My turn

My birthday has its idiosyncrasies. To begin with, it's April Fool's Day; I'm sure you can imagine the trouble that leads to. Additionally, it nearly always falls in Lent, and frequently on Good Friday. Over the years I have become accustomed to celebrating my birthday on the most convenient non-Lenten day, but this year I was in luck: my birthday fell on Palm Sunday! Let the partaaaaay commence.

Potted hyacinths make lovely centerpieces (and they smell good too).

Birthday breakfast of champions: croissants, jam, and coffee.

The coffee cup bears the chemical formula for caffeine.

God came through with a good gift: a birthday rainbow!

I received some lovely, and hilarious, gifts from my family, but that is a topic for a later post. Mwahahahaha.

Isaiah's 4th birthday, quarantine edition

Let me explain... no, there is too much, let me sum up: When we took Eve in for her six year well-child checkup last Wednesday, we mentioned to the doctor that she'd had a sporadic bad cough for a week, and that her Daddy had had a similar cough for going on a month. It turned out to be whooping cough (!?!), and so the whole family was immediately put on antibiotics and told to stay away from people until the course of antibiotics was over. (Have I mentioned that we were all vaccinated?) This meant no school, no Mass attendance, and... no birthday party with the grandparents for Isaiah. :-(

Well, what can you do? I put the cake layers I'd already baked into the freezer, made a bunch of Isaiah's favorite foods, busted out the boxed cake mix, and we had ourselves a wee little family party.

I got my purple-frosted cupcake, my purple candles, my purple card envelope, and my purple shades. I'm all set.

Could this be called "snuff footage"?

Boxed mix or no, the cupcakes went over fairly well.

Samuel looks good in a beard, I think.

At last, my own stuffed animal chair!

I guess that wasn't so bad a birthday after all.

I think my heart may explode

In the space of the last 12 hours, Eve has told me

1) That she wants to be a mommy when she grows up
2) That she wants to be just like me
and
3) That I cook really good food.

I know, she's six, all young children say things like this to their parents at some point, they have no other real examples of how to be in their lives so it's natural, but STILL. She's never said anything like this to me before, and my gratification knows no bounds.

Splat!

More snow! I'm delighted, although it's a little frustrating that it has showed up now, as opposed to, say, Christmas. This time, school was delayed two hours, which gave us enough time to properly enjoy the snow before it turned to slush.

Isaiah, negotiating our slope.

Eve, up to no good.

Samuel...

...otherwise known as "the fast learner".

Incoming!
(Moments later he deposited his load of snow on my leg. It was the closest he could get to throwing a snowball at me.)

Our first snowman as a family!

The snowballs weren't the only things going "splat". Poor widdle flowers!

Eve's 6th birthday, party edition

This year I took my courage in both hands and decided to throw an actual birthday party for Eve. A party with, you know, guests. Oh sure, we'd had parties before, invited a friend or two, but this time we invited nine kids (and hence a minimum of nine accompanying parents). This meant that we not only had to plan a party for the kids, but also the party-within-the-party for the adults. None of the pictures below show anything of the adults-party, which is a shame, because I actually put my mother-in-law's pressed glass punch bowl to use, and it was stunning. I'm going to have to throw parties more often, so I can make more punch.

First, some more flower pictures, because I'm a flower crackhead.

I think these are "Tete-a-tete" daffodils (narcissus).

Eve, wearing what's left of a unicorn pinata.

Eve requested a strawberry cake with chocolate frosting.

After a moment of indecision, she blew all the candles out with one puff, without leaning forward.

Being six is fierce.

Happy 6th Birthday, Eve!

Down in the wonder world, dear little heads
Drowsily raised themselves up in their beds --

Crocus and daffodil, hyacinth fair,
Stirring and whispering answered, "Who's there?"


Ah, but the calling they could not resist!
Smiling, they wakened, as babes that are kissed,
Stretching their glad little heads to the light,
Broke into blossoms, a wonderful sight.

Birthday cookies, decorated by Eve and Isaiah and distributed to her classmates.

Cupcake ice cream cones

They received the birthday girl seal of approval.

Eve with a present from Grandma and Grandpa Kluge: a spectacular pop-up book about Our Lady of Guadalupe.

Books + a big fluffy bunny chair = one happy little girl.

Isaiah-isms

So, I didn't mean to let the blog lie fallow for a month there, but... oh never mind. Allons-y!

Ah, Isaiah. My platinum blonde firecracker at war with himself (and often with others). I'd write more often about him, except I'm still trying to sort him out. He doesn't make that job any easier with things like this:

- For whatever linguistic reason, he prefers to begin some of his words with "ka-". For instance, "Kefigerator" = refrigerator. Also: Ka-pleece = Police. Er, what?

- He has been diligently honing his insult-hurling skills. In particular, he seems to think that calling someone a "silly old [appliance]" is the ultimate in name-calling, as in: "You silly old...kefigerator!" "You silly old...wawnmower!" And my personal favorite: "You silly old...pwessure washer!!"