Opal at 15 Months

Opal is unstoppable!  She can now walk to wherever it is she wants to go, and she is starting to try and climb up on the couch and chairs too.  She loves Elmo so much these days, and says "EL-Moe" in a soft, high-pitched voice that is so adorable.  Here she is below in her favorite Elmo jammies, harassing Will as he is trying to get some work done.  

Lately, she prefers for Will to put her down for naps and bedtime.  This is a first for any of our kids, and it has given me some new found freedom.

Opal's latest skill is slowly backing up and sitting down on a step or a low chair.  Half of the time she misses, and sits down with a plop onto the floor, but the other half of the time she daintily sits onto the little seat of her choice.

Opal made a new friend at my parents house the other day...her and St. Joseph are pretty close.  Little does Opal know that her name would have probably been Joseph if she had been a boy.

Opal tried a Popsicle for the first time all by herself this past month, and made a royal disaster of it but had the time of her life.

 It was straight to the bathtub after that, which fortunately, she loves baths.  The other day we were downstairs and she was being super fussy.  Finally after all attempts to pacify her didn't work I asked her: "Show me what you need."  She took me by the hand and led me upstairs, all the way to the bathtub and started to pant in excitement when we got there.  She wanted a bath!  She was so happy when she got one, too!

Probably my favorite thing about Opal this past month is watching her walk with joy and freedom, and also having her confirm when we have answered her requests correctly with happy, excited panting.

Opal, you have us wrapped around your tiny, baby fingers and we wouldn't have it any other way!

Up North in May

We spent ten days Up North this past May.  Up North, a place where my heart is at home, and all six of us are happy to be together.  Here we are below on our favorite trail, hours after arriving at our rented cottage Up North.

It rained almost every day, but we didn't let that stop us from exploring.  

 We even lucked out with a few nights that the weather allowed us to enjoy a campfire.  Opal had her first taste of s'mores and loved them.  It wasn't relaxing around the fire with Opal on the move, but it was still fun.  I didn't get to savor the sunset, but I did get to share something I love with my littlest lady.

We discovered a new trail while Up North, which was a huge bonus, considering this was our fifth time here.  What an amazing trail it was too, and funny because the name of this new trail was what we have been calling our favorite trail all of these years!  This new trail is now our second favorite trail, and it has been hard to remember what to call each trail.

Opal was a challenge on the hikes, but we managed with two adults passing her back and forth and lots of snacks.

The spring wildflowers were out in full glory while we were there, which is exactly what I had hoped when I planned this trip.  We are learning the names of the spring wildflowers, but I still feel like there are so many plants out there that I don't know.  Below, in clockwise order from top left, are the spring wildflowers I am becoming comfortable with identifying: trillium, squirrel corn, trout lily, violets, fiddle heads (ferns), Jack in the Pulpit, more violets, and Spring Beauties.

 Will had to go to work for a few days during our week Up North, and so my sister and her boyfriend Isaac came in from the East Coast and drove up in Will's car so that they could stay with us and Will could take his car back home.  On the way up, about halfway between our garage and our rental cottage, Will's car broke down.  Several hours later, Will brought Jane and Isaac back to our cottage and ended up staying an extra night while we waited for the car to be repaired. Isaac is from the UK, and to hear his account of his very first Up North experience was quite entertaining.  Let's just say he was almost as speechless as all of the stuffed taxidermy hanging on the walls and behind glass under the service counter of the auto repair shop.

 I can't tell you how happy I was to have my favorite people all together, if only for one night.  It was an expensive bonus, but a bonus just the same.

After Will left for real this time, the girls and I enjoyed showing Jane and Isaac all of our favorite places.

 We even tried a new sandwich shop that has now been added to our Must Do List the next time we are Up North, and also discovered our first Morel Mushroom.

 We ended our week in a beach town an hour or two south of our first rental where Jane and Isaac dropped us off on their way back home, and Will came and met us after his few days at work.  We spent lots of time at the beach...

 ...coloring inside to get a break from mosquitos, enjoyed a hike to a lighthouse, and a picnic lunch outside.

 We watched a few sunsets where we spent the majority of the time keeping Opal from falling off the 120 foot cliff to the water below, and marveled at her newfound walking ability.

