Easter Week Wrap-Up

Springtime is pretty busy around here. Here's just some of what we've done in the last week or so. Since it was Easter we had to have the traditional egg hunt. In fact, we had to have a couple of them. Here are some of the characters involved in one of the hunts. Lizzie and Hannah you probably recognize. The other kids are Zoe, Anna, Nina, Izabella and Adam. Or  you can j ust call them Adam's harem. Lizzie and Hannah don't know Adam that well, but Lizzie did confide in me that she thinks he's very handsome. I know it's a little early to start worrying about prom, but, you know ... I'm just putting that out there! ;)

Here are some of the kids running around my front yard looking for filled eggs.

Hannah found eggs for other people, too. She's helpful that way.

Oh, and the kids actually missed an egg, which Lizzie found TODAY (a whole week later) when she was out running around in the woods.

 Nina and Adam teamed up to find some eggs, too:

Oh, and one of the reasons Hannah was so generous helping other people to find eggs was because this was not her first egg hunt. Here she is a couple days earlier hunting eggs in the front yard. I think in total she collected about five dozen eggs.

Thi was also the week of the Fun Fair. Here's a (bad, sorry!) photo of Lizzie just after she got a little too close to the dunk tank. She got sopping wet, but was still able to enjoy the extraordinarily greasy (read: yummy) french fries. Also at the Fun Fair they got to do a cake walk, golf, fish and eat pierogies (also way way way greasy!) I got to spend $30 so they could win tiny little unicorn erasers. So, you know, a good time was had by all:

 

And speaking of getting wet, it rained a lot this week. A lot. Not that it bothered Hannah, though.

And, last, but not least Mr. Cash got a haircut and is finally starting to look like the handsome canine that is his birthright! Also, you can see that the Easter Bunny brought him a brand new collar. He also brought him a large bag of peanut butter flavored biscuits, but he found them early, so the EB had to go with plan B.

Happy Easter

Happy Easter from Cash and the girls....

Tracy and the girls...

And Rob and the girls...

Simple Woman's Daybook

For April 22, 2011

Outside my window... It may quite possibly be spring this weekend. It was sunny and cold for most of the day, but the predicted thunderstorms are supposed to usher in some warmer air for the weekend. I hope so. These 400 days of winter have tried my patience. Today is Earth Day, by the way. I celebrated by putting three water bottles in the recycle. ;)

I am thinking... that I love having friends over to my house because they rock AND because now my house is nice and clean for the Easter holiday.

I am thankful ... for my friends and family for helping me to navigate the past two months since my mom died. It's easier to be gracious and brave when so many dear people have your back.

From the kitchen... It's Good Friday so not much is going on in there. Tuna salad is cooling in the refrigerator and I'm going to be making some cupcakes for dessert for Easter, but I probably won't be doing that until tomorrow.

I am wearing... black leggings, white shirt -- very conservative!

I am creating... a story about Johnny Mathis. I interviewed him a couple of weeks ago. Read about it in the Reading Eagle next Thursday. He was really a cool guy!

I am going ... to Kolb's Dairy to get some of their most delicious organic (and fresh since the cows are right there!) milk and some quinoa. The dairy has all sorts of cool flours and grains and so even though it's about twice as far away since we moved (three years ago!) I still go there. Oh, and they make outstanding milkshakes, too.

I am reading... "A Discovery of Witches." Actually I finished it on Monday and it was one of the most fun books I've read in a loooooooong time. So happy my friend Amy E. suggested it for book club and I can't wait to talk about it. It's a witchy/vampire mystery love story so it sort of encapsulates several of my favorite genres.

I am hoping... to continue to eat healthy, exercise and pay attention to my stress level so that I can lose weight.

I am hearing... MarioKart on the Wii and Lizzie on the piano. Lizzie's gotten quite good. I'll post a video of her playing, soon.

Around the house... things are looking pretty good! We had friends over this morning so I cleaned AND vacuumed. I love it when my house is pulled together and I wonder why I don't clean more often and then I remember that I DON'T LIKE TO CLEAN. 

One of my favorite things...Lindt truffles. Each one has 2 Weight Watchers Points, but they are OH. SO. WORTH. IT.

A few plans for the week ahead... Tomorrow the girls are going back to the Lowe's Build and Grow workshop to make window birdhouses (where you can see the bird build the nest through your window) and then it's Easter so I'm pretty sure there will be some church-going and maybe some visiting. Next week is the usual busyness of school volunteering, class projects, coffee with friends and math homework.

A picture I am sharing... It poured here this weekend but that didn't stop Hannah and Liz from playing outside. We had spent the afternoon traipsing around a Girl Scout camp, so they were already pretty wet before this. I call this "Walking in the Rain with the One You Love."

Dress Rehearsal

Hannah and Lizzie make their First Holy Communion in a few weeks, so I thought it was a good idea to try and get some photos of them and let them practice walking in their dresses. First Communion dresses have changed A LOT since I was 8. Now they are really like little bride dresses. They also COST as much as a bridal gown. I was able to do my usual online magic and did not have to pay the $100-plus for each dress, and Hannah and Lizzie were thrilled with their choices. Here are some of the OUTTAKES from our photo session.

First up is Hannah. Hannah LOVES to model and takes direction really, really well (when she's not laughing hysterically). So we started with this one:

But then she settled right down and we got this one:

Lizzie had a bit more trouble. Here's our first shot:

Then I asked her to look a little more serious:

Then I told her to lighten it up a little because that first picture made it look like something smelled bad in the room. And I got this picture (which I love, but is NOT First Communion acceptable...) In fact, we really didn't get a great single shot of Lizzie (yet -- I haven't given up hope):

This is what happens after about 4,000 photos, NONE of which satisfy your mother. In the back, Hannah is trying to show Lizzie (badly) what it's like to look serious:

Then they both just started laughing:

And laughing...

