Big Girl Sara

Guess who thinks she's a big girl!

I remember when David thought he was such a big boy!

That baby loved the ExerSaucer.  It would entertain him for minutes at a time!!  (Which was a real miracle and blessing.  I was relieved when he was happy for seconds at a time.)
 
Ah, look at these two now.

Oh, and look at this big girl.  Though she was usually too interested in her binkie and watching David to concern herself with much else.

Mary and David thought they were big kids then ... and they still do ... maybe a little too big.

Grandma Evie goes home

My mom went home yesterday, after being here for two whole weeks.  It was wonderful.  She took care of David and Mary while we were in the hospital.  She also put in her own hours (and hours!) at the hospital with me and Sara.

After we came home from the hospital, it was such a blessing to have her around.  She drove David and Mary to school and picked them up, did the laundry, cleaned bathrooms, made lunches, cooked dinner, washed dishes, as well as having baby duty.  It was a blessing to have her here.  It eased the burden of daily life, allowing our family to enjoy this sweet time.  We also got to celebrate her birthday!

Grandma Evie enjoyed plenty of girl time with her granddaughters:
 

We miss Grandma Evie already!  But we're pretty sure Sara charmed her...she won't be able to stay away too too long.



P.S.  I think some of my favorite pictures of my mom are of her with my newborns.

Grandma Evie with Baby David
June 2007

Grandma Evie with Baby Mary
October 2005

Bahama Buck's

Monday night we had an important date.  A trip to Bahama Buck's!

Uncle Daniel introduced us to Bahama Buck's gourmet shaved ice over two years ago, when he was preparing to leave for his mission and the kids and I were living across the hall from his bedroom in my parents' house.

Our first trip to Bahama Buck's way back in the day was pretty unforgettable.  It started off fine...

(Oh my goodness.  Look how tiny my kids were!  David was the age that Mary is now.)

 But it ended in a huge disaster zone.  All the paper napkins and baby wipes in the world could not compete with the mess David and Mary made.  (Greg was in Honduras.  Too bad--we sure could have used to emergency management skills.)

Two years later we returned to Bahama Buck's with Uncle Daniel.  This time after his mission.  And this time we brought our parents along.  It was a good time.  And yummy.  And much less messy than our previous visit.

We love Bahama Buck's!  But a million gazillion times more we love Uncle Daniel...

Do you know what Uncle Daniel was up to in between these two trips to Bahama Buck's?  He was serving as a missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Chile!  In and around beautiful Vina del Mar.

Anyone want to see pictures?  (I do! I do!) Click below to see the rest of this post--pictures of my baby bro as a hard-working, fun-loving, faithful servant of the Lord in a very special country.

D-day

Today--right at this very exact moment, in fact--Greg is taking his qualifying exam.  It's the big test that means he'll earn a PhD in Systems and Industrial Engineering--after the small detail of his dissertation, of course.

He's a little crazy for taking the qualifier after just one year in the program.  (Especially since his Master's was in management, not hard core engineering.)  Except that it's impossible to describe someone so diligent, methodical, and hardworking as crazy.

If you happen to read this post before 5:00 pm Central Time, Greg is still up to eyeballs in Markov chains, so send some good karma his way.

P.S.  The last time Greg spent a year studying for a big test--giving up months and months of Saturdays and evenings--was for the Professional Engineer exam.  We lived in Turkey at the time, and he took the exam at the naval base in Naples.  While he was sweating it out with the Darcy-Weisbach equation, I jumped in our rental car and took David and myself down the road to Pompeii.

This time I jumped in the car and took David, Mary, and myself to.....the grocery store!  (We're having everyone who's taking the test today over tomorrow for a little post-exam thank-goodness-that's-over-with get-together.)  Pompeii versus small town grocery store.  Fluid dynamcis versus decision analysis.  My, how times have changed.

"Germany"

Last weekend we went to Germany.  Well, not quite.  But we saw some buildings built by real, live Germans!  Does that count?

As our tour of Northern Europe continued through Old Wisconsin, we took the good old tram way over to the German Area.

This is what buildings constructed by real, live Germans over a hundred years ago look like.

They look very German, don't you think?

David was "in charge" of the German Area, so I handed over the camera to him for a little photo documentation.  This is what he came up with.

I believe this house is the pride and joy of Old Wisconsin.  (I think it's on the National Historical Registry.)

It's a large timber and brick home, and the craftsmanship is superior.  Homes in Germany did not have porches, but German immigrants saw them on other homes here in America and thought they were pretty neat.  The builder of this home thought porches were so fantastic that he built a huge one on the front and a huge one on the back.

