Hannah, the Nail Artist

Hannah has been teaching herself all kinds of mad skills in the nail polish department.  I showed her a couple of things I saw on Pinterest and she was able to do a really good job copying it.

My mom's and my hands after Hannah did our nails.

Genevieve, the Crafter

Genevieve landed her first paid job doing a bullet journal for a friend of hers who wanted a pretty journal, but didn't want or think she could do one herself.  She really is getting very good at this whole hand-lettering thing.  She's been working on adding in watercolor to her pieces.  Here are some samples of her work.

Genna loves loves Luna, our newish dog, but she still misses and morns her bird, Hyacinth.  We passed some Hyacinth bulbs at the store last fall and she planted them in our front bed where the floundering rose bushes are.  It was so exciting for her when they came up in February (Hey, it's Texas!) and she bough this bird banner too.

She also used Hyacinth's cage cover to make a memory pillow.  That fabric is on the trim and the back of this pillow.  She hand drew this picture and transferred it on white fabric.  Then she embroidered it all by herself.  Yay!  I always worried that my children wouldn't be artistic because all my first attempts at teaching them various arts did not go well, but I guess I didn't need to worry about that after all.

Girls Trip!!!

Spring Break began with a bang.  The Coronavirus started to make people pretty nervous, but it hadn't yet hit people hard.  The hand sanitizer, water bottles, and, of course, the toilet paper began to disappear from the shelves, but we braved the airport to get these girls (and me!) to our old house in Maryland to visit our dear friends.  A yer and a half is too long for these girls to have been apart!

The playhouse that Brian built for the girls so long ago.  They are so big next to it now!  Check it out when it was brand new here.

The morning of our flight we found out that Ann's youngest had a stomach bug.  Did we let that stop us?  Oh, no!  Come Coronavirus or stomach bug, we were going to Maryland!  We used the basement bathroom the whole time we were there just to be on the safe side and washing hands was the name of the game.  It did change our plans though for once we got there.  Even though we were willing to brave the viruses running rampant, not many others were.  We moved our plans to a park and restaurants instead of at Ann's.  

The gang, back together again, in our old living room

We spent many evenings playing One Night Werewolf Daybreak which is quite addicting despite the fact that, generally, I am terrible at it.  The girls spent a lot of time reminiscing about the old days and re-watching old videos they'd made together.

We saw a movie one day, went shopping a couple of days, visited their co-op to see more friends, and went to Mass together as well.

We were able to meet up with my cousins too.

The end of our trip came all too soon, especially for the inseparable 3 musketeers.  It was a much needed break for me, and just what our hearts needed too.  And no one else got sick!  Thanks be to God!

Outtakes: 

1.  When we got to the airport in Texas and the girls were cold.  I said they're really going to be cold in DC then.  That's when the girls confess they both only brought one sweatshirt and no jackets, the rest was short sleeves, pretty much.  Lucky for them we did bring some warmer weather with us up to Maryland.  But still!

2.  Everyone thought it entirely funny when I accidentally called the Mandalorian, the Manchurian.

3.  While we were gone, Brian knocked out a major to do list and took the boys on a 5.2 mile hike in which every one of them (Bob included!) walked the entire time, and Drew reported that Dad said, "We're all going to die out here!" twenty-six times because it got up to 80 degrees.

Happy birthday to my daddy!

My daddy turned 70 this month!  We were lucky to have him visiting at the time of his actual birthday.  Since the Coronavirus cancelled my sister's conference, we were able to have the whole group together for a party at my sister's house.  I made the cake and dinner.  The cake has an atom on it for my favorite science teacher.  My dad was my AP Biology teacher in high school and gave me my only C ever (including college.)  He said that it was a 79.4, but there wasn't any way he would round up my grade unless it could be justified since that would be considered favoritism.  My dad also gave me my one and only detention for a dress code violation.  He was tough, but he helped make me who I am today.  I love him more than I can say.  So I made him this fictional atom.  I don't know.  I suppose it could be an isotope, but I had only a few packets of M&M's to work with, and I needed certain number of certain colors.  This was all I could come u with, without just doing a boring Hydrogen or Helium atom.  I knew may dad would notice right away that no element on the periodic table had 3 protons, 3 neutrons, and 4 electrons.  I was right.  He did notice pretty quickly.

Singing "Happy Birthday"

This picture shows my nephew's personality.  He was blessed with extra helpings of personality.

The next morning the girls and I left for our trip bright and early.  I slept a lot on the plane, after wiping it all down with antibacterial wipes, of course.

Basketball Banquet

This year, the girls' school started having sport's banquets instead of just handing the awards out at the end of year parties.  I let the girls invite some of their teammates over before the banquet to get all dolled up together.

