Kid Conversations: Yes - we are still alive!

I dropped off the face of the planet for a while there - spring was pretty hectic with soccer, Easter, piano recital, another birthday, and most importantly, packing and moving because we actually sold our house!!! And it only took 19 months. We are so very glad that chapter of our life is over, forever, because Scott says his next move will be to a casket, and I completely agree. Someone would have to offer to do everything buying and selling for us, pack us, and quadruple Scott's salary for me to even possibly consider going through that again. We were a real estate disaster and the only thing that got us through was our realtor who is truly a gift from God and went above and beyond so many ways. We're all settled into our new house now, the kids can't get enough of living on a cul-de-sac and spend all their free time out on their bikes or scooters playing with the one other little girl in our neighborhood. There is one empty house on our street, and we all have our fingers crossed that they'll have some kids to add to the mix!

Cakes and Silly played soccer this spring. We knew Silly would love it, but we were nervous about Cakes because last time she played soccer (granted, she was three) was a disaster; lots of screaming, crying and refusing to participate, even though she talked about playing and looked forward to it all week. Not so this time! We've never seen her competitive side before; personally, I was glad to see she has one.

She lucked out with good weather, not too hot and usually cloudy, for almost every game, which was good because the teams all shrunk a good deal at some point in the season which meant just about everyone played the entire game.

Silly had a blast, as usual. I think it was his last game that I pointed out to Scott that the coaches were saying Silly's name far more often than anyone else, because he was always right there at the ball no matter what. He's a speedy little guy.

I took the kids up to Richmond for part of Easter weekend because one of my sisters was visiting. The dads and big kids went to Busch Gardens and all the little kids went on an egg hunt at a local nursery, except that we got there a whole 4 minutes late and all the eggs were already gone. We'd promised the kids an egg hunt though, so we went to the store and bought lots of eggs and candy, filled them all up and had our own egg hunt in Mamie's yard then let the kids eat candy pretty much all day long. (I was looking through these pictures feeling bad that I didn't have Cakes in any of them, and then remembered that she was at Busch Gardens. Duh.)

And then real Easter at our own house, immediately after which the in-laws came and took the kids back to Richmond for a few days (thus the suitcase on that chair in the living room that doesn't actually belong to me).

Those are not fabulous pictures, but I put them on up so you can see my "staged" house. Looks weird, huh? It worked though. Our house was under contract in less than three weeks (after being on the market from October 2010 to December 2011, taking it off the market, taking a break, then starting all over with a new realtor). Then we went out and found a new house in two days and things got even crazier. When life is already crazy, adding in a little more doesn't make a whole lot of difference, so we made the decision to have Silly's birthday party a little early rather than late and after the move (a choice I now know was very wise!) which meant we had Cake's piano recital Saturday morning at 10:00...

Cakes with her piano teacher and fellow piano students

Lesson learned from last year - the picture taking makes her more nervous. I told her we were going to want to take pictures, but she had a choice of before or after, she chose after. Lesson learned this year - MAKE her practice introducing her piece. She hates it, but I made her practice a lot last year and she didn't get too worked up speaking in front of the group. This year I gave her a choice based on what she thought would make her less nervous, she chose no practicing out loud. As you can see from the beginning of the video, she was pretty worked up. I think practicing helped her get some of that anxiety out, so next year we'll practice the speaking part!

After the recital it was off to soccer games for Cakes and Silly at 1:30, followed by a birthday party at 4:00. Why not?

Silly's one request was a cake from Sam's Club. I am not exaggerating when I say every time he has ever gone to Sam's Club with me he has asked if we could get one of their cakes for someone's birthday, whichever birthday happens to be up next. Up till now I have made all of my kids' birthday cakes (which makes 16 cakes if you're interested) but knowing what this particular Saturday looked like, I figured I oughta grant his birthday wish and make my day just the tiniest bit less crazy.