The Garden Show

AHHHHHHH!!! That's where I've been lately. It's birthday season in our house. It's also birthday party year this year. Could likely be why my neck and shoulder have been strained and refuse to turn or lift without pain for the last four weeks.

The good news is we are almost to the end of birthday season and the back half of the birthdays are way less intense than the first half. I see the light at the end of the tunnel, baby!

And the best news of all? It's Easter weekend! So thankful for time to step away from the busyness and reflect on the significance of Jesus coming to die on a cross for a sinner such as I. A beautiful, stunning truth that brings everything else into perspective and puts it all in its place. Inspired again to focus on the things that really matter for eternity and let go of the rest. And trying to teach that to our kids as well.

Hope your Easter weekend is wonderful.

And now, I must do what I often do here- rewind a bit in the never ending effort of trying to catch up. So you'll see our Easter happenings sometime around Mother's Day. Ha ha.

Allie's class at school had their spring performance called the "The Garden Show", last month just before birthday season hit.

They had two showings, one for the whole school, and one for parents the next day. The parent one tends to be pretty intense with everyone pushing forward to take pictures and videos, so I figured Lauren and Jonah had a better chance of actually seeing the show if we went to both. And since we're there every morning waiting for 45 minutes between the older kids' drop off time and Lauren's class start time, we were the first ones to arrive.

The peanut gallery was getting a little antsy.

Thankfully, it wasn't too long before the show was underway with an alien invasion!

And there's our little flower right in the middle!

"Each of us is a flower, growing in life's garden..."

Guess who was able to join us for the show the next day?

A closer up shot of Allie taken by another parent.

Allie wondered aloud to me before school if her daddy would bring her flowers like he did last year. Wonder indeed, little daughter of his.

Super cute group shot of the flowers taken by another parent.

Ever the big sister as she led little brother to her "cast party" in their classroom. Seriously this boy has a rude awakening in store over what school is really like.

SO thankful for the sweet friends she's made this year. No drama, just good times. It's what second grade should be.

This girl. Love her so.

The Ballet Performance

Ahh.  So behind.  But now looking back on all the December pics, I remember why I'm so behind.  It was a crazy month.  Full of fun.  Busy.  Thankful for a slower pace now.

So Allie's taken a ballet class this fall.

Here's our girl.  And yes, that would be another little ballerina climbing the pole behind her.  This is a very serious ballet class, in case you couldn't tell.

And here's our girl with the reindeer antlers I had no idea she was supposed to have.  Thankfully another mom had an extra pair.  (What mom has extra pairs of antlers on her??  Not me, that's for sure.)  I depend on the kindness of other moms, is all I have to say about that.  (And why yes, that would be the ballet teacher's son perched atop that punching bag looking thing behind her.)

Comparing antlers.

She loved her antlers.  Or maybe was so relieved to have antlers on her head, rather than be the only one antler-less.  In any case, she didn't mind a bit that they were brown.

Allie's enthralled audience.

One more rehearsal.

With her game face on.

Dancing to the Beach Boys' "Little Saint Nick".

An Interlude of Sorts

I must interrupt these family Thanksgiving posts (as well as my current blogging dry spell) to post a most important event in my girl's life.

Here she is before...

And here she is after!

She got braces in between the two weekends my side of the family were here so just wanted to make mention of it because you'll see her colorful teeth in the rest of the pics.  So proud of how well she's done with getting them put on, taking care of them by herself, answering all the questions from her classmates (she's the first one to get them in her class), and how tough she's been while getting used to them along with the occasional canker sores that have popped up.  She's definitely a tough cookie and suddenly seems so much more grown-up now.  Wah.  Happy, sad, happy, sad.

Time with Daddy

Phil recently purchased two tickets for each of the remaining UCLA football home games.  I was puzzled.  Two tickets... six of us... I'm admittedly not the math whiz of the family, but this one surely did not compute.  He reasoned that it was way too expensive and not really feasible for all of us to go to all the games so he figured for future seasons that we could make it to one game all together, and the rest he could go for one-on-one time with each of the kids or sell the ones he couldn't make due to work.

I thought the one-on-one time was an especially great idea.

And our little Allie-girl got to be the first to go on a UCLA daddy date.

They were running a little late (and hit major traffic on the way over) so we took just a couple pictures before they hit the road.

Phil texted me a couple pictures once they got there.  Allie was all smiles and was a trooper even though they didn't get back to almost midnight (!) due to more traffic on the way back.

She is totally her daddy's girl.

So fun to see our kids getting to spend such special time with their daddy.  So glad he thought of this!

She Decided

A few months back, Allie asked me when I got my ears pierced.  I told her I was nine.  After considering my answer for a little while, she asked when she could get her ears pierced.  I told her it's kind of a big responsibility so she had to be old enough to be able to take care of her ears and not let them get infected.  We talked a little about the process and the ear care that followed.  She asked if she could do it when she turned nine.  I said sure.

Fast forward another month or two and she asked if she could do it when she turned eight.  I said sure.

Fast forward again and she asked if she could maybe it do it at seven.  I asked if she really felt ready for it and if she could be responsible enough to remember to take care of them.  She decided to think about it for a while.

After a couple days of careful consideration, she said she felt ready.  But asked if I would help her put the "medicine" on them.  I said I would help her but she would have to be really good about remembering to remind me.  And that I'd talk it over with her daddy first.  She seemed happy with this answer.

After talking about it and seeing that she didn't change her mind, we decided to let her do it.  But we had to wait for a good opportunity to arise.  She asked if her favorite auntie Jami (and uncle James!) could come, too.

So, the perfect time to do it came right after our dinosaur hunt at the Natural History Museum.  Because guess who came over to spend some time with us and agreed to come with us on this special little outing?

Marching in like a girl on a mission.

Looking over the earring choices.

This was serious business.

This is my hubs, y'all.  This would be the opposite of serious business.

Getting nervous but quietly determined.

She watched the earring lady's every move.

We went with the two piercers at once option.

One...

Two...

Three!

And done!  (Aw, check out her daddy behind her.)

And a lollipop for being so brave.  She immediately asked if she could have one for her sister, too.

Then she ran out to show her daddy.

Love this one.

Love this one, too.  (Thanks Jami, for taking the pic!)

She was all smiles all the way home, too.  (Thanks for taking this one too, Jami!)


And I'm very happy to report that she was super awesome about remembering to remind me to clean her ears.  She'd come to me three times a day with solution bottle and q-tip in hand along with a happy grin.  She did great.  Just like I knew she would.