I curled Hannah's hair, and Nanna curled Genevieve's and her friend's hair too.

They had a great time, but my girls didn't get any awards this season.  Genevieve, unfortunately, missed her cross country banquet when she got the Coach's award.

College Reunion: Family Style

 We planned a reunion to get some of our families together from my college friend group of about 10 close friends that I've kept up with over the past 20 something years since I met them.  We knew not everyone would be able to come, but decided that we should just plan it and people come if they can.  We had five of us on board, but two had last minute issues and weren't able to make it.  So we had two big cabins and three families to split between the two.  My two oldest boys ended up sleeping over in the other cabin to even out numbers a bit.  We met at Jellystone Park for President's Day weekend.  We had three couples and 13 children, almost half of which were mine.

We are missing three kids here, but almost got the whole group together for a picture.

There were lots of outdoor activities like playgrounds, jumping pillows, basketball, volleyball, Gaga ball, and putt putt golf to start.  There was also an indoor pool since it was February.  In the evenings we grilled and roasted marshmallows for S'mores.

There were cute kids everywhere.  I was in heaven!

 Some of the girls even let me braid their hair!  I played lifeguard in the pool and rescued that cutie in the photo above when she dove in head first with no floaties on.

Then there was a glow stick "Hey, Hey" Ride scheduled for the second night.  The kids were so pumped about the glow stick hay ride.  Unfortunately, the glow sticks were not provided and cost $2 a pop at the front office, but we didn't find that out until the tractor was ready to go.  I thought for sure we'd have some fits about that amongst the little ones, but no one put up a fuss at all.  Bobby had brought his sword glow sticks from home that he'd been saving so he was the only one with any.  Also thought that may be a problem, but it wasn't.  The kids were also sad to find out that the hay ride was spelled "hey" on purpose.  There was no hay, but we were supposed to say, "Hey, hey" to people that we passed.

May the force be with you!

The moms got to sneak away and get some coffee together and we had loads of fun chatting after the kids were all tucked into their bunks.  All in all, I wouldn't do a Jellystone park again, I don't think, despite the obvious conveniences.  It is overpriced for what you get, and I think the kids would have had just as much fun at just any old cabins in the woods with no planned activities or playgrounds.  (The boys did spend a tremendous amount of time playing with water bottles, after all.)  Well, everyone except for Hannah.  She is not much of an outdoorsy person anyway though.

Riddles and Couch Pieces

 One time I got the idea to write riddles on the boys' paper plates with the answers on the bottom just to make lunchtime a little more fun and to change the course of an argumentative day.  They loved it so much that they now ask me every once in a while to do it again.  These kids go through riddle and joke books though like candy, and they usually know the answers.  I even use Google to try to find new ones and they rarely get stumped.  Here's another way we shake up an otherwise monotonous or trying homeschool day, by heading outside with our lunch.  This particular day, Judah chose Luna's favorite spot in the sun.

Luna is quick to cuddle with anyone who sits on the couch.  

Speaking of the couch, something happened in the shipment of our couch and the fabric (not real leather, but the fake stuff) started just falling apart.  It started slowly and we were just putting pillows in front of it or hanging blankets over the bad spots.  But at some point it just got out of hand.  The couch was shedding so much that I was finding pieces everywhere, and sweeping them up daily.  We even found some in our suitcases when we were traveling.  My dear husband's plan was to just tough it out until we made our final military move, but when we found a piece of the couch in his cereal bowl he finally relented and said we could look for a new or gently used couch.  No one has couches as big as this though, so we went with a new one.

I mean, this is embarrassing, folks.

But, alas, we have a new couch!  It is shorter only because it doesn't have the middle arm rests.  We love it!  The kids think it is awesome that it has USB plugs everywhere and electric foot rests.  This was the first movie watched on the couch.

Life in January

Not too long after we got home with Nanna, Luna had surgery (spay) and had to recover as well.  She had to be on a leash so she wouldn't run and jump, potentially splitting her stitches for ten days.  She had the cone on for fourteen days.

One evening when Nanna had to go to the hospital unexpectedly, Isaac had to babysit after school with all of his regular duties.  He made the best of it, practicing his guitar and making it a musical chair game for the kids.

 Brian is building us a headboard now to go with his king sized bed frame.  I helped design it and am going to be stenciling fleur-de-lis on the white slats.  Here's my sketch.

Skip ahead to the Coronavirus Apocalypse, and I was finally able to finish my stenciling.  Here it is before being sealed and put together with the rest of the bed he made.

in progress

final product

Brian was able to take two of the boys to the March for Life in Austin, TX.  I had to man the fort and cover four basketball games that day because it was the playoffs.

Drew used some of his Christmas money to buy Monopoly and we had a big family game with Nanna.