Is This Thing On?

I'm dusting this site off, at least temporarily. M. is winging his way to AFRICA* for work (god, he gets to go to the coolest places for his job), and I'm holding down the fort at home. While he's out for the next week, I'm hoping to post a few photos here from him (so we can all be jealous when he has dinner with a KING), and some photos of us (to remind him of the glamorous life he's missing).

Since he's still en route, and the kids and I did nothing interesting after he left this afternoon, I don't actually have anything interesting to post right now. Instead, I thought I'd put a few recent-ish photos up, since it's been so long that you may have forgotten what we look like :-).

Here's one from the first day of school - Finn as a second grader, and Lucy as a kindergartner:

 

 I missed documenting a few other big milestones on this blog, two of which happened on the same day - on October 20th, Finn turned 8, and Lucy lost her first tooth. If I had been laboring under any lingering illusions that my kids are still babies, I am now quite thoroughly disillusioned.

The year has been speeding along. Can you believe there are Santas and wreaths EVERYWHERE already? Even Christmas lights!?! Before we forget that fall happened (is still happening, damn it!), here's a quick snap of the kids during Halloween. Note that Finn (zombie) is sporting homemade guts spilling out of his shirt, lovingly prepared by M. using paper towels, flour, water, food coloring, and a pair of panty hose. Rather creative and gross, no?

I forced everyone to take a "picturesque fall walk" so I could try to capture photos for a Christmas card. I let the kids try taking pictures of us. This was the best of the lot, and spoiler alert, it did not make it into our card (which I have already ordered, by the way, in the only act to date that has given me any sense of feeling prepared for the rushing onslaught of Christmas):

Finn, at eight:

Lucy at five and a half:

Still the cutest things I've ever seen:

The End, at least for tonight.

*Not the ebola-ridden part, in case you were wondering. Morocco, in fact.

838 Photos

I finally managed to plug my iPhone into my computer and download all the photos I've taken since I bought it. 838 of them, and only about 400 are blurry. So I figured there must be SOMETHING worth posting, for posterity and all. Because I find that if I haven't put it here, a few months later it feels like it never happened. But be aware that these go WAY back. And of course, I picked the best ones. So we look happy and instaperfect and enviable. But there were plenty of cranky, shouty, rusty, sticky moments mixed in. Full disclosure.

Big Man, Bigger Chair

Snuck lipstick out of my purse

Bike, sunlight

Crazy pretty sky, the kind of which my great grandfather used to call a sheep sky (looks like a flock of sheep as seen from heaven)

We are dedicated zoo-goers

B&W selfie

My daughter the newscaster

And ballerina

Christmas happened

It was pretty

 

It snowed. A LOT.

But we kept having fun with it. Mostly.

And mixing drinks when times got rough

We ate a lot of cookies, too. That always helps.

Lucy continued to push style boundaries.

We enjoyed Christmas with my sister and her family.

There was a lot of plaid.

We began our year of doing something new every week with ice skating. If I ever get off this non-blogging rut, I'll go into some more details about our adventures.

Lucy celebrated 100 days of school by dressing up as an old lady. If they ever reboot the Golden Girls, I'm having her audition.

Finn discovered a love of basketball

 

M. turned 38, and was presented with the now-traditional Wisconsin birthday cake.

Finn passed his first belt test in Tae Kwon Do

We celebrated Ground Hog's Day, Pinterest style

I made miso soup. And I'm only showing this photo because I'm realizing that I should make this again. Yum.

Lucy wore leg warmers.

Finn lost one of the big front teeth.

We got more snow. By now it was mid-February, and we were less cheerful. Also it was a ridiculous amount.

The kids goofed around.

We thought it was spring. We went to Rehoboth for a weekend.

Then we got more snow.

And even more. This was practically April. I was pissed.

But the skies cleared, the brown started fading to green, and we dined outside. Spring was here.

M. and I went on a date to celebrate my 27th birthday. Ahem.

We went to Texas to visit this lady.

And Texas bluebonnets (better pics are on the big-girl camera)

And somehow, impossibly, Lucy turned 5. And got registered for Kindergarten. I don't even know.

We've had some more fun family outings, like this one to the National Building Museum.

Spring days in DC are awesome. Why don't we go more often?

Lucy discovered a love of pretend tea with real china.

And I breathed a sigh of relief that spring was here to stay when our dogwood tree bloomed.

We are now enjoying most evenings on the deck, with cool beverages, until the heat of summer drives us inside.

While the kids spend lots of time staring at the Kindles. Party poopers, but at least it gives us some grown-up time.

And we are having fun.