We had a cake for Sybil's birthday on Easter, when we invited the fanily over for dinner.

Boy cousin shenanigans

Claire had some half days this week, so she had one of her besties over. 

Claire has been getting into skateboarding lately. She and another friend of hers skated to McD's and have also gone to the skate park a few times within the past few weeks. She also skates to soccer practice now.

Last night, Claire had a sleepover at my parents' house with her cousin Esie. One of the things Claire enjoyed most was the car ride back with my dad who spoke to her about MIT (a school she is interested in) and his medical experiments on rabbits.

Iris had a sleepover with her 2 besties. 

When David came home with a Charger for the weekend, the girls giggled,

 ran outside, and took selfies, of course.

Hanging at the mall: They went off by themselves and bought face masks, 

tried on clothes, and got free ice water and "puppicinos" at Starbucks for their dogs.

One of my special moments of the weekend was going to the wedding of a dear friend of mine. 

She and her son lived with us for a little while soon after she graduated from high school. They got married and then Victor was baptized right after.

Beautiful family:

 

Easter morning

It is Easter morning. As always, I woke up hours before others. They stayed up late, watching "Campeones" last night. My movie nap was punctuated with laughter--they said the movie was hilarious. The following pic is from April fools morning. Iris taped a Barbie to the back of David's rental car so that it looked like he ran over an inked woman when he backed up and the reverse camera turned on (notice her face-tattoos). 

I surmise that she is currently working the Scottsdale Road and Hayden Intersection.

We have started the "goodbye sleepovers." 

Claire invited some of her best school friends for a final slumber party.

Since it was April 1st we ate dinner with strange utensils.

Their favorite place to party that evening was the rooftop. 

Honestly, I feel like this house isn't ours anymore (only a few more weeks here) 

which has made it easy to let weeds grow and allow kids to chill on the roof. 

This girl was mad that I wouldn't let her get on the roof:

The next day we went to the park, mall, and then met family at the indoor jumping place.

Then a hangout with cousins, friends, and birthday presents:

Mall hangout with boba:

While the older girls were at the mall, I took Sybil to the dollar store. I saw a woman shopping who looked unusual and I couldn't identify why until I saw her again and realized she didn't have on a mask. She was going rogue, but I suspect it might slowly become more common.

A few weeks ago, I volunteered with a group of classmates giving shots and tomorrow I get my second vaccine shot. My group of student shot-givers:

Last night, we went to the Gilbert compound to dye eggs and have a hunt:

Now, the last session of General Conference will soon start. 

Right after, we will be having family and friends over for Easter dinner.

Busy

It's been a while.

Sorry. Not sorry.

Life is always busy. It's been not only extra busy physically lately, but emotionally/psychologically busy. 

It's General Conference weekend and I'm ready for some spiritual feasting.

Here's my semi-attempt at some catch-up from Spring Break.

  Sewing camp shenanigans:

Leah's house is so fun, including this playhouse that Mark built

Picture of the boys before they flew to Las Vegas. 

There are pictures of them in Vegas on David's phone--

maybe I'll post them another time, maybe not. 

David has been getting rentals on the weekends, when he's home. 

The kids love it!

Sewing class fashion show.

Catwalks should always include laughter:

Claire and Esie in a tree, waiting for Iris to get out of violin lesson:

Really bad Catholics

Here we are, another quiet Sunday morning. This week has been full of life. So full that I'm sure I won't be able to finish this post before I have to get ready for church. I'll start with a description and add pictures after church.

It was Spring Break for the kids. I had a neuro test.

·      Bought a house: the most expensive thing I’ve ever bought was done without stepping foot inside. David was the only one who did and can I say, I usually don’t even trust him to go to the grocery store alone, so hopefully it all turns out for the best.

·      Sold a house: we were planning to keep it as a rental property, but with almost a 100% price inflation over the past 5 years, it made more financial sense to sell. I’d like to think that we were progressive (instead of heartless) by selling it to a national company instead of a cute, growing family. It was hard to pass up the opportunity of not cleaning, organizing, or repairing anything.

