Hippity Hoppity

Whew, as you know, the fun never stops in this household and what a weekend we had. Nothin says Easter like a freezing cold day that tops out at 32 degrees. The Lawyer's peeps came for dinner on Sunday. Speaking of peeps, let me digress and say I tried my first peep last night- took a tiny bite and was GROSSED OUT! Acccck, I can't believe people eat those things. Anyhoo, much of the weekend was spent getting ready for our soiree........as in cleaning and cooking. But into any workday, a little diversion must fall:
We colored eggs on Sat evening. Notice the red shirts that the kids made for Chinese New Year have quickly turned into the "go put on a shirt that you don't mind if it gets ruined" shirts. Frances looks like she's trying to squeeze something out while Lewis is uncharacteristically concentrating on something that doesn't have wheels.

Elly has been sick since Thursday night but she managed to drag herself to the table. Ana is her usual cute self.

You just have to look at that concentration again. It's so.........unusual

Yeah, sometimes we dress our eggs up and take pictures of them. So what?

This is the only picture I got of the hunting of the baskets. The rest were total blurs as the kids whirled through the house.

One of the big blurs

Whole lot of cuteness in my life! The kids are wearing clothes I put in their baskets. It didn't last long since it was FREEZING.

I have to go back to school tomorrow. We need an Easter Monday like the Canadians.

Happy Easter!

End of an era

When we met Analise, she had a little hankie pinned to her shirt. When she was tired, she would grab the hankie, hold it next to her cheek,stick her thumb in her mouth, and fall asleep. Once home, she used pillow cases. Some pillow cases were just pillow cases but other specific ones were "softies." Ever since then, she has needed a "softie" to fall asleep. Last night Ana gathered all her softies (she has 7), brought them to me and told me "I don't need softies anymore. I'm just going to cuddle with my stuffed animals now." Here's her collection. Do you think I should enshrine them or just throw them back into the linen closet?!!

On Tuesday nights Frances and Ana go to violin lessons and Lewis & Elly stay home. They asked if they could watch tv on my bed while I was gone and I said it was ok. When we came home we found them like this!

These 2 can barely be in the same room without squabbling so this was quite a sight to see! I woke them up for dinner. Elly just popped up and went to eat. Lewis WEPT, didn't eat a bite for dinner, and I had to climb up to the top bunk to lay down with him while he fell asleep, which I have NEVER done!! He was a wreck.

Road Trip!

Over the weekend, we went to see the old man, aka Dad. He turned 80 last week and we went to bestow gifts and go out to dinner. For the kids, any opportunity to go to a hotel, with a pool especially, is BIG fun. We swam, ate dinner at a dive (per the old man's request) and enjoyed the "suite life" at the hotel.
The pool water was nice and warm and we loved it!

The kids think they would like to live in the hotel and swim every day. The only downside is that the dogs couldn't live with us.

On the way home, we went to the Corning Museum of Glass, which I hadn't visited in probably 30 years! The kids were running around, looking at all the art, exclaiming "wow, it's all made of glass!" We also went to a glassblowing demonstration which was awesome.
Lewis really liked the birds hanging upside down. "They think they are bats!"

Ana loved the daggers looming over the houses. "If that was real, it would scare me." Me too, babycakes!

I asked all the kids, "what does this remind you of?"
Lewis: "A monster with lots of hands."
Elizabeth: "Seaweed"
Analise: "A tree with leaves"
Frances: "Medusa"

It made me think of Medusa too!

The (almost) Twins turn 6

Lewis and Elizabeth had their birthdays on Tuesday and Wednesday. Always an exciting time unless you're on house arrest, like Eliz. It took all my restraint to proceed with a celebration because the girl has been "off the chain," with tantrums, hitting Ana, lying & giving away her lunch money to kids on the bus whom she deemed as "doing a good job." Control freak through and through.
Lewis is the big brother by one day! He was such a whirling dervish, his image could not be captured!

