Happy Mother's Day!

Everyone was home!

 

We Got our Hairs Done

Mary gave me highlights and I love them.

Julia was thinking about chopping hers...but then decided not to.

 

Close

While Jeremy and the younger boys were at Leadership Camp, Julia and I decided to do some baking.  True to form Julia loves more complicated things than I do so we did a Black Forest Cake.

 It was pretty good except we only have two pans and needed three.  The third layer was really gummy because it shouldn't have sat around so long before we baked it.  Now we know and Julia bought a third pan at the band garage sale!

Happy Mother's Day

Sam didn't make it home but he called!  :)

 

Happy Mother's Day!

The good picture (but what is Sam doing?).

Pre picture.

 Philip cooked for me.

Girls Afternoon

The boys went to a Husker wrestling dual so Julia and I had girls afternoon.   We did facemasks and I finally relented and we watched the Barbie movie.  Julia said no to a facemask picture.  The movie was meh.  Basic idea good- Barbie asks who am I, what is my worth?  But without God there isn't a good answer.

(Side note.  The "mommy" blog label seems childish, just "mom" seems much more appropriate, but after 15 years of blogging I'm not changing it now!)

 

Life Event

Nicholas passed Level 4 swim lessons which means...drum roll please...I'm done taking kids to swim lessons!!!  Our semi-followed rule is you have to pass Level 4. 

We celebrated with Dairy Queen!

Lego Demo Derby

Nick, Philip and I spent an afternoon building and crashing Lego derby cars!

My car, Nicholas's and Philip's cars at the beginning.

And after.  I think Philip won.

Enjoying the Lake

I did the story walk one morning.

Philip and I did the inaugural bike ride around the lake.  We remembered not to over do it on the first time out.  Plus the trail into town is closed because it's getting some fixes where erosion has been causing problems.

Nick and I biked into town, stopped at the library, stopped at the gas station to fuel his current obsession, Prime sports drink, biked back to the lake and then went the rest of the way around.  

So the Prime obsession- it's a newish sports drink and there are several flavors.  Nick's plan is to buy a bottle of each flavor and save the bottle so that later, he can buy the little dry mix packs and make them in the appropriate bottle.  

Then it got hot and we didn't do any more biking. 

Happy Birthday!

 to me!

Nicholas had recently had his turn at Grandma and Grandpa's so they made me this cookie.

I happened to get a lot of gifts this year, the kids had each gotten me some small things.

I threw this dress onto an Amazon wish list when my mom asked me for birthday ideas and I'm super happy with it!  First day of School outfit, taken care of!

Thanks everyone!

Story Walk!

Back when we went to Sioux Falls the first time, we biked over a bridge they have with a story walk on it.  I loved it and suggested it to our beloved Miss Carrie at the library.  They opened one at Wanahoo earlier this year!  The littles and I went to try it out for the first time today.  Obviously they are all too old for The Little Lady Who was Scared of Nothing but we still thought it was really fun.  Or at least I did...

 

Graduation: Week O' Fun- Monday

 The seniors traditionally drive something fun to school on their last day.

Samuel packed the pedal tractor in the van and then rode it down the hill to school.  Later he and Cassidy had a race.  There wasn't a clear winner.

They had their Senior field trip on Monday too.  I guess they usually go to the Penitentiary (as one last "be good in your life" lesson?) but because of Covid they still couldn't this year. So instead, they had their last class mass at St. John's in Lincoln, saw the movie Father Stu, ate lunch at Pizza Ranch and then went back to school for Baccalaureate and Graduation practice.  Then the administration announced it was actually their last day, instead of the scheduled next day (probably because the teachers had nothing left to do in class with them!!).

Samuel's First day/ Last day split.  Turns out we didn't take a picture of him on his last day so I cropped Cassidy out of the pedal tractor picture.

I was able to go on Nicholas's field trip with him on Monday also.  We went bowling and then to Schram Park.  We had a great time and I got to catch up with some moms I hadn't seen in awhile as well as meet Ainsley's mom.  Nicholas says Ainsley is his best friend so it was good to meet her!

It was a fun day!

Bike Ride Bribe

Nick didn't want to do any more bike rides after wiping out two rides in a row.  I convinced him.

 

Mother's Day

Mother's Day was in the middle of Greta's graduation and Grandma's interment weekend.  There was a special breakfast at church for the graduates and First Communicants which was nice.  Then we stayed home for the rest of the day and enjoyed being together.

Got this picture with the kids despite the excitement of an "orange cat" being in our yard just before the photo.  Turns out it was a fox!

Along with some junk food, Jeremy got me this Chrism scented candle for Mother's day.  It's fun to burn it and make the house smell holy!

Good Thing Catholics don't Believe in Fate

  because otherwise I'd be tempting it.

I've always wanted a mother's ring and 8 years after the last baby seemed safe.  The stones are a little out of birth order because I decided the in-order color combo would bother me more than knowing they weren't in order.  It goes Thomas garnet, Samuel peridot, Julia amethyst, Philip aquamarine, Nicholas garnet and I love it.  Thank you Jeremy!

Other Things Happen in December too

Building

Spider climbing

Snow moving

Even though the snow was deep, it's pretty!

Son bothering hugging

And my least favorite, unhooking the dryer vent in an attempt to see what's wrong.  

It was the heating element so the vent unhooking turned out to be unnecessary.  Boo.  Thankfully  Jeremy replaced it after we got the new part a couple days later.  We only had to take two loads over to Steve and Raleen's to dry.  (One was in the dryer when it broke and the other was already in the washer.)  Turns out that's four loads at their house but Julia got some good Grandma time.
 

Christmas Morning

We went to Christmas Eve Mass so Christmas morning we had nothing to do but open presents, eat and enjoy being together.   So we did just that.

Nicholas with the tree and gifts is reminiscent of my Grandma Irene.  She always wanted a picture of the youngest kid and all the presents by the tree.  

Santa brought everyone fun things.  The siblings hit it out of the park this year, the highlight being Thomas receiving his own personal mini blender from Nicholas.  Another of my personal favorites was the ornament I found for Nicholas.  Each year I try to find each kid an ornament that has to do with their current activities or interests.  I found Nick a Nutella toast ornament.  He eats slightly toasted Nutella toast for breakfast whenever he can, so it was perfect!  Jeremy and I got nice things too.  My birthday, mother's day, Christmas gift will be arriving in the next couple weeks.  A mother's ring!  My grandma had one and I've always wanted my own.  It felt safe to get one after almost 8 years of no babies.  :)

After a tasty breakfast, where we forgot to eat the special almond bread (no worries, that meant G&G and Beth got to try it too) we headed out to see my parents and Beth!

 

A Happy Mother's Day

I had a really nice Mother's Day this year.  Julia painted my nails, Thomas, Philip, Julia, Nicholas and I played Labyrinth.  Samuel and I had a nice game of Canasta and Jeremy made all the meals! It was a good day!

Bike Ride

Philip and I finished up the summer by biking the trail from town to the lake and back.  Too bad we forgot it's better to start at the lake.  We were hot and tired when we got home but it was fun!

Summer Fun

Convinced my oldest to spend some time with me.  We played Canasta.  He won.