·      Elijah spent the week partying with his 2 cousins and his father in Vegas.

·      The girls participated in a sewing camp put on by my lovely sister. 

·      I felt like I participated in history by spending a full day giving COVID vaccines. And then I didn’t get one. That’s what I’ll do tomorrow, along with taking a CPR class, to celebrate MY first day of Spring break.

·      We are really bad Catholics because Lent has been thrown to the wind.

The awesomeness around me

It's another quiet, early Sunday morning and I have a few minutes before I wake up the kids. 

The biggest news is that we put an offer in on a house. House-buying can be an emotional process, especially in a sellers market with limited inventory. I sent a short letter to the sellers. I was tempted to shave a kid's head, shove him/her into a wheelchair, snap a picture, and send it along with the letter.

Today is fast Sunday. I want to be a better mother: selfless, loving, teach by example, know exactly what my kids need, but mostly selfless. I was listening to talk while I took the dog out this morning: "mothers' most important duty is raising their children." I believe that and worry at times that nursing school is selfish, that sometimes I get caught up in myself and studying more than I should when I have so much awesomeness around me.

Like Iris, the budding chef who made Elijah's 3-tiered birthday cake:

And Sybil, who, if she had one wish, it would be to be magic. One morning, when we were rushed to get out of the house, I was searching for her everywhere, then opened the car door and found this: 

And Claire who is growing up way too fast. This week I need to take Clair to buy bras. She's been wearing hand-me-downs from a friend and now it's time for the real deal. Am I allowed to write this in a public forum? Chances are she won't read it for another decade, so hopefully I'm safe. I love the little teenager she's turning into. 
 

Then there's my boy. This week we were out getting him some soccer socks and he was mad at me for something. I made him pinky promise to never be mad at a me again if I bought him a burger and a shamrock shake. He agreed but added the addendum: "until I forget this promise."

I'll take what I can get.

Here are some throwback pictures I found a few weeks ago from the Nola aquarium:

Update: at church Sybil wrote me a love note:

"You poo." 

I interpreted the "poo" as a verb, stating an obvious fact of life instead of as an insulting noun.

Either way, it's a sign that at least I'm doing a few things right as a mother.

E=15

The boy is 15!

 We took him to Pomo Pizzeria on his bday last week. 

We said things we love about him and I asked him the standard bday questions...at least some of them:

Favorite movie: I am Legend

Favorite book: Fabelhaven

Favorite food: Pomo pizza

Favorite dessert: cookie dough ice cream

Favorite subject: PE

What do you want to be when you grow up?: A person with a job

Favorite car: Mustang

Dream trip: to the Mustang dealership

If you had a million dollars: buy a Mustang

and then all of the future answers degenerated to something about Mustangs,

so I stopped.

He loves to play pingpong, mainly with me since I'm the only one who is competitive enough for him. 

We just finished our first betting game of ping pong. 

If I won: he had to eat a shrimp (he had just been expressing his hate for the crustaceans).

If he won: he got a bag of popcorn.

Well, there's a smell of popcorn wafting through the home.

I'll let you guess who won:

 

Literary characters

It's spirit week! Iris wanted to dress us as Pippin from "Lord of the Rings" (she's on book 2 of the series) but she decided her outfit was more true to a book she read this summer: "The Wright Brothers" by McCullough. The vest she is wearing is 50 years old--handmade by my mother, who actually fit into it 50 years ago. Sybil is Pinkalicious, mainly because it was a really easy outfit to throw together. 

Sybil painted her nails pink last night in anticipation for her pinkness. Then I told her to come and read to me. She sat by me, put her hand on my stomach, smearing her wet nail polish all over one of my favorite sweaters. 

It was like someone took the cork off my pent-up stress and I spewed on everyone. 

There was yelling and slamming doors.

They cleaned. 

I cleaned and did push-ups

Poor kids.  

I went into Elijah's room after the girls were asleep. It's often difficult to make a pathway to his bed, so I read to him while he cleared a pathway. Then we talked.  

Feelings of inadequacy ensued, and I can't say I'm quite rid of them yet.