Karen's Wedding/Trip to D.C.

Just a few days after Grace's epic birthday party we took the whole crew to Baltimore for Karen's wedding.  (Remember how she and Tommy got engaged at our house on Thanksgiving?? They finally got married!)

Originally just Reid and I were gonna go.  But ticket prices dropped, and arranging childcare felt more overwhelming than just taking the kids with us--so we made a big ole vacation out of it.

Day One:

My fear of flying is greatly subdued when my spouse and all our dependents are on the plane with us.  It's almost enjoyable actually.  The girls did great.  James finally fell asleep.  The people on our rows actually liked kids--it was an ideal flight, really.

We landed, got the rental car (which Grace was so in love with she asked if she could use her allowance to pay for us to always drive a rental car because they're "so clean!!") and headed to Alisa's house where all the Allreds, plus a delicious picnic dinner, awaited us.  We chatted about how green and lush and warm and beautiful everything was.  And I was starting to feel a tinge of why-don't-i-live-in-the-east??? when Alisa started talking about the lice, the ticks, the humidity and the spiders.  Thank you for the reminder!!

Day Two:

While everyone else made themselves useful in wedding preparations, we ditched and took the kids (minus a napping James) on a really quick trip Gettysburg.  It was beautiful, informative, and sobering, and I'd like to go back someday when we have more time!!

Outside of the Gettysburg museum

Inside at the Gettysburg Cyclorama painting

Day Three: The Wedding

Okay, before I show wedding pictures, I must tell you about the dresses my girls wore.  I knew I wanted to make their dresses since shopping for dresses overwhelms me and sewing them soothes my 200-year old soul.  But it wasn't until Karen chose the color peach that i knew exactly where I wanted to go with this.

You see, that is the same color that my sister, Melanie, chose for her wedding 23 years ago.  And it just so happens that Julia and I, being the sentimental beings we are, held onto our handmade (by our mom and grandma) peach Bridesmaids dresses all these years.  And it just so happens that of the many ugly styles of the late 80's that have made their way back into our current clothing repertoire, these dresses were not among them.

So, I cut and cropped and unpicked and sewed, and unpicked some more, and....voila! Upcycled bridemaid dresses!

Julia's dress (well, the bottom half) became...

Abby's dress

And my Pollyana-inspired drop-waisted pirate-sleeved dress became...

Eliza's dress!

Since Grace was getting baptized just days after we'd get home from the wedding, I decided to throw a peach sash on her ivory baptism dress I'd made for her and call it a two-fer.

And James, though completely uncooperative with the camera, looked quite dapper in his black tuxedo that I bought 8 months earlier in the costume section at GoodWill  (such foresight!)

The wedding was beautiful.  It was so nice being inside the temple with Reid's parents and all of his siblings. (Tom's wife, Jana, was greatly missed.  She was at home with 2-week old twins!!)  Karen looked out-of-this-world gorgeous.  And the words of council that Tommy's Grandfather gave were worthy of being written down.  I really hope someone did, since I can't remember a bit of what he said.

The girls loved all the excitement around the event.  I'm so glad that we abandoned our plans of leaving them here.  I think Karen liked having so many of her nieces/nephews around her.  Tommy tolerated it, too. :)

Alisa did the photography for the event (8 months pregnant and all!) so I just snuck in beside her, after she posed people, and took a few shots.  Of course her's turned out about a billion times better.  But I don't have hers, so here are a few of my shots of the day:

Day Four

We slept in, ate donuts, recovered from a pretty tiring day, went on a picnic, took the kids "fishing", enjoyed being with family, and didn't take a single photo.

Day Five

My little brother and his wife were in DC that weekend for a get-a-way, and Alisa was kind enough to let them come crash at her house all Sunday.  Jared and Kristie are great and all, but really it's my little niece Alia that i was dying to see! :) Oh, that girl is so stinkin' cute!  She's 4 months older than James but talks like a 5 year old.  She is chubby, and sweet, and reminds me of everything I loved about my sweet round baby girls!

And Jared claims that he's just as excited to see my kids.  That's nice, 'cause they sure do like him.

Alisa has the world's awesomest tree swing in her backyard.  The kids made it look so easy.

 Reid made it look...ahem...less easy

I was perfectly fine not swinging at all, but my kids insisted.  I, of course, complied.  And screamed like a child the whole time!  I'm so brave.

While the kids played in the sandbox, got ticks and lice and Lime's Disease i'm sure, we adults just chatted about life, and how much easier parenting was before we had kids.  

 The conversation soon turned to baked goods, as all good conversations do, and it turns out that Alisa, Kristie and Reid ALL believe that they make the best chocolate chip cookies.  There was only one way to find out for sure!

The three contestants with their goods laid out in front of them

We all did a blind taste-test and cast votes to determine the best cookie. I honestly can't remember the outcome.  Six dozen cookies later, I think it'd be fair to say we were all winners.  

Day Six: 

We were really excited to show the kids Washington D.C.  Sometimes when Reid and I are really excited about something, the kids feel the need to balance our eagerness with some apathy and grumbling.  But, unless my memory fails me, they were all pretty pleasant this day!

Abby holding the entire Washington Monument in her hands--scaffolding and all.

Eliza, Abby, Ella and Grace in front of the ever-impressive Lincoln Monument

Grandma with her grandkids, including a very ornery Kate and James

These girls aren't angry, they're just trying to look like MLK...who actually looks angry.  Rightfully so. 

Being silly at the FDR monument

Korean War monument.  I'm telling myself that Grace was pensively gazing at the reflection and thinking about her grandpa Ashworth who was in the Korean war.  There's a chance she was just tired.

I'd never seen the Martin Luther King monument before.  It's really breathtaking.  Grace learned quite a bit about him in school this year, so that made it even cooler. Abby loved the Lincoln monument, especially after all we'd learned about him at Gettysburg just days earlier.  Eliza liked the reflection pools.  And James liked to cry lots until we gave him another snack.

As for me, I can safely say that everything I currently know about FDR I learned walking through that monument.  Why didn't any of his MANY accomplishments ring a bell? Seriously--did I go to school?  Where did all of that info end up?   Why can't I access it when my children ask me questions?  Someday they're gonna ask me why they even have to go to school.  Heaven's knows i won't have an answer for that!

We also went to the Museum of Natural History, but i didn't get any great photos of that.  We were pretty tired and hungry by that point.  We headed back to Alisa's house, via back roads and scenic byways, passing beautiful estates and charming cottages all along some verrrrry windy roads.  If I hadn't made the car stop to puke on the side of the road, it would have been my favorite part of the day.

Day Seven

We spent the morning at Alisa's house.  My children (one, in particular) caused all sorts of hurt feelings, which is how we knew it was time for us to head back home.  We were so thankful that Alisa's family put up with us for as long as they did!

It would have been nice to come back home and spend a few days relaxing, but we had exactly 48 hours before family and friends would start arriving for the big weekend--Grace's baptism!!!

Grace's 8th Birthday

Just weeks before her 8th birthday, Grace decided that her obsession with dolphins was permanently over and that now she loved penguins.  Only penguins.  When I commented about how cute it is that she was going through another "phase," she strongly corrected me.  "Mom, this is not a phase.  I will always love penguins.  Trust me."

So we started in preparing for the World's Best Penguin Pajama Party Ever!  She'd known for a couple of years that this party could be as big as she wanted it to be.  I think her first planning session (there were many) was sometime in 2011.  And there were several more to be had.  One night a few months ago when we let the girls have a "sleep over" in Grace's bed, they stayed up until 9pm planning all of their upcoming birthday parties.  Nearly every page of Grace's journal was taken up with different themes, different cake ideas, different guest lists and different to-do lists for Mom (which always include "ask mom to please clean up the house").

I think that the birthday cake was the real pull towards having a penguin-themed party.  She found a cute penguin cake in our Family Fun magazine, and I believe it's what launched her non-phaseal obsession with said flightless bird.  She was less than confident in my abilities to recreate the cake.  I was overly confident in my abilities.  The result proved me to be right!  (Why do I so love being right??)

Grace's only real struggle in planning this party was creating the invite list.  She feared nothing more than a girl coming to the party and not having anyone to play with.  So her entire guest list was based off of a detailed friendship analysis.  She immediately mandated that only 2nd graders would be invited, since any 1st or 3rd grade friend might feel "too old or too young."  And then it was simply a matter of matching up each guest to at least one BFF.  This process was even more grueling than you can imagine, and took almost 7 days to finalize.  I sent the evite out 10 days or so before the party, but 6 days later, as things changed at school i guess, she was still making changes to it.   I'd told her she could invite up to 15.  I think she capped it at 12--nice and even.

She decided to do a gift swap because, and i quote, "our house is too small for all those gifts."  Now, I don't really think that 2100 sq ft is too small for a few extra bracelet kits or nail polish sets, but I wasn't about to argue with her.  On top of having less crap in my house, a gift swap meant no party favors--win win!

The main event of the party was that every girl got her own professional manicure.  Laura, our friends' sister, has every fingernail accessory you've never heard of, AND she brings with her a cotton candy machine!!  Can you believe such a person exists? Grace couldn't either, and was so happy that she agreed to come to the party.

So, with a Penguin Pinata, a Penguin Poster, Penguin colored everything and the World's Most Amazing Penguin Cake (if I do say so) we set off to have what would go down in Grace's life history at the Absolutely Best Birthday Party EVER!!!

Grace with her favorite birthday gift--Penny the Penguin

No wait, this was her favorite birthday gift.

Pin the Nose on Penguin

Pedicure time

Grace's nails turned out so cute!! Click on the picture to see them up close--they're penguins!!

Pinata time

Grace having a moment with the pinata, before beating it to death

Cotton Candy

The totally adorable cake! (why must my camera make this white cake look yellow??)

Isn't it adorable?  The penguins are holding their eggs--could anything be cuter??

Happy Birthday Grace!

It wasn't until the end of the party, when so many of the girls were saying "i've had too much sugar, can I take my cotton candy home with me?" that I realized just how polar opposite this party was from her first party, 7 years ago.  Her first birthday cake had been made with whole grain flour, almost no sugar, and as many carrots as i could add to it and still  have it hold a shape.  And that's what I fed the guests, too!  (But theirs had a slightly sweetened frosting.)

Now, seven years later, Grace's party had started out with games where the girls could win candy.   The pinata's 2 lb weight limit was quadrupled with obscene amounts of candy, and the cake was made out of sugar-loaded ice cream, topped with cookies, a little artificial food coloring and glittery sugar.  And last, but not least, was the cotton candy.  Buddy the Elf couldn't have planned a more sugar-loaded event.

But no one tossed their cookies, or their candies.  All had a great time.  And when the last friend left Grace told me that it was the best party of her life!

I loved hearing her say those words.

Oh, and P.S. She's totally over penguins.

Easter

Easter is slowing moving its way to the top of my list of Most Favoritest Holidays.  In this hemisphere, it brings with it the much needed signs of springtime.  And it comes at a time of year when our family doesn't usually have a whole lot going on.  We don't have a lot of Easter traditions (which means our kids look forward to it less... and I look forward to it more).  I don't know why we don't, it's just sort of happened that way.  We didn't intentionally exclude the Easter Bunny from our traditions, he just kinda never came.  (It might have something to do with what we did to his grandbunnies a few years ago...but they were eating my garden!!!) And this year Grace announced that "in our family we don't believe in the Easter Bunny".  So, no baskets.  No Bunny.  And no unrealistic expectations (mainly my own!!).  All of the fun activities and crafts we did were just a bonus and made me look like Mom of the Year. 

I don't know what it is with me, but I don't do well when lots is expected of me.  But lower the bar, and I'll shine, shine, shine.  So, i'm resisting the urge to label any of the fun things we did "traditions," which would inevitably turn them into a chore.  And I'll just say that if next Easter plays out just like this one, we'd all be just fine with that.

Our festivities

Modge-podged eggs

Edible Robin's nests

A few friends over for an Easter Egg Hunt

And my personal favorite--Wheat Grass Chia Egg Heads

The only thing I could complain about this Easter was that I was asked to give a talk/sermon in church on Easter Sunday.  I have a pretty serious fear of speaking in public, so my Easter morning was spent trying to dry my sweaty palms and keep my breakfast as far down my esophagus as possible.  I was glad to get it over with.   And of course, when all was said and done, I was grateful to be forced to sit down and take a few hours to really consider what Easter means to me, and how that meaning has really changed since my mom passed away.