Memorial Day - 2

So, for the happier post. I do feel that even in the midst of terrible tragedy that it is important, maybe even more important, to celebrate life and that it is the only way to get through the hard times. I still feel really guilty posting about a great day when I know that my friends had one of their worst on the same day.

Well, this is how we celebrated the day...

Yesterday, David invited over the families that he home teaches for a Memorial BBQ. We had a lunch-time BBQ and set the time from 12-2pm. Everyone had so much fun that they were still here at 4:30! Finally we decided to dis-band so that we could eat dinner and some had other dinner-time parties to go to.

Grilling is one of David's favorite things to do. I think, mostly, because he likes what comes off the grill. He grilled up a gigantic platter of meat (sorry to all the vegetarians out there.) Then, the others brought the rest of the meal. It was pretty fantastic.
We had 5 adults and 7 kids. The kids had a ball playing in our yard that is finally a really great place to play. And, unbelievably, the weather was gorgeous except for the wind that kept blowing tree seeds onto the table. I thought it was a pretty bug-free day too, until we woke up this morning and did a count of mosquito bite welts. Grace has 10, David has as many, and Harriet and I have a few too. Oh well... can't be perfect.
Anyway, we haven't had that much time to sit and chat with adults since we moved here, I'm sure. It was unprecedented to sit on the deck and gab for 4.5 hours almost uninterrupted! I think that this is what we miss most about our friends in Salt Lake. We used to spend hours on the front porch or in the back-yard with our neighborhood friends on a weekly basis.

The rest of this is kind of un-related, but here are some more May pictures. Also, David went birding yesterday morning. He'll have to post about that sometime.

Grace and Hattie checking out a caterpillar under the deck.

Hattie in her jammies that match her baby she got for her birthday.

Grace, Daddy, and Hattie on a little bike ride.

Grace's peeper frogs... the peeper frogs sing only in the spring at night and it is Grace's favorite lullaby. She makes us open her window so she can hear them while she goes to sleep.
The video isn't important - too dark, but just listen...

Memorial Day - 1

For younger people like us, who have parents and grandparents who are still taking care of family grave sites, Memorial Day is usually mostly about BBQ's with friends. Especially that we live in a place where none of our family is buried, we don't have the opportunity to go and visit cemeteries and leave flowers.

So, we did do the BBQ with friends yesterday. It was really a great time, but the entire weekend and last week as well has been completely overshadowed for me by a tragedy that happened to some friends of ours.

My Memorial week/week-end has been spent thinking about them. Their almost 2 year old daughter (almost exactly Hattie's age) choked on an apple last week and passed away. Her funeral is today. They live in Park City, UT, or I would be at her services instead of on the computer. I don't want to tell all of the horrific details here on our blog. It is not our story to share and I feel like people should read what they have written instead. I debated about whether I should even mention it on our blog, but it is something that has significantly changed my life and I will never be the same. I'm not sure why. I have had personal loss before. I have known people who have lost their children. I have had friends die. But, this one has sunk very deep for me. Maybe it's because I am a parent and my own daughter could be a pea in a pod with theirs. I don't know, but not 15 minutes has gone by for the last week that I haven't thought about them or cried for them.

So, I'm writing this to all of you who read our blog who are parents of little ones. I know we have lots of friends with tiny kids. Just hug them a little tighter today. I feel so bad - I haven't slept much at all for the past days, so I've been really tired and cross with my kids. But, I have appreciated them so much and I have been so thankful that I have them.

I don't feel like this is the right post to show a bunch of pictures of our BBQ or of our cute kids. So, I'll make another post for that.

If you want to read the Jackson's blog, we have it linked to ours to the right in our bloglines section under Jackson Familia. It is heart-breaking, but it is also really inspiring and comforting to read the comments that have been posted on their blog. So many people who know them and who don't know them are totally gathering to support them. It is quite amazing.

if you wanna feel good about yourself

come see my kitchen right now. I was going to take a picture of it, but the picture just doesn't do justice to how deep the mess is.

Actually, when we got home from school today and I looked around my house at the piles of laundry, heaps of dishes, sticky icky bathroom, and thought of all I have to do while the kids are in the middle of fighting with each other, hungry for lunch, and I'm on the phone with the car dealership trying to figure out when to go get my pathfinder, I started freaking out.

So, I get off the phone and I say to the kids (mostly to myself), WE HAVE NO UNDERWEAR AND NO FORKS AND IF YOU DON'T START BEING NICE AND HELP ME I'M GOING TO FREAK OUT!

(our code phrase for being way behind on laundry and dishes is that "we have no underwear and no forks" because those are the things we run out of first!)

Grace very calmly looks at me and says "go ahead mom, freak out." Like, seriously, mom, what's the worst that will happen. You're already nuts anyway, we want to see what all this talk is about freaking out. So, I started laughing my head off and did a silly crazy dance in the kitchen and the kids laughed their heads off and we all feel much better.

A Mother's Day Conversation

Happy Mother's Day 2008

After getting home from church we all sat down to eat lunch together. I had to blog about this conversation that Grace had with Michelle.

Grace: Mommy, sorry about Mother's Day.
Michelle: Why? Are you sorry about being mean today?
Grace: No, I just mean sorry about Mother's Day because I love Daddy more than you.
Michelle: You do!
Grace: Yeah, but it is close. I love Mommy 100 and I love Daddy 101.
Michelle: So at least it is close. Do you sometimes love Mommy 101 and Daddy 100?
Grace: Yeah, sometimes, I guess.

Five minutes later:

Grace: Mommy, since it is your special day, you can do anything you want. It is all OK. You can play all day and Daddy has to do all the work. It will be good. That is what Daddy does on Mother's Day.

You have to love Grace's honesty.

It is OK Michelle, we know who Grace really loves!

Grandma came to see us!

Well, we have no proof that Grandma came since she isn't in one single picture we took. But, my mom did come for 4 days to celebrate Hattie's birthday with us.

Grandma got here on the red-eye on a Wednesday morning. She takes the commuter train from the airport to a nearby town so we only have to drive 10 minutes to get her. We are so grateful she does that. The kids like picking her up at the train station too. Choo Choo!! There's grandma!

We immediately put her in the car for a shopping trip to Idylwilde Farm for groceries. Then, for a treat after lunch, she got to help rake 5 cubic yards of mulch into our new playground! After having about 30 minutes of sleep in 2 days, I'm sure she was thinking her trip wasn't off to a very promising start.We just loved having her here though. And for once she came to New England and got 3 days of nice weather in a row. That never happens to visitors.
The next day, we took Grandma to Davis' Farmland. It is a really cool place where you can see, pet, and interact with baby animals. In the summer they also have a really cool itty bitty water park for kids, but it wasn't open yet.
We were going to go into Boston with Grandma, but after weighing our options, we decided we'd get more bang for our buck and happier kids if we just stayed local and went to the farm instead.

On Friday, Grandma got the dreadful job of helping me take the kids in for pictures. Well, Hattie's 2nd birthday pictures anyway. Now that Gracie is a big kid, she got her picture taken at school! This project turned into a long morning, but we were determined to do something fun in a "historical" setting, so we still took the kids into Concord for lunch and shopping. This turned bad quick. Hattie had enough by the end of lunch and her melt-down builded up through a couple of stores until we left the last one with her shoes off, bags dragging behind, and a store owner very grateful to see us go!

David and I took advantage of Grandma and free babysitting and went to dinner AND a movie that night. We have not been to both in the same night since, I really don't know. We also have not seen a non-animated film in the theatre since we moved here.Grandma's last day here was Harriet's birthday. We went to Grace's soccer first and then spent the day making Hattie's cake and getting her little party ready. We had a really simple little party with just the 5 of us at home. It was really perfect and easy and most of all, I got to enjoy it. I hate it when I am so busy doing all the work for a party that by the time I get to sit down and take in what is going on, it is time for the party to be over. This time, I just got to be with my Hattie and the rest of my family. It was great.
Harriet loved her cake. She blew out both candles all by herself after a couple of tries.

(Hattie taking her birthday phone calls.)

Hattie had an awesome time opening her birthday presents. She wanted to play with each thing after she opened it and forgot she had more work to do. Grace got impatient because she wanted to get everything opened as fast as possible. But, it was really so cute. She LOVED every single thing that was given to her. She was excited about her new clothes and shoes, her new babies, her puzzle, her books, her elephant, and her shirt with Tinkerbell on the front. She even loves opening a card with money in it. She knows she can take the money to the paper store in a purse and get something fun.

Grace says it was the funnest birthday party.

Thanks for coming to Hattie's birthday party Mo Deb! You made it perfect.
We love you and we were so sad to see you go.