melted smoosh

one of my favourite questions to ask the girls at the dinner table is what their "roses and thorns" were for the day, meaning good things and bad things. (asking about things that were funny, or sad, or surprising, also yields much conversational fruit!) today, I've got a few roses and thorns of my own to share. the weather lately has been absolutely beautiful (except for today, when it's gloomy and rainy). I love this sweet spot in spring when we can open up the windows and let the fresh breezes blow through the house.  on the flip side, allergies have been acting up in full force, especially for Greta and myself. fortunately, Flonase and children's Zyrtec work pretty well to control things.  last weekend, the girls stayed with my in-laws and I had almost an entire day to myself, to sleep in, read my book in bed for a little bit (!), grocery shop at a leisurely pace, and fold laundry without a toddler trying to unfold everything. I also replaced my broken sunglas...

  Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia! The strife is o'er, the battle done The victory of life is won The song of triumph has begun: Alleluia! Happy Easter Monday! Holy Week and the Easter Octave are my absolute favourite times of the liturgical year. growing up in a devout non-denominational evangelical home, my most consistent experience of Holy Week was that we went to church on Palm Sunday, and then again on Easter. there were a few years where we participated in a Seder service to commemorate the Last Supper, sometimes including foot washing. one memorable year, we celebrated this memorial dinner with friends who lived on waterfront property. they had constructed a small wooden cross and placed several votive candles in glass holders on the cross. we each privately wrote down some sins on small pieces of paper, folded up the papers, and placed them into the flames of the candles to burn. then the cross was launched out onto the waves, bearing our sins with it. (I very well could be r...

  1) Soccer season for Cecilia! her Little Kickers team meets once a week on our school field to practice soccer drills and scrimmage games.  the practices are hilarious to watch -- this team is for preschool and kindergarten, so there's lots of running around, cartwheels, and shenanigans interspersed with actual soccer. (they won't start playing games against other teams until first grade.) their coach does a great job keeping them focused as much as possible. I think Cece's favourite so far was a version of flag football they played -- she collected the most "duck tails" by far!  running fast! (she's in the white top and black pants) collecting duck tails like it's her job handstand break just taking a minute to herself :D 2) a trip to the Children's Museum. our local children's museum is nationally ranked as one of the best, but I have always felt that it doesn't have much to offer the 2- to 5-year-old crowd (the science center and natural h...

to borrow a phrase from one of my favourite podcasters, Kendra Adachi from the Lazy Genius Collective, here are some things that are saving my life right now! I'd absolutely love to hear yours. we can all use some more genius moments in our days!  1) the OXO grape cutter . this was a gift from Cecilia's godparents when Elizabeth was born, and it is such a game-changer for the one- to four-year-old crowd. not only does it quarter 2 grapes and cherry tomatoes in half the time it would take to quarter one using a knife, it's also actually quite fun and satisfying to see the perfect fourths shoot out onto the plate. 2) the Libby app . these days, I'm using my library card predominantly to borrow e-books and digital audiobooks. I used to go to the library website on my phone, search through the catalog, download what I wanted and then follow the links to download books to my Kindle app and audiobooks to Overdrive. now I can do everything directly through Libby, including l...

I'm slowly catching up on travelogues from Fall 2019 through Spring 2020. for continuity's sake, the posts are back-dated to stay in order with contemporaneous posts from that timeframe, but I'm also going to be linking them here in real time so they don't get buried in the archives!  in October 2019, Rebecca flew across the pond again to join us in more Italian adventures (as well as branching off on several solo trips)! somehow she was not too traumatized by the experiences of her previous visit in October 2018, which included but were not limited to  missing connections  due to lack of cell service,  torrential rainstorms , too many  bus snafus  to count, and  the most infamous calamity of all  when we missed our special guided tour of the Colosseum. doesn't Italy sound like fun?!  this second trip was a bit of vindication, however. we knew our way around the city better and we also had fewer moving parts to our planned itinerary for her v...

  1) Baby Four on the way!  I just realized that although our family and friends have known for a while, I never made an official blog announcement. we are expecting another baby this July! and in February, we found out that baby is... another girl! Nick predicted this from the moment I had a positive pregnancy test. I had no intuition one way or the other, and the girls were convinced the baby was a boy. their initial reaction to finding out they are not, in fact, getting a brother, was incredulous disappointment, but by the next day, they were happily suggesting names for their newest baby sister.  Elizabeth, at 15 months, of course has no idea what's coming. she and the new baby will be 19 months apart, which is by far our closest spacing. I'm equal parts excited and terrified ;) but after all the ups and downs of secondary infertility we have experienced, I'm mostly just so grateful for the absolute gift of this little life. I'm also glad Elizabeth will have a buddy...