The Past Ten Months Part 2

We cheered Micah on at his last track and field day.  I still can't believe his elementary school days are a thing of the past :(

This part of our experience deserves and in-depth post, but I just can't do it right now.  I can't even look closely at all my photos.........Grandma Mary was diagnosed with cancer at the end of May and died seven short weeks later.  We had a lot of special family time and these are some of the photos I loved.  When I feel more ready to process the events of our summer I have lots more photos and some stories to share.

Things That Happened During The Past 10 Months

Ayla turned nine.

Our friend, Miss Sophia turned one.

Micah turned eleven.

We went to St. Louis over Spring Break.

We were accidentally matching one Sunday morning so we took time out for a nice family photo shoot.

Spring finally sprang.

Then we had another snow day.  On May second.  We lost power for several hours.  Thank goodness for the wood stove.  It's how I made my coffee that morning.  Oh yeah, it also heated the house!

To be continued.......

I Quit Blogging Because I Wanted To......Sort Of

Actually, I don't think I wanted to quit blogging.  I sort of had to for a while.  I got sick of trying document everything.  I stopped picking up my camera for, days, weeks, months.  I kept feeling like I should be blogging.  I should be taking photos.  I should be documenting the lives of my quickly growing children.  Anytime I feel like I should be doing something it doesn't take long until I stop doing it altogether.  Anyway, I think I'm done with my self-imposed break.  I don't know if I have any readers left.  I'm just going to do a bit of posting/catching up and then decide what I want to do with this space.  If you are still out there thanks for checking in.  If not, I understand.

Winter Break

Our break seemed to fly by this year!  Since Craig is working second shift we didn't get to Mom's until Saturday afternoon.  

So excited to get a flute (recorder) at long last!

 Yes!  Mom finally got some sharp knives!!  Now she just needs a bigger cutting board and more counter space.  Oh & a dishwasher would be OK too.

Our trip was short, but busy.  A few of us made it to the theater to see The Hobbit and we also fit in a nice meal with Dad at a super delish Japanese Steak House.  

Monday we headed back North in the afternoon.  We had another family gathering at Craig's uncle's place and then Shari and Mary headed over for a couple of nights.  I didn't take one photo of that time, so I'll have to use words.  We had an awesome Christmas meal at a friend's house prepared by a trained chef, we lazed around in the hot tub some & stayed up late playing dutch blitz and drinking eggnog ~ a family tradition! 

Then we had a few nights with just our family.  Not too much exciting went on as Craig was working, but we did manage to spend one afternoon at IKEA and another at an outdoor skating rink.  Again, no photos.  I'm lame.

We rang in the New Year with a visit from the Prouty family.  We made it to a sledding party for several hours & then spent the rest of the holiday in a very low key way.  I think a few of us might have had our pj's on all day on the 1st.  A perfect way to start the new year, except, maybe some photos would have been good.  New Years resolution #1 Be a better blogger/photographer!

Flu & Gingerbread

The day after the kids' holiday concert at school Mom, Kaia and I were going to help Ayla's class decorate gingerbread houses.  Unfortunately Ayla woke up at about 12:30am and got sick in the bathroom.  I didn't know until the next morning, because my aunt got up with her and cleaned up the mess.  Thank you, Auntie Tonia!

She felt fine the next day, but I kept her home.  Now that I look at this photo I think she looks rather pale, so I guess that's a good thing.  I ran up to the school to get the graham crackers and candy she had already brought in.  Then all we had to do was find containers (butter cartons) and a recipe for frosting (glue) and we were set!

Micah saved his milk carton from school and made one when he got home.  Now they are gone.  I'm not sure how they could eat them as the frosting really was glue like & gross in my opinion, but hey it's sugar!

Oh & Craig was the only other one that got the flu.  He got it three days ago so I think we are safe!

Snow Day

How Quickly They Grow

How did all the Connelly kids get so big so fast?  We have two driving,  one on the edge of high school,  one on the edge of middle school, one who just entered the double digits and one on the edge of pre-school.  Not to mention those in between.  Wahhhh!!!

They are all such good kids.  I love it that we finally live close enough to see each other more than once a year.  As much as I hate how quickly they are growing, it is very exciting to see the beautiful young men and women they are becoming.