Immediately

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I have a lot of catching up to do like what we did for Mother's Day and how

we recently spent a day at the beach. 

In the meantime here is the latest in the life of Luke and Ellie. 

How is there any sand left in the sandbox?

LUKE

1. Luke's favorite new word is immediately. "Mom, do you mean you want me to pick

up my toys immediately?!" "Do we need to leave for school immediately?"

2. He says Grace before we eat dinner, and last night all on his own, he prayed for one of his classmates because this friend had just lost his dog and he was sad, so Luke sent up a prayer

to the man upstairs. 

3. He tells me he'll never let me go when he gives me a hug. 

The best part of my day.

I love the curly tail on his Us.

Loving his sister.

Her most recent get-up.

ELLIE

1. She calls the water fountain at school The Water Mountain. It makes us melt.

2. She says "get for" instead of forget. "Mawwwm, you getfor to bring B." 

3. She loves for me to sing the Stay Awake song that is in Mary Poppins. As I sing she does a big fake yawn and then falls back on her pillow just like Jane and Michael. 

4. Her favorite song is Brighter Than the Sun by Colbie Caillat. 

Singing her heart out.

Don't you think Snow White looks super guilty standing back there all alone?

She takes swinging to a new level.

We are probably terrible parents for thinking she bares a bit of a resemblance to Sweet Dee from Always Sunny. Don't judge us for that. 

Random

Remember when I cut my hair off and felt like a younger version of Liza Minnelli?

And Ellie didn't have a lot of teeth or hair?

Bedheads and pjs make me smile.

Princess dreams

My mom and I took Ellie to see the Disney Princesses last week with my good friend M, her two girls and her mom. All of the girls were in awe, blankly staring at the glittery stage. Most of the audience was clad in princess costumes and tiaras, Ellie being one of them. She was practically dripping in pink and enjoyed every minute of it until the excitement was so much that she almost fell asleep on the shoulder of her grandmother. As the show ended, grandma woke her up with a free-for-all at the souvenir table, as she rubbed the sleep from her eyes Ellie spotted a white horse she needed to have. I'm pretty sure she thought she had dreamed the entire affair as she happily rode home with the horse held tightly in both hands. Grandmas certainly make dreams come true and Ellie knows it first hand.

The weekend

Heard about 50 times all while holding her or sitting next to her or laying in bed with her: "Mama I need you."

Crying.

More crying.

I did dishes with her attached to my leg as she cried. I went to the basement to do laundry and heard the screams from upstairs, "Mommmmmmy I neeeeeed you. Where you are?"

Talking to the neighbors, she comes running to me...crying, "I need you mama."

Luke to John after hours upon hours of building Legos together: "DAAAAAAD can you help me? Dad I need you. Dad can you help me? DAAAADDDDDDD! Can you help me?"

This weekend was an open door policy, no privacy, no quiet until bedtime, and when it was quiet I felt my ears ringing and thought for sure I heard crying.

Trying as it may be, these are the days we will look back on with warm hearts. Luke gave me a hug and said, "I'll never let you go mama."

Ellie clearly is under the weather, fighting a virus and the only cure is a rotation of Tylenol, Ibuprophen, apple juice and me.

The Carousel of Life

The kids have discovered Mary Poppins. They are mesmerized by it, the songs, the dancing, and the accents have them completely star struck. Luke copies the way Bert dances and I have to say he is pretty spot on with the moves. When it's time to go one of them will say "spit spot" well, actually Ellie says it more like "split splot". The scene where they ride the carousel horses is one of their favorites so when John told them about the carousel at the New York State Museum Ellie was all in and wanted to go straight away.

Today we happened to both have the day off so we whisked them away for a carousel ride and took a trip back in time for ourselves. The State Museum looks the same as it did when we were kids. The statues of loggers, the stuffed giant wholly mammoth, the vintage displays of Adirondack campers and the Native American Longhouse are all exactly as I remembered them. There is now an entire wing devoted to 9/11 which is of course solemn and breath-taking. I peered into a trailer of all of the "trash" that was saved of make-shift memorials from families of the missing. It was eerie, it reminded me of this and as I walked away I made the sign of the cross because I just didn't know what else to do.

We meandered through the diverse neighborhoods of Manhattan, saw lots of bird species and bones of fish, the skeleton of a mastadon, and made wishes in a fountain. It all felt like we were living in Ferris Bueller's Day Off. Every so often John would grab my hand as we watched the kids take in the magic of what they saw. It was just the right kind of magic to distract me from what happened on this day 9 years ago.

She named her horse "boy" and was saying, "bye bye boy!"

Seriously looks like a scene from Ferris Bueller right? I mean, if he had kids and was 36, not 17.

Saying good-bye to the train conductor.

Too young to understand what this means.

Father Daughter Dance

Ellie handed him B and said, "you wear B. You be the Prince daddy. And I'll be the princess. Come to the ball with me. Okay?"

So he did.

It's pretty clear that we desperately need a real camera.

Lately

The pics say: We roasted marshmallows in the fireplace.

The truth: The kids were happy as clams, and loved it.

The pic says: We went to the movies. And we look happy.

The truth: We spent $50, Luke "needed" to pee 5 times, so we were that annoying family who gets up and down multiple times and then he wanted to leave early. Ellie loved every minute of it. Not quite the family bonding time we had hoped for.

The pic says: It snowed.

The truth: It did.