And LAUGHING!!

Finally, we got a nice one. YIPPEE:

The Tale of the Tooth

Anyone who has known me for more than 10 minutes knows how I feel about going to the dentist. In fact, I just had to have a piece of chocolate just for WRITING the word dentist. I have tried to NOT pass on my fear (which I did not have until a dentist at a dental school where I went for a discount root canal burned the inside of my mouth and than put his hand over my mouth to keep me from screaming so he wouldn't get in trouble ... but I digress...) I don't want Hannah and Liz to fear the dentist, so I take them twice a year for cleanings and a few more times (in the beginning) to get cavities filled. Dentistry has changed a lot since I was a kid. And one of those upgrades is the use of lasers. Yes, LASERS.

Lizzie's dentist was concerned that one of her front teeth wasn't coming down. We waited about a year and it still wasn't moving into place. So he decided to do this laser procedure where he cuts open the gum with the laser and then the tooth slips into place.

Here's Lizzie the week before the procedure (or the entire year before the procedure). 

The procedure was pretty painless for Lizzie, but I have to admit that I asked if I could have some of the happy gas. They said no, in case you were wondering. This tool is new at our dentist, so pretty much everyone was standing around watching and Lizzie was happily in some SpongeBob episode in her mind (the dentist sings the spongebob theme while he works...)

It took all of about 10 minutes to get the work done, with very little blood.

By the afternoon, this is what the tooth looked like:

The next day it had slipped down even more:

Come on down, Mr. Tooth! This was the day after that:

And the next day ....:

The was about a week later. It's hard to see, but the tooth is almost fully in:

And here is the tooth now ... it really only took about 10 days to grow almost fully into place. It was pretty astounding and now Hannah wants them to do it to all of her teeth (but that's because I bought Lizzie a milkshake after the procedure because she couldn't eat for three hours) but since her teeth are in (albeit in the wrong places) she'll have to earn a milkshake some other way.

I hope you have enjoyed this stroll through the marvels of dentistry. I assure you that every word is the tooth. :)



Spaaaaaaaaa!!!

It's been a week since my spa weekend with my sisters Terry and Bean and my sister-in-law Ann. Which means that I've completely forgotten that I ever was at a spa. Luckily I took a few (like TWO) photos to help remind me. That, and my bright pink toenails (Flirty Fuschia!)
This year we went to a spa in Lancaster County near Kitchen Kettle Village. Here we all are AFTER our spa treatments. Don't we look relaxed and refreshed. In fact we were SO relaxed and refreshed that we only complained bitterly for about 10 minutes when we realized that Kitchen Kettle Village closes at 5 p.m. on Saturdays and we had only begun to shop at about 4:50. Luckily I am a speed shopper and was able to secure my pickled beets, several different jams and several pounds of fudge from Pepper Lane Fudge.
So all's well that ends well. Here are the four of us with (what I am hoping is) the Kitchen Kettle Village mascot -- a giant gingerbread cookie.

So, back to the spa. Here's my ONE photo. I took it of Terry because it was the first time in her life (and trust me, that's a long time!) that she ever had a professional pedicure. Even I in my neglect of all things beauty related have had several pedicures. So Terry opted for the spa manicure and pedicure. Here she is with the leg wraps/paraffin thingie:

The spa is small so we were basically the only people there. But since we were not the ONLY people there we (and by we, I mean me) were asked to keep it down so as  not to disturb the other patrons. It was not my fault though, as Ann had me laughing with her Internet Twitter stories. And it is NOT my fault that my lovely lilting laugh carries through solid walls and ceilings.

Everyone was really nice though and we didn't almost get kicked out, although I'm thinking they all breathed a small sigh of relief when we went next door to have our lunch.

We had lunch at the B&B inn next to the spa and it was a chicken salad with dried cranberries on wheat bread with some salad, some pieces of fruit (strawberry, mango, pineapple and orange slices) and then a little walnut/orange shortbread. It was served with a glass of cherry iced tea and water with lemon, in a beautiful dining room on lovely china. You know what I mean if I had taken a picture of it -- but I didn't. :(

Dinner wasn't quite as elegant because Ann's meal looked sort of like it had been formed out of a small cardboard box, but the corn fritters were good and it all became wonderful with the ice cream sundaes and apple crisp and apple dumplings we had for dessert. And fudge.

Of course things at home went great because Rob is a wonderful, conscientious father. Oh, and he took the girls TO THE TOY STORE while I was away. THE TOY STORE. I mean seriously -- how is anyone supposed to miss me and appreciate me when they are AT THE TOY STORE.

Especially when Dad lets you buy a giant duck.

And serves you spaghetti tacos when you don't like scampi (these were the leftovers -- Rob didn't take pictures when I was gone): Luckily, my children knew enough to tell me that they missed me -- even if it was AFTER they told me how much FUN daddy is, and how much FUN they had. And by the way, did you see the BIG GIANT DUCK I bought?

 We did have some other visitors on our trip as Tommy and Brenna (here with Bean) came along for part of the trip to make us laugh, but didn't stay with us or have spa treatments. My brother did buy Tommy a sling-shot though, which is almost as bad as a big, giant, duck. All in all, a great time was had by us -- lots of laughs and silliness!

Talent Show 2011

Time to get back to business on the blog -- which means we need some cute kids!

Here's a talent show the kids did when we were all in New York. New Yorkers, please ignore Hannah's Phillie's shirt. I blame their elementary school. Oh, and everyone ignore my terrible videography -- these moving pictures are all new to me... ;)