This was a busy week!
Crazy, crazy busy!!
Awesome and fun busy, but I'm a little relieved that tomorrow is boring old Monday.
The girls flew up for their Spring Break from Utah and we had a nice week together as an almost complete family- just missing Parker.
It's weird that he's sort of a grown up now and lives on his own.
I miss him so much.
He's coming to visit in a few weeks, I may just club him over the head and lock him in the basement here.
We did a lot of fun things while the girls were here and I'm pretty wiped out, so I'll just post some pictures and go to bed early tonight.
This Mama is tired.
So......
Easter happened.
My kids are old and we had to be to church by 8am and stay late on Sunday, so we hid a bag of pre-filled plastic eggs and filled the baskets with the usual stuff.
The girls came and the kids went to YM/YW
They reconnected with friends they made last summer and played volleyball.
Well, mostly the YM played volleyball while the YW giggled at the boys.
We celebrated Jane's 13th birthday as a family.
She may be a little old for a doll, but the girls have been eyeing this line of Disney dolls ever since they saw them last summer. We got Jane a Belle doll because it kind of looked like her and she's a bit of a bookworm.
Getting her a Nook probably contributed to that.
All three girls share one account so they can share books.
Even though we're a Kindle house, we got them Nooks so that the accounts and funds won't get used by a person they know who struggles with what belongs to her and what belongs to others.
We can send the girls new books now and all three of them can share them, hopefully that will work without any trouble.
There were lots of hugs and fits of laughter...
Games were played.
Dixit, Redshirts and a few rounds of annoy the parents.
That's a game the kids made up.
They win every round, too.
We had another Birthday Celebration for Jane, this time with the YW.
These girls....sigh...these girls.
They are fantastic and lovely and I adore them.
I made an ugly cake:
I own no fewer than 6 sets of tips for icing and yet, I always just use a ziploc bag with the corner cut out for things.
Eh, it tasted good.
As we did at parties before, the girls were allowed to give Dad a makeover.
And they had a blast, as always.
I think it helps the kids see the big tall guy in the same way we all see him.
He's just a big squishy, after all.
They jumped on the trampoline and talked about boys- which was weird because Romy was talking about boys, too.
This growing up stuff....
Everyone had a really fun time and I am so thankful for this ward and the great folks in it. Even the kids are just so friendly and loving. You'd have thought they had been friends with the girls their entire lives.
The next morning, we went to Short Hills and caught the train to the city.
(I just love saying that...we caught the train to the city...because you know, we're city folk now.)
We were late to the Scottish Festival in Central Park.
Apparently, it wasn't a big thing anyway- just a race and later they had a parade. but we only caught the bum end of some a Scottish rapper and saw a lot of men, freezing in kilts.
We went to the toy store and the girls all got to take a turn on the BIG piano. Jane had done it before, but it was a first for Emma and Kate.
They tried to play songs, it was cute.
Chopsticks as a solo act is impossible, Kids.
We went back to the park and had out own little Doctor Who walk.
One of our favorite episodes takes place in Manhattan, it's also probably the saddest episode.
In it, The Doctor, Amy Pond and Rory Williams all sit on a rock like this in Central Park.
We recreated the pose:
(Tina Bushman, do you recognize the book Kate is reading? We took Table Talk with us to make the ride into the city more interesting- and it did!!)
We went to see the fountain with the angels and absolutely, positively did not blink.
Then we hung out on the bridge where Amy and the Doctor realize that Rory has been taken by the Weeping Angels.
Totally Geeky, but it was awesome.
The John Lennon memorial was on the way back to the subway we needed to take to Penn Station. It's in the park across the street from where he was shot.
And no visit to this part of the city would be complete without seeing the temple.
If you're not familiar, you can see the spire sticking up, it's the white building behind the girls that looks like a million other buildings in Manhattan and it never stops being amazing to me that right in the middle of this loud and often gross city- there is a House of God.
We ate sweets from Magnolia Bakery outside across the street from the temple, at the Lincoln Center by the Farmer's Market.
Matt and Kate had caramel cheesecake, Emma had a chocolate cupcake and Jane and I had apple crisp.
Yum.
We ALSO finally were able to enjoy a Rugby game with Zane.
He got hurt in the first game of the season and has not been able to play in a game until now and finally, finally we got to see him play.
It was great to spend an hour yelling "let's go, Boys!" and "knock his legs out!!!"
Next week, Zane has a tournament in DC/ Virginia.
We've had so many things going on, but you know what?
The sun has started to shine every day and I am so happy that winter is over that I don't mind all of this 'to-do-ing' one bit!
