Times tables

How fast the time is going. These legs and those shoes belong to this kid? Can you believe it?

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.

Snow + Angels

We had the littlest bit of snow last Friday. Luke took advantage of that and as I was getting Ellie into the car he laid right down and spread his wings.

Aunt Hannah and Uncle Joe gave Ellie a princess castle tent for Christmas and the kids have been enjoying playing in the new "fort". Last weekend they had a little kissing session in there and I'm so glad I was able to capture it, even though the pictures are terrible the expressions on their faces are priceless.






And just because I loved this little moment, here's another: