chased some waves at the beach while the grandparents and I took M into the little museum which was full of slithery creatures that she adored.

Lighthouse hair

We got home in time for the storm to hit again.  We were glad we weren't in a tent.  The temperatures dropped dramatically, so we went to the zoo.  It's a pretty nice zoo but because of the cold, all the animals the kids wanted to see were in their houses, so we missed the snow leopards, giraffes, lions, the tiger, and most of the birds and smaller animals.  :(

M really wanted to pet this swan.  It really wanted to nip her.

J really, really liked the aviary.

Then the stomach flu hit.  So Thursday, G graciously stayed home with the three youngest, and I took C and the grandparents to take a trolley tour of Cape May and another tour of a Victorian house.  That was really interesting, and the architecture in the town is adorable.  That's what comes of a resort town built by rich vacationers!

All in all, it was a nice week and the kids loved the house and the beach and all the time they got to watch PBSKids while stuck inside...  I am still hoping that next spring break (after two in a row spent shivering), we get some nicer weather!

Shenanigans in the back seat.  The reason they rarely are allowed to sit together.

C was glad he brought a tripod.  He had fun taking pictures from the balcony.

Scenes from Conference Weekend

Just some images from our General Conference weekend (see lds.org).....

 

J fixed the bridge he built (that someone sat on) and it went back to work transporting cars over the lava.

 We made our traditional conference bread.  So yummy.

 M helped me roll out the dough and C photobombed.

S checked our line on Family Search and even though this image is hard to read, he discovered that we are descended from Adam and Eve.  He and J like to look through all the lines and see how far back they can go.  This is pretty much the end.  :)

 Here's the conference bread, in its cinnamony sugary goodness.

After weeks of barely letting me put in ponytails, M decided she wanted her hair like Elsa's Sunday afternoon.  Umm.... My braiding skills are a little rusty, but it turned out better than I thought it would and she felt like Elsa.

A little between-sessions game playing....

I didn't get a photo of the coloring, coloring, coloring, and conference bingo playing that went on.  But trust me, there was a lot of that too.  :)