It is a very nice home inside as well.

Careful!  That stove is hot!

That's something I really liked about Old World Wisconsin--there were fires in the stoves.  You got a sense of how hot those kitchens were.

Also, notice the brick floor in the kitchen.  Very smart.

Here are some other pictures David took around this farm, which, by the way, was very prosperous.

Mary loved the pigs.  She wanted to stay and watch them all day.

We also looked briefly at another German farm.  This farm belonged to a family from an area in Northern Germany, where, due to the lack of timber, buildings were constructed using bricks.  This home is so un-German that historians assume that the owner paid a non-German to build it for him.

And with that, we set off on the road to Poland.

P.S.  David insisted on being our tour guide through the German Area.  He is our resident expert on Germany, having been there a few times.  Not that he can remember....but he loves knowing that he's been to Germany.

David liked to lead the way when we were there...

Oh my goodness!  Look at that cherubic little face.

I loved that sweet baby of mine...

....and I still do.

Happy May

Yesterday was May Day.

Were I an undergraduate at Washington College, I would have gone to class naked.  Except that it was Sunday, so there were no classes.  Bummer.  Fortunately, I am not an undergraduate at Washington College, nor have I ever been.  I was once, however, a graduate student there.  Luck shined down on me those two years, and I never had class on May Day.

So now you what I think about on May Day each year.

This year I was also thinking about how here in Madison May looks like March.  Small buds, some daffodils, just green grass. Doesn't that seem like March to you?  I wonder when May will look like May.  (I am now understanding why, when we came house-hunting here at the beginning of June, everyone looked so...pasty.)  At least I understand spring in Wisconsin now--it tries your patience and breaks your heart.

May Day was cold, but the sun was shining.  And I felt so uplifted by the thoughts and testimonies that were shared at church yesterday.  I am still feeling the afterglow today.

In other May Day news...

A dead Bin Laden wasn't a bad way to end the day.  Greg wisely recommended that I talk to David about it before he went to school this morning.  So I did.  Wise Dad.  Not surprisingly, it was the talk of the school.  Mrs. Q even gathered her little kindergartners together to explain what all the excitement was.  (I asked David what she had said, and he responded, "She said the exact same thing you did, Mom."  Phew!  That means I did a good job explaining it my five-year-old.)  It is odd to me to remember talking to my little seventh graders about Osama Bin Laden...and then think when his death finally came I would have a son in school with his own teacher to talk to him about Bin Laden.

And now for an announcement.

May has brought the need for a blogging hiatus.  Summertime is around the corner, and I want to be prepared.  By prepared, I mean that I want to be available for my children.  I have a hard time focusing on my kids--being really present with them--when I feel a lengthy to-list nagging at me.  This summer my to-do list is going to be the bare minimum--just enough to keep them clothed and fed and out of complete squalor.  Leaving me, I hope, happily engaged in playing chauffeur for play dates and swim lessons, in playing police officer when it comes to enforcing screen time limits, and playing teacher as we prepare our kindergartner for FIRST GRADE!  I will blog this summer--how else will I maintain my sanity?  But I know in my bones that I need to walk away for a month, to tie up all those loose ends that are choking me.  So I can look forward to a happy summer.

What will you miss?

Some of this...

yard work...

and some of that...

bike rides...

But that pretty much sums up my hopes and dreams for May.

I do plan on taking a time out from my time out on Mother's Day.  Expect pictures of my kids with flowers for me, as well as a report on their adorable performance at church.  Maybe I'll throw in a few other pictures of my kids (for my mom--it will be Mother's Day, you know).  Speaking of Mother's Day, last year I enjoyed a Mother's Day Tea at David and Mary's preschool.  It was lovely.  But not as lovely as the one Cyndie went to this year.

I will be back here at the end of the month to report on the World's Largest Brat Fest.  (Gotta love Madison!)


Bye-bye.

Until Brat Fest!

Retro Nauvoo

My dad emailed me these pictures from our family trip to Nauvoo circa 1988.

My dad sent this one as proof to my children that their mother could once do a cartwheel.  (Hey, I could still do one...if I wanted to...which I don't...)

My brothers Andy and David.  I seriously had the cutest little brothers ever.

Tulips...spring...will it ever happen again?

Those are some nice high waters I have on.

But I think my mom's glasses are better.

Daniel wasn't born yet, but in the above picture I think I look just like him (minus the long hair and pink jacket...and high waters).

Ah, memories....thanks, Dad.