In No Particular Order

Instead of putting in some real effort and giving you a recap of our Memorial Day weekend road trip - which was pretty great! - we'll just bombard you with a pile of pictures of the girls being adorable/crazy/ours.

Over-exposed zoo shot. Someday Mommy will figure out the art of the camera phone.

Vivian helps Daddy organize the garage.

Mommy and Felicity share a moment in the new house.

Felicity and Daddy did Toddler Storytime!

Vivian!

Daddy's favorite trick...

...feed them ice cream in the bathtub. Makes for easy clean up.

Emery's 13th birthday.

Children have the best minds.

Daddy had a little guys trip last week and kept torturing Mommy with pictures...

A color for every mood.

Plans for this week: u-pick strawberries! Hope they don't eat too much more than we pay for...

Blondies

Last night we made peanut butter blondies for a treat. They were super easy to make and yummy - meets all the criteria for a good dessert in this house. Vivian took her first bite and announced, "These don't taste like blonde people!"

Well, no, we would hope not.

Felicity is in the beginnings of potty training. We ran out of her size diapers and Mommy put her in some underpants to see what would happen. She's had a couple of accidents, but for the most part stays dry during her waking hours. And she loves feeling like a big girl!

Miriam has her Kindergarten screening in the morning. She's excited to see her future teacher again and Mommy's excited to hear how it goes. Hopefully Mommy did something right during our activities and reading lessons and number workbooks.

Honey, I'm home.

Here's the catch up post for all the things we haven't gotten around to putting up here for the last month (or two). The primary activity has been MOVING. With the help of so many good friends and family, we have all our worldly possessions in the new home.

Tim even took the girls on a short ride in the moving truck - a highlight of their lives.

It's starting to really feel like home! We're hanging pictures,

 doing our preschool activities,

beginning to learn how to ride a bike without training wheels (still haven't mastered this skill yet, but we'll keep working on it),

enjoying the most perfect sunrises out our front door,

and we've had the house blessed! It was so much fun to host our first party in our new home and Fr. Ben made it official with LOTS of holy water.

The girls "graduated" from another year of storytime. Next year, Miriam will be in Kindergarten and won't be at our weekly storytime anymore. It's a new reality for us to consider having a school-aged child! But she's registered and it's happening soon!

Had to throw this picture in despite the poor quality because Felicity holding Mema's hand as we walked into Cracker Barrel a few weekends back was just too sweet.

Our zoo pass is renewed again and we'll be spending hours on end at the zoo again this summer. It really is a highlight for all of us and a treat that never gets old.

And looking ahead...our brother-in-law Tom is going to be ordained a priest in the Ukrainian Catholic Church in a couple of weeks and Aunt Bridget and Almost-Uncle Ryan are getting married in less than two months. So Mommy spent an ENTIRE day (a Mother's Day getaway) sewing with friends! The finished product was three twirly little girl dresses!

So you are completely caught up on the thrills and we'll get back to our regularly scheduled programming of posting the minutiae of our lives in our new, perfect home!

Last Things

There are so many things we'll miss about our old house; this is our blog-goodbye because it's the place where we...

MET.

BROUGHT HOME BABIES

Miriam and Mommy first day home

Daddy and Vivian cozy together

Mema and Pepa meet Felicity

And the place where we were a family together and did all the normal family things together. During our last nights all sleeping in the old home, we did some of those family things. We gave the girls haircuts and let them run around the backyard in their underwear to get the little, itchy clippings all blown off. It makes Tim crazy and he sputters about everyone getting some clothes on...but they love to be wild.

 Mommy got in a last morning walk through the neighborhood. The mini daffodils bloomed just in time.

And we did one last walk around the block with the girls in the evening. The neighborhood cat followed us almost the whole way around which was pretty thrilling for them.

The hardest part about the new house right now is the lack of yard and landscaping. But the early tulips did us a favor and bloomed right before we moved out.

So goodbye little old house. Thank you for the memories you held for us all these years.