When we first got to the new rental, just after Jane and Isaac left, I felt so homesick, and just wanted to go home.  We had already been Up North for a week, and the final three days at the new rental a few towns south of where we had been felt like it was too much, and a let-down after such a wonderful week in our well-loved happy place with our favorite people.  But, like an omen, as we looked out over the water to take in the view at this new cottage, we spotted a hummingbird flying just inches from our face, heading south and then moments later, saw a bald eagle soaring just feet above our heads going north.  It was breathtaking and left us in awe.  It also gave me peace to know that it was okay to lean into my sadness at missing my sister and Isaac (it will probably be a year until I see them again), and to be open to new experiences at this new cottage.  And, as if on cue, my younger brother text me and asked if he and his girlfriend could come visit us on our last full day at this new cottage.  We had a lovely day with them, and I am so glad that I had these opportunities to make memories with not only my hubby and kids, but my siblings as well.

Until next time, Up North, I carry you in my heart!

May Holidays and Happiness

We had so many holidays this past month!  We started off the month with an Easter re-do with Will's family, since we were sick last month when we had originally planned to get together to celebrate.  The kids did not complain about finding Easter eggs in May.

Next up on the holiday list was Violet's birthday and Emma's First Communion - on the same day.  So, we celebrated Violet's birthday when we woke up, and then put it on pause while we went to the church for Emma's First Communion.  After the ceremony and photos were over, we headed back home to continue Violet's birthday celebrations.  Here Violet is below, opening up presents.

She really wanted a Barbie doll pushing a baby in a stroller, and she also wanted some Legos.  The rest were surprises and she seemed to like those pretty well too.

After Emma's First Communion, Violet had fun building her Legos, playing with her new Barbie set, and drawing on our chalkboard (I only let them draw on my chalkboard on their birthdays - the rest of the year it is mine for school).  We measured her on our growth chart, and she decorated her requested chocolate cake.

Violet was pretty laid back, sharing her special day with Emma, and truly, it is the ability to go with the flow that contributes to a happy day.

Emma had a lovely First Communion, and was just the right size to fit into her Grandma T's First Communion dress from when she was a child.  It was really nice to have that sentimental value added to the day.  I had made the veil and crown for Lucy, and for Emma, I ended up sewing a slip to go under the vintage swiss dot dress.  Slips in the 1950's were easy to find but not so much any more!

Emma did a reading during the service, and although she was super nervous, she did an awesome job.  She had memorized her lines, she had practiced them so much.  In fact, we all had memorized her lines, she practiced them so much.

It was a great morning with our family there too - both sets of grandparents and Emma's Godparents and cousins as well.

The following day we headed out of town to our niece's First Communion.  She is also our God daughter, and Emma's God sister.  We celebrated with a joint party for the two First Communicants after Ellen's First Communion, and in true, big family style, also celebrated Violet's and my nephew's May birthdays as well!

I breathed a big sigh of relief after Violet's birthday and Emma's First Communion and was grateful that Mother's Day and my birthday were the last holidays for the month - both of which did not require me to do any special planning or magic-making.  Here we are below on a hike for Mother's Day, as well as some playtime in the yard and a delicious steak, potato and asparagus dinner, compliments of Will.

My birthday was during the week, so for the majority of my day, Will was at work.  The girls and I had a lovely day though, and just like I let them take the day off of school when it is their birthday, I took the day off from teaching them.  They did what they could independently and then finished off with Will when he came home from work.  Lucy picked me a birthday bouquet, and I picked myself a lovely bunch of rhubarb for a delicious birthday strawberry rhubarb cobbler with vanilla ice cream.  I did not mind making this for myself, as I love baking and it was a treat for Will to watch Opal while I made it, uninterrupted.

Will made the below picture frame himself, and framed a postcard from our favorite National Park that we visited just days earlier (Up North blog post to follow this one) for my birthday.  He claimed it was a "something out of nothing" gift, since I had spent the budget on the repair of a quilt that my friend made for our wedding, as well as a new, custom quilt to replace our wedding quilt which is now more memorabilia than every day use at this point.  I ordered both of the quilts last fall, and would you believe they were finally ready for pick up on my birthday?  Will picked them up on his way home from work and I was soooo excited to see them finished.  Will also ordered rather late a beach umbrella that our family of six could fit under, seeing that we have outgrown the shade patch that our old beach umbrella casts.  Would you believe that it was delivered to our porch as I was opening up the other gifts Will and the girls gave me?  I can't wait to use it Up North at our favorite beaches!

We somehow managed several other hikes this past month, and I am so glad, because hikes are rejuvenating for us as a family, and we especially needed them with our event-filled month.  In the below photos, we found some spring wildflowers, and some frogs at a local frog pond that we enjoy.  At one point though, the path to the frog pond became flooded and Will had to carry each of the kids over it.  Needless to say, he and I had squeaky, wet hiking boots the rest of the hike home.

We've had so much rain this spring that it's a wonder we were able to walk at all.  Below are some more violets we spotted on a walk, and a glimpse of all of the pollen on the ground after a rain shower had passed through.

 I'm also happy to write that we had time in our busy month for playing with friends both at our house and at the park.

We also enjoyed the company of several uncles...

...and found time for school as well.  This is the point in the year where school is so very difficult to complete as we are so close to being finished and our attention spans are just not what they were in the Fall and Winter.  In clockwise order from top left below: Violet doing school, Lucy and Emma at art class, Emma on her balance board to help her focus on school work, Emma doing a math lesson on volume, Emma's drawing of Opal when we studied sound in Science, and finally, Emma building a tiny vehicle from a building set that no one else in our family had the patience or skill set to complete.  We may have a budding engineer on our hands!  But back to the science lesson, I was laughing so hard when Emma answered the question of "draw a picture that shows something making a sound.  Then write two words to describe it."  Keep in mind, Opal was screaming during the entire lesson on sound waves and vibrations and it was all I could do to get through it.

A book by one of the girls favorite authors was released this past month, and it was exciting to bring the girls to the book store to buy it.  In clockwise order from top left below: the girls all reading the new book at the book store (I only bought them one copy so the harmony ended as soon as we left the store), Emma and Violet in a fort they made at the chiropractor's, Lucy's newly pierced ears, and Lucy among the tulips we found at the library.  Tulips bloomed the day Lucy was born, and so we always say that they are her flowers.  

 It was a big moment for Lucy to get her ears pierced, and she had saved up the money by selling her handmade herbal eye masks for months.  I was very proud of her, and she was very proud of the earrings that were finally in her ears.  The kids did some work for my business this past month and I paid them in Shopkins.

 They also helped me host two bee classes this past month and were so excited when some of their friends came to one of them.

 What a month we had!  I'm not sure how to simplify it down with two birthdays, Mother's Day and a First Communion in there, but I will continue to try that is for sure, as it was a lot.  Give me a regular day with our regular routine and I am a content girl.  Here my girls are below, in clockwise order from top left, on some regular days, enjoying life in our own backyard: putting on a show in our garage with Opal included, Violet posing in a patch of violets, Violet learning how to ride her bike without training wheels, Violet and Opal playing with sidewalk chalk, Lucy catching frogs in the drainage ditch in our yard, the caught frog, and a fairy in the girls' fairy garden.

Finding balance between busy and rest is a learning curve for sure with this brood, and I haven't found that sweet spot yet as a family of six on earth.  I keep telling myself that someday when they have all grown and gone, I will miss the busy as I sit with the quiet.  Until then, I will simplify as much as I can, thank God for grocery delivery, and continue to keep an open mind as I look for more balance.

Opal at 14 Months

The biggest change Opal made this past month is that she is now walking!  It is so adorable to watch, and she has such a proud look on her face as she walks around on legs that look way too short to be doing such a thing.

Fortunately, she still lets me hold her.  Here she is below holding an object she can name, "Ball!"

 Opal also says, "uh oh!", "thank you", "again", and "bear".  We've also heard her attempt to say each of her sister's names, which of course, made them even more devoted to her.

Opal also says, "Draw" and gets a kick out of scribbling with pen or crayon on paper.  

She is starting to sleep better after overcoming two huge set back this month - another round of the stomach flu, and getting four molars.  When the stomach bug hit our house again, this time even more furious than the last, I officially went crazy.  The budget was thrown out the window as I bought a can of Lysol wipes for each room of the house, two new sets of toothbrushes (for every member of the family in both our upstairs and downstairs bathrooms) and several boxes of latex gloves.  The kids were under strict instructions to keep all toothbrushes out of the bathroom, and to apply toothpaste to their brush with a clean q-tip so as to not pass on germs.  Later that night, after my new sanitary rules were in place, I realized that one of my kids had set the table for all three meals with dishes from a dirty dishwasher.  You could have knocked me over with a feather.  Needless to say, everyone came down with the bug a second time (minus Violet and I, who didn't catch either bug and are now calling it our Super Power).  The toughest part of the entire ordeal was that it slowly went through our house again, and lasted for over two weeks between when the first person got it to the last person finished with it.

I'm almost giddy with gratitude that Opal is back to a sleep routine.  The other night I thought that she wasn't ready for bed with her sisters since she had taken a late nap.  After tucking in her sisters, I headed downstairs with Opal.  After I sat down on the couch with her, prepared for a late night, she took me by the hand and led me upstairs and to bed!  God bless you child is all I had to say, as Will was working late that night and I was in need of a break.

She loves books, blankets and bears.  She also loves putting on Lucy's old fashion glasses and making us laugh.

 What a squishy, adorable little baby she is!

 Opal, you are a goof, and we love our sweet and sassy little girl!

Daffodils and Skunk Cabbage in April

I am still recovering form April.  I knew this on an intuitive level, but after compiling all of these photos, it is amazing I am doing as well as I am.  So what if our house is a disaster, we've more than once plucked dirty clothes out of the laundry basket to wear and my usually smooth meal planning and prep has completely fallen off track with eggs and toast a staple "healthy" meal lately.  April rode me hard, and put me away wet (and sometimes covered in puke).  Fortunately, as much as I was able to just do the very next thing required of me with no chance to plan any further, we did make some great memories and survived some other things that make good stories now.

We started off the month of April with a three day trip to Chicago to visit a dentist for Violet.  We had a lovely stay, and not only did the AirBnB we stayed at work out perfectly for us, but we got to visit the Lincoln Park Zoo, a giant baseball bat sculpture that the kids had just studied in their art class, and best of all, visit with good friends of ours. 

Usually we lock Charlie in our garage if we are going to be gone overnight, but on the morning we left for Chicago, he was no where to be found.  I worried about him the entire trip, and was so relieved to have him greet us in the driveway when we got back!  Little did I know that my relief was short lived though, when a few days later we found him injured in our garage with a wound on his back thigh.  We took him to the emergency vet (Charlie only gets injured after hours and on holidays) and found out that he had a BB gun bullet in his back thigh.  We were so heartbroken to hear this, and it put me into the downward spiral of despairing about the right thing to do with our super loving, but very outdoor cat.  In retrospect, the day we found him as a kitten, we should have worked without ceasing to find him a forever home indoors with someone.  Now, at 6 years old, he would be miserable living indoors and the risk and danger of an outdoor life to himself and all the small critters around us is more apparent than ever.  Oh, Charlie!  If only I wasn't so allergic!  Well, it turned out that a bullet wound was the easiest injury he has had so far, as unlike a cat bite, a bullet usually doesn't have any bacteria on it and because it missed hitting all of his major organs, the vet advised us to just let it be.  We kept him locked up in the upstairs of our garage until his wound had healed, and kept the cone of shame on his head for as long as it took for him to figure out how to get it off.  He also figured out how to break out of our upstairs, our smart and loving cat.  We were in the garage one evening, and all of a sudden from the ceiling we heard meowing, and there was Charlie, looking so proud, on top of the ladder that hangs on the garage wall.  Not only did he remove his cone, but he also found an old heat register in the floor upstairs and jumped through it to get to us.  I felt bad putting him back upstairs, but at that point, his wound wasn't completely healed yet.  You better believe we sealed off the heat register too.  I always say that Charlie deserves so much better, but as friends have pointed out to me, he is perfectly happy loving on us and prowling around outside to his heart's content.  So that just leaves me to worry about the welfare of the local wildlife.  

Emma turned 8 this past month, and we celebrated with Will taking the day off of work, presents, all of Emma's favorite foods...

...a spring time hike on our favorite local trail...

...dance class with a picnic dinner, plenty of time to build the Lego sets she received, and a dessert of oatmeal peach bars after dance class was over.  Daffodils were in bloom on the day Emma was born eight years ago, and ever since then, daffodils have become Emma's official flower.  Lucy picked Emma a birthday bouquet from our garden on Emma's birthday.

Two days after Emma's birthday we were hit with a BRUTAL stomach bug, which actually was the second stomach bug we had in only a few short weeks.  Both Emma and Lucy puked for six days straight, and it took medicine to finally get them to stop puking.  Opal also got the bug, and puked on and off for six days but never got dehydrated like Lucy and Emma, thank God.  Opal did however puke on me so many times that I lost track and ran out of clean clothes.  It was shower after shower for both of us, and a full-time job just to manage all of the laundry.  I still have a nervous tick when I hear any sort of cough or gurgle and run for non-carpeted flooring.  For some reason, Violet and I were immune to this bug which I am so grateful for, as who would have taken care of us if I had gotten sick?!  That's right, Will came down with the bug too, and his lasted for almost six days.  

Above is a screenshot of us Facetiming friends of ours who were also sick at the same time, but with a different bug.  

Will was the last one to get sick, and was down and out over Easter weekend which was a bummer for us, but good that he didn't end up missing too much work.  Fortunately, Will was pretty easy to take care of compared to the girls, but the tough part was I didn't get any break or help for the holiday.  All of Lent, leading up to Easter I had promised the girls that we would make homemade pretzels together.  Life had other plans though, and we finally made the pretzels the day before Easter.

We also dyed Easter eggs the day before, and I curled all of their hair in rollers for Easter morning.

We had a nice Easter, and Will was well enough to go to church with us in the morning.

Charlie joined us for our annual Easter egg hunt in our backyard after church.

While the kids played with their Easter goodies, I made the food we were supposed to bring to my parents house for Easter dinner.  Normally Will and I would have tag-teamed this, but since he still wasn't 100% better, we thought it best he didn't contaminate any of the food.  Below center is a photo of the two brownie pizzas I made so that we could celebrate Lucy and Emma's birthdays at my parents house that evening during the Easter festivities.  

Will stayed home while I took the girls to my parents, which was a nice time, although we all missed Will and agreed that it wasn't the same without him there with us too.  It was fun watching the cousins interact with each other, and there is nothing like the spontaneous joy of kids when together to make a gathering feel like a holiday.  And I am speaking for multiple generations, as when I am with my siblings, we have a spontaneous old time as well.  See the after-dinner dish massage happening with a pack of siblings.

Next on our holiday celebrations for April was Lucy's birthday, one week after Easter.  Lucy is now proudly double digits, and I think had an excellent birthday since it was on a Sunday and we had no other commitments that day besides Will's cousin coming to cut our hair.

And Lucy, being the gal of style that she is, found it to be a bonus to have freshly styled hair on her birthday.

Violet had a little bit of a struggle with all of her sisters having birthday before her, but took it in stride.  She continues to make us laugh with her antics, impersonations and general humor.  Here she is below being silly.  In the right hand picture below, notice the two sets of eyes looking at me.

It's hard to believe there was any time left for book learning this past month what with the different festivities and flus and the trip to Chicago, but we did pull off school as I don't want to get too behind.  We missed some extra curriculars when we were sick, but then others were rescheduled, so that was nice.  In clockwise order from top left below: Lucy and her friend in art class, Lucy and her friend in art class again, Lucy and Emma at dance class, the girls and their friends using their yoga teacher's trampoline after class one day, and Emma and her friend in art class.

We had backyard play, and in clockwise order from top left below: Will demonstrating his Skip-It skills, Violet painting, Lucy painting, the girls with a gift of Easter chalk from their aunt and uncle, the girls with a neighbor friend, and Opal with another neighbor friend.

We were healthy and able to attend two different birthday parties for some of our friends and even were able to get a chiropractor appointment in, complete with fort building while waiting for their turns.

As if holding together my family of six through the thick of celebrations and the thin of sickness wasn't enough, April also started the busy season for my business.  I rolled out several new products this past month that I had been working on for well over a year.  And probably the biggest news of all is that my bees LIVED THROUGH THE WINTER!  After 6 years of trying, I finally pulled it off.  But really, Will pulled it off, with me shouting directions to him through the dining room window!

We had such a busy month, and I am thinking of taking the rest of the year off.

These little ladies sure are worth it though, and I'll end this post with the bottom photos in clockwise order from top left: Emma searching for frogs on a hike, Emma in front of "her" daffodils, the first wildflower of the spring spotted on a hike - a skunk cabbage, and finally, me out for a walk with all four of my girls not long after they had all recovered from that brutal stomach flu.  That afternoon, we felt like we could take on the world!  Here's to good health, good celebrations, and rest for this mama!