What In the World's Been Going on All April

Mostly the reason that my posts have been so infrequent lately is that we've had a crazy April!

Week 1
The first week of April was spring break for Nathan (we had beautiful weather to enjoy, I think) then a quick weekend visit with Gran and Pawpaw.  Brian's rotation this month is CT surgery (cardio-thorasic) and thankfully had a pretty easy week, getting home before dinner every night.

Week 2
Reality hit us the second week of April.  Lots of call for Brian, many late nights at work, missing some kids' bedtimes and even more family dinners. Brian had call Saturday, Monday, Friday, Sunday, Tuesday.  In the middle of his black call weekend (Friday/Sunday), we got a babysitter and headed to the roller rink for 80's night with our church young adult/young families group.  One of us dressed up for the occasion (Mom!  Look!  The side ponytail that you always loