weekend happenings and thoughts

Sometimes that girl just has a “switch” that turns off and on…she was all excited to walk, then the switch flipped and suddenly as we walked out the door she got all huffy with me and wailed “why do you have to torture me like this!?” over and over again with every complaint in the book.  Then suddenly half way to school she flipped that switch right back into gear and was all smiles and sunshine with big hugs for me and Bo when she headed off into the school.  Trying to figure out how to deal with all these emotions that keep bubbling up and bursting out of that girl of mine in a constructive way…

Felt so strange to just have one day of school just hanging off there at the end of the week, but Max, who had arrived in town for his friend’s wedding the day before, was my date to the temple while the kids were gone, and that was pretty awesome.

We also went into the big city to run some errands as part of our “date” and I just really like that boy a lot.  He is such a good sounding board to discuss the world with, and asks such good questions as well as thoughtful answers to mine.

Got this picture from Elle’s first Sabbath (which is on Saturday in Jerusalem).

Oh man, this is going to bring back so many good memories as these pictures keep coming in…she seems so happy over there, even through the jet lag and already-extremely-difficult classes she’s begun.

After Claire’s tennis lesson on Saturday we went and got flowers to overhaul our outside flowers now that the heat is melting everything we had before.

…and then out came the new Mr. & Mrs.

Our volleyball team happened to be going to state that afternoon, and we loved going to watch the game with our volleyball player in that gym where we watched him on that team for so much of his high school career.

 Loved that these fellow team mates were in town for the wedding too, and we got to watch together:

So much excitement on those bleachers sitting with them and Dave, as well as good friends with kids on the team.  It ended in a heartbreak loss, but those kids put on a good fight and it was such a good game.

Lucy’s friends invited her to a dance concert.

As we sat there in the dark, her body leaning in against my shoulder I was pretty emotional.

She whispered up to me that she really wanted to do gymnastics and be in the “flips” recital (totally unrelated to dance, but ok…).  Then a couple dances later she whispered that she actually wanted to do dance instead.  Oh how I want all her dreams to come true.  I sat there and let the tears well up in my eyes that I have no dancers like this any more.  Those days are faded in the outer recesses of my memory…the hair all done up and hair sprayed tight, my little girls begging for mascara for their first recitals, all dolled up in sequins and tutus…those little girls of mine were whisking in and out of my memory bank and I wished I could just hold onto them.  And also wished I could give Lucy her wish to make her one of them.

We’re on the hunt to find a private dance teacher for her.  But it was salve to the wound to have Claire and Lucy’s piano recital after church yesterday.  Something Lucy excels in quite beautifully.  She wasn’t in the least bit nervous to march up to that piano and play her song memorized perfectly with emotion and just the right amount of pianissimo and forte.

Claire, on the other hand, was scared to death (she was still holding on to her last recital where she didn’t play as well as she would have liked), but also marched up and played her two songs perfectly.

Check out that concentration:

There was a motherhood moment at church this last weekend that I want to share, but I’ll post it later this week because it’s more in depth…but man, I’m so grateful for motherhood as we anticipate Mother’s Day coming up!

I did a little non-technology experiment/challenge on Sunday that I’ll talk more about with that Mother’s Day stuff, but luckily Claire was not on a non-tech-challenge with me and was able to get Elle’s FaceTime call from Israel, where she is making lifelong friends and learning so much.