Once the lights went down and the birthday dirge began, he was beaming with anticipation.

Elly was excited to have a temporary reprieve from lockdown. She had the manners of Eddie Haskell, buttering up Mrs. Cleaver. "You look beautiful today, Mama!" She was back to screaming at me this morning.

Stinky

Trixie used to be not-so-fondly known as "Stinky." We thought she just had a lingering puppy farm stink and gave her shampoos to give her a lovely aroma. They never worked.
I took her to the vet last week to get her last round of puppy vaccinations. Dr McHotty (a young stud with tight shirt and pants, sweet, & cute) took one whiff of her and said "YEAST INFECTION."...........NO, not that kind! He lifted her ear and an essence of limberger cheese wafted up. Dr McHotty exclaimed that Trixie has the hairiest ears he's ever seen, in his tender young life. He took an implement, grabbed onto big tufts and PULLED. His muscles rippled. Trixie has to have her ear hairs YANKED out on a regular basis and is on ear drops to take the funk away. She is now a sweet smelling, high maintenance girl.

When Aunt Suzie wants an update.......

I say, "Ma'am, yes Ma'am." She is my big sister, you know.
Yup, I've had a blogging lull. Do you really want more bowling pictures?
Ana had $1200 worth of dental work done - that probably does merit a photo. Filling, sealant, crown & a retainer for the tooth she had to have pulled last month. Ka-ching.
The puppies have had diarrhea for 4 days - definitely don't want that picture, even in your head, I'm sure.
We had our annual Chinese New year party at our house a couple of weeks ago and I took NO PICTURES! How horrible is that?
Here are some of the recent haps:

Our rat terrier, Daisy should just be known as "Princess." She is the most darling 5 lb dog on the planet. Even 14 yr old "Grandma" Cody tolerates her. Daisy is usually in someone's arms when she is awake.

Frances is tolerating her braces a little bit better. At least she's eating again.

Kids at Frances' school take up an instrument, starting in 4th grade. Because Frances started violin lessons in Kindergarten, she just practices during lesson times. The teacher asked Frances to play the duet part to a piece that 2 other girls were working on and play it at the orchestra concert. Frances was the only one in the trio to show up at the concert. So guess who was playing a duet with the orchestra teacher? It was a song she learned to play 4 years ago so she was embarrassed to be up there playing it. Chin up girl, with a mother like me, you'll have plenty of opportunities to feel embarrassed. I told Frances she could invite the orchestra teacher to her next violin school recital so she can see how well she plays.

In Western NY, when the temperature hits 65 in early March, EVERYONE is outside, enjoying the tropical weather. Tomorrow we're supposed to get an ice storm and a high temp of 30!
The troops are ready for a spin around the block! Everyone is giddy!

They're off!

Frances: "MAN, I should have worn a long sleeve shirt......and my flip-flops are all wet."

Analise: "MAMA, I"M GETTING ALL WET AND DIRTY......Can we go home now?"

Lewis and Elly: God only knows. They were so far ahead of us. All I could hear was their screams of joy.

Good Reads

Every time I write about the books I've been reading, people gasp and ask me how I can read so much. Well, while a lot of people watch tv at night, I read. I watch "Lost" regularly and HGTV when I'm too tired to read. That's about it.
Here are some of my recent favs:

College student cares for woman with Lou Gehrig's - not a sappy story. (Fiction)

Everything you never really wanted to know about cadavers - Fascinating stuff (NonFiction)

Mystery/ghost story - takes woman back to her childhood on a hippie commune in Vermont

I had high hopes for this and it was a compelling read... for a while. Fell apart in the 2nd half. Flat (Fiction)

I enjoyed the details in this story of a woman who kind of ran away from home to spend a year in Italy, India & Indonesia (Memoir)

"Z" (no one cares to learn to pronounce her unfamiliar Chinese name) goes to London to attend college, meets an older guy who's a drifter & loses her naivety (Fiction)