1) Farm visit. so much of our activities revolve around the older kids that it was a nice change of pace to focus on the younger set for once! we joined up with several family friends to visit a local dairy farm. we had toured this same farm about 7 years ago when Greta was 3 and Cece was a baby. Elizabeth was so excited to see real live cows but wanted nothing to do with milking the cows or feeding the baby calves ... maybe next year!
she spotted the calves immediately when we got to the farm and was so excited to finally see them up close!
taking a selfie with a calf...
... suddenly took an unexpected turn!! no clothes or babies were harmed in the taking of this photo.
the tour finished at their farmstand and country restaurant. strawberry ice cream for the win! (and yes, she is soaked in sweat -- it was a hot day!)
so proud to "drive" a real tractor
side-by-side of Greta at 3 1/2 on the same tractor
2) New car. Nick has been scouring Facebook marketplace and various car sales sites for the past few years, looking for a station wagon so he can haul all the kids around. (currently, our van is the only vehicle that can transport all of us.) and when the listing for this wagon popped up, he pounced on it immediately. he sold his sedan and arranged for the wagon to be shipped up from Virginia. the look on his face when it arrived was priceless! not only is it an extremely comfortable ride, but everybody we pass seems to love it. the girls begged him to drive them to school in it the following day.
like a kid on Christmas!
stepping back in time... Cece's face is covered in blue eyeshadow because she was playing Avatar
a very happy man
I had to do the side-by-side with Audrey Griswold from Christmas Vacation sitting in that iconic wagon
3) Memorial Day weekend. the Sunday before Memorial Day, we had a few friends over for a cookout. one of my summer goals is to get a full-size picnic table to better accommodate these feasts (as well as to make it easier for our own family to dine al fresco!).
BFFs
BFFs x 2!
they made telescopes out of parchment paper
mac'n'cheese lover
she ate all of the chocolate off the outside of the Klondike bar first... and this was the result
shenanigans
there was a sudden storm and we all rushed to clean up the yard and come inside, but shortly afterwards we were rewarded with this incredible full rainbow! I've never seen an entire rainbow in our yard like this before.
on Memorial Day itself, the Oratory celebrated the patronal feast of St. Philip Neri, observed. the chapel is undergoing extensive renovations, so mass was held at one of Pittsburgh's most beautiful churches downtown. the church is just up the hill from Duquesne's campus, so I was regaling the girls with tales from Nick and my college days as we parked and walked up to the church. Nick had arranged an orchestral mass with a string quartet and I truly felt like I was in Salzburg several times during the mass. here's a snippet of the recessional, Mozart's Sonata da chiesa.
after mass we were invited to a cookout with the Oratorians, staff and friends. then later that afternoon, I took the girls on our first pool visit of the summer! my aunt gifted us a family pool pass for Christmas and it is so appreciated. they've done a great job updating the pool over the years and have a sweet little kiddie pool area, a zero-entry middle pool that goes to 3 feet, and then the standard regulation pool as well. lots of fun for everybody!
Victoria kept crawling off into the water, which stays at about a 6-inch depth for some time, but eventually gets too deep for crawling so I had to scoop her up and turn her around several times. obviously I didn't take my eyes off her but I'm also impressed with the lifeguard situation; they have lifeguards stationed at each pool and they rotate every 30 minutes so they stay fresh.
no fear
4) Last day of school. school ended on Friday, May 31, which was quite satisfying! hard to believe another year has already flown by. Greta says her favourite part of 4th grade was getting to play up for JV basketball (she can't wait to be an official member of the team in the fall). Cece says her favourite part of 1st grade was reading for mass for the first time, memorizing Scripture, and participating in the Greek Olympics (the 1st and 6th graders paired up on teams representing the Greek city states and competed in various field event; Cece was quick to assure me that, unlike the ancient Greek Olympians, the students would compete in their clothes!).
she's gained a few teeth since the beginning of the school year!
it feels a bit preposterous to sit down and type out a list of woes on my personal laptop, in my own heated house, while my four healthy children nap or play (respectively) and I sip on a San Pellegrino flavored water from a case that a neighbor on our Buy Nothing group just gifted us. and yet. and yet! there has been quite a bit of woe in the last several weeks and I want to complain about it, so I shall. at the top of the list: car woes. not one, but two of Nick's cars were hit by other drivers within the past month. fortunately he was not injured, but working on his cars is essentially therapy for him -- so he lost not just two vehicles in his fleet, but also the time that was required to deal with insurance and police reports, and the emotional benefit of his favourite hobby. this car was rear-ended while parked. Nick wasn't actually in the car, but saw it happen -- the driver of the SUV in the photo below was driving full speed in the right hand lane and didn't reali
Victoria Anne was born on the Fourth of July, weighing 6 pounds 3 ounces and measuring 19 inches long! Miss Victoria arrived right on schedule -- I had requested a 39 week induction based on numerous factors, including my age and gestational diabetes, although thank goodness the diabetes was well controlled without medication, so my maternal fetal medicine/high risk OB was comfortable letting me go up until 41 weeks if I wished -- which I didn't! I had an easy induction experience with Greta (at 10 days post-due date), so I was fairly confident that my body would kick into gear quickly the fourth time around. Cecilia's birth was a precipitous one-hour labor that has garnered her the nickname Sidewalk Baby, and Elizabeth was born after a relatively quick five hour labor. 39 weeks happened to fall exactly on the Fourth of July, and we decided to go for it! Mom arrived on a red-eye flight the morning of July 2, and came along to mass with us. that evening, we squeezed in
1) Baby Victoria Anne is here! you can read her full birth story here . she arrived at 5:18 PM on the Fourth of July, and we are all absolutely smitten. she is four weeks old today. as I've experienced with now all four of my girls, time is such an elusive concept in the newborn stage. on the one hand, it seems she can't possibly already be almost a month old, while on the other, I can't imagine a time that she wasn't a part of our family. one of the things I treasure most about this postpartum time is the opportunity to visit with friends and family. I'm so grateful for their support and thoughtfulness in bringing meals and spending time together -- it's nourishing for both body and soul! Vin and Susan brought us a delicious meal featuring pork belly and pork tenderloin (we had corn on the cob and salad too, but we probably could have all used a bottle or two of Lipitor!) unbelievably delicious ladies' night with my best girls (not pictured: pizza and wi
Comments
Post a Comment