The beginning of April was pretty much a blur. Two days after Easter Tim left for two weeks of work in California. I debated going to my parents house or to the Chapmans, but decided to just stay home and try to keep Ian and Emma on schedule as much as possible. I made it to day 6 before I broke down. I plopped Ian and Emma in front of the computer and had them talk to Tim in California so I could just deal around the house. Thank goodness for our friends in DC! I relied upon them a lot during these two weeks and they were amazing. One friend even watched Ian and Emma one night so I could go hang out with other friends. Despite being exhausted at the end of the day I was able to catch up on a lot of house work such as painting trim and finally cleaning our windows and blinds. I have a little bit of nostalgia looking back on those two weeks now despite missing Tim tons. Ian, Emma, Pippin and I got into a groove. We ate vegetarian and enjoyed having the car every day to go explore DC. Bedtime was difficult without Tim around but we enjoyed reading books together in Ian's bed. I have a newfound respect for single mothers and those in the military. God bless you!!! Emma started talking a lot more while Tim was away...linking words together like, "I did," and "me too." However, "NO" has also become Emma's favorite word. It is her response to everything. Her voice is so darn cute though...she says it in a sing song voice so it sounds more like meow than no. Emma, almost two years old, is all about independence. She wants to do everything herself. She wants to change her diaper, use the toilet, dress herself, put on her shoes, climb into the car, climb out of the car, up the stairs, down the stairs...you name it she wants to do it by herself. Don't even dare hold her hand. She will meow "No" at you. This spark of independence has made my children even SLOWER. It takes them forever to leave the house. We are perpetually late for everything. It is 5:00pm before I know it. We don't accomplish much, but Ian and Emma are busy busy bees attempting to do everything themselves and therefore the day flies by. I really can't believe Ian is going to be four soon. He talks and sings all day long. We can have hour long conversations. We just chat and chat. I am trying to really enjoy this time as I know it will come to an end at some point. Ian still is so interested in everything and how everything works. He still asks Why and How a million times a day. I have found that my answers aren't enough so I pull up Discovery videos on youtube. How is honey made mommy? How is wood made? Why do the rollers go over the asphalt? What is asphalt? I need to go back to school to answer this child! I have zero pictures of those two weeks because Tim took the camera with him, but here are some recent pictures from when Tim's mom came to visit!

Easter 2012

This Easter we spent in DC. It was the first time we have spent a major holiday at home. It was a little weird to not be in Sewickley or Havertown with family but we really enjoyed being together as a family of four, spending time together at home, and catching up on some much needed yard work and house projects. I think Easter is one of my favorite holidays followed by the entire lenten season (if you can count that as a "holiday"). The weekend started off with a bang when we were already to dye eggs and I realized I only had brown eggs. So I ran out to the store to get a dozen white eggs. I came back, hard boiled the eggs, got the dye all ready, and as we were ready to dye eggs with the family, Ian dropped the entire dozen on the floor cracking every single one. We put things on hold, I ran out to the store again to get another dozen white eggs, and we were back in business. Also, we realized as we were dying the eggs on our homemade kitchen table that this was a craft suited for outside. So we picked up all the teacups and resumed the dying outside...much better. Ian and Tim made some really spectacular eggs that were bright and beautiful. We went to a family church service on Sunday, had an Easter egg hunt, read many many books about Easter, and finally had friends over to feast on an 8 pound grilled lamb (and yes, Ian did make a comment as we were picking it up from the butcher, "are we eating baby sheep Mommy?") and traditional Easter fixings including pineapple casserole, corn pudding, and freshly baked bread.