Apr 20, 2020

Hallelujah Is Our Song

It's been a week of heartbreaking loss for many families in our community and I honestly feel lame or something posting Easter pictures now. We live in such a freaking vale of tears. It's hard to reconcile loss with everyday and celebratory life that continues on.
Thank goodness JPII reminds us we are an Easter people...

Well, on Holy Saturday we dyed our eggs. They went so fast I might have to boil more next year!



I picked up things for the girls' baskets a little piecemeal this year but am so glad they came together.


Easter morning we started with a nice brunch. My dad always orders kielbasa from a Polish shop somewhere up north; this year some other family members and I ordered and picked it up curbside at a semi-local Polish shop. It was very good!


I wasn't sure what to do for Easter dresses for the girls this year (I LOVE the spring dresses here and here but just couldn't do four!), but got an inkling of an idea after an estate sale a couple months ago. I had picked up vintage dresses in Evie's size and Cora's size (for a dollar each!), so I decided to go that route. Heidi's we already had and I was able to find one for Audrey on Etsy. I had planned to get the hem altered on hers but COVID-19. 


It was sad not being around family for Easter or taking part in any outside Holy Week traditions, but one silver lining was being able to take our time with everything and not rushing to be anywhere at a certain time. 






We streamed our parish's mass, then a bit later had an egg hunt out front.



I couldn't handle Cora's get-up (knee pads, socks with flip-flops 😂) or her explorer pose:




We also enjoyed an early Easter dinner. This year we had ham, my aunt's cheese potatoes, asparagus, and rolls.

I honestly didn't expect much from the week after Easter, since the girls had no school, but it was so nice! I was completely lazy. I read upstairs in my bed and wolfed down Hershey's chocolate with glasses of cold milk (I'm a die-hard dark chocolate consumer, except I don't like Hershey's, however I *love* their milk chocolate!). I just let myself be non-productive and cope with the world how I felt like coping.

One thing we actually did this past weekend was complete a one thousand piece puzzle! We all worked on it- I was especially amazed at Heidi and Cora's ability to figure out the tiny pieces. It was addicting to just try to find one more piece.



There's a Hardy Boy's version too; everywhere I looked online it was out of stock except for one small online store, so I ordered it from there. Really crossing my fingers it's not some scam site...

Apr 15, 2020

Life Earlier {January, February}

Recounting the earlier months of this pell-mell year.

January:
Evie and I went to the March for Life in D.C. with my sister and her daughter. It was tricky getting to the start, as many streets were blocked off because of the President's arrival; we had to walk a long way but the girls handled the long trek well. 
It's difficult and heart-wrenching as a mom to have to broach the topic of abortion to kids, not to mention being presented with other topics written on signs at the March (rape, etc.). All in all I'm thankful we were able to march for the unborn!


We even spotted ourselves on EWTN's coverage- the funny this is there's no way I would have seen us except for the fact that when we passed the camera my sister mentioned the guy near us was holding his sign upside down, then when I was scrolling through the coverage later I noticed the upside down sign and was able to spot us!




February:

Evie finished up her basketball season. Tim took her to her last game and texted me that she scored a basket! I almost cried when I read that because our dear girl was most content to be an out of the way spectator with zero ball contact every single time she went in to play.


This month Evie also began a once a week after school program, Little Doctor School. Audrey was really looking forward to putting her name in the lottery for the 1st grade program later in the spring, but unfortunately that won't be happening!

We celebrated Valentine's Day:


February also brought the birthday of the Man of the House.




We also hung several things in Cora's room and added a little book unit:


It is the dinkiest little thing in comparison to the room size (ha! didn't look so small online), but at least it offers a place to shelve books!
I also finally framed this map I ordered from here a good long while ago:


Finally, I added this thrifted milk glass lamp- I love the base! The shade I found on clearance at At Home. 


No major transformation but better than it was before.:)


We enjoyed seeing the spring flowers pop up; a comforting constant in the midst of daily, almost hourly crazy changes.




Apr 3, 2020

March: In Like a Lion, Out Like a Coronavirus

I have no sunny outlook on the thing that is THE THING right now, so I'm just going to share some pictures of our blooming flowers. I'm identifying strongly of late to Eeyore, and Randy in A Christmas Story- the part with Scut Farkus (btw who is totally Moody Spurgeon in Anne of Green Gables!) when, "Randy lay there like a slug. It was his only defense". Pretty much me right now.

I *am* very grateful that we've had flowers in bloom because looking back it's been April before lots of flowers started coming up!


















..................

Some quarantine this and that:

I read on the internet that you can easily make iced coffee with instant coffee, so I've been enjoying that many afternoons. (I just use the quantities on my instant coffee jar) I add 1 tsp. granules to 1 cup of cold water, stir and let it dissolve a minute. Then I add ice, a little agave, and some of my creamer (which I bought several bottles of the week of The Hoarding- because it was on sale and it's never on sale, and not in the name of panic buying! (I wanted to tell everyone in the line behind me)).

Have you tried Marcella Hazan's tomato sauce? It is one of those recipes where the tiny ingredient list does not seem to match how good it tastes!

Listening to some praise and worship music while doing dishes and cleaning the kitchen helps boost my spirits. Some of my favorites really applicable to now:
Matt Maher's "Alive and Breathing"- favorite lyrics:
"Joy still comes in the morning
Hope still walks with the hurting"

Lauren Daigle's "O' Lord"- favorite lyrics:
"I will stand my ground where hope can be found"

Lauren Daigle's "Come Alive"- favorite lyrics:
"Up out of the ashes let us see an army rise
We call out to dry bones, come alive"

Jeremy Camp's "Everlasting God"- favorite lyrics:
"Strength will rise
As we wait upon the Lord"

Matt Maher's "Come As You Are"- favorite lyrics:
"Earth has no sorrow
That heaven can't heal"

That's all for now- Happy Friday!
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