Where I've been

I've been here.  And everywhere.

Things have been crazy in all aspects of our life...the good and bad.

I've been writing a major report for work the last two weeks pretty much non-stop (most nights up past midnight) so this post is going to be an update of pictures.  They appear in no particular order.

A won the science fair for his zoology category.  In order for him to win in his category, because there weren't many entries, he had to score higher than the average of all the other first place scores.  He was thrilled.



M did not win an award. She acted fine at the actual science fair, but then declared the entire competition was rigged and went home claimed a mysterious toe injury, wrapped her foot in an ace bandage and then went to the garage and pulled out an old crutch. By the next day, her toe was fine, but she came home from school and refused to talk to me, wandering the house crying and mumbling to herself.

 

E offered A congratulations, but then pointed out that she had won the diocesan science fair two years in a row.

 

On Sunday, I threw L two 6th birthday parties (crazy I know).  This first was 2-4 for his cousins and friends.  Then at 5 the whole crew came over for his "family" dinner party.  For the kids, we had an I Spy / Lego party.  I had fun planning the party.

 

I made lego goody bags using primary colored bags and foam sticker circles (Thanks Rach!).

I made L his very own I Spy Birthday Super Challenger book.  He loved it.

The cousins loved it too!

In addition to another I Spy game and pin the treasure chest on the treasure map, we had a lego relay race. The kids enjoyed so much we did it a few times.  I made 2 lego sculptures using 8 bricks each (2 teams of 8) and took pictures.  Each team had to skip into the playroom, crawl through a tunnel and retrieve one brick each from their team color's bucket.  Once all of the bricks were collected...

 ...the big kids helped each team build the matching picture.  It was really cute.

He was really gracious as he opened all of the presents...even when he opened the same lego set three times.  He especially liked all the new art supplies.  His friends know him very well.

The night before, I made two lego cakes, with fondant legos and two dozen cupcakes.  My favorite part of the day was when he yelled, "I'm awesome!" before he blew out his candles...for both cakes.  He really is awesome.

All was not great at the party.  CA was there with the little girls.  I love my sister, but wow, Sunday was a day in which I really didn't like her. It's probably a whole new blog post in and of itself, but once again, I am completely at a loss as how she is raising (or not parenting) the girls.  Sigh.

Thank you everyone for your kind thoughts concerning the eulogy.  I did fine.  Somehow, I got through it and only got choked up a few times.  Fortunately, or unfortunately, I've got this loss thing down and chose the right words. 

Serge and I have been emailing back and forth from Kigali and it's been nice to be there for someone else in their grief.  We've talked at length about how to talk to his daughter who's the same age as L about Grammy dying.  I'm glad I had the right words again to help.

Snow is coming (supposedly) and I'm looking forward to a snow day tomorrow.  Catch up on laundry and start getting ready for one of our ridiculous weekends (away soccer tournament, indoor soccer game, basketball playoffs, basketball all-stars, senior champs swimming, KT's birthday party and L's actual 6th birthday).

I promise to get back on the writing horse soon.  I've actually been keeping a journal by my bed for blog post ideas.  One of these days I'll get to it.  I've got some posts brewing in my head about kinship adoption, the Mumford and Sons concert, the latest stuff going on with K, and, yes, grief.

But until then...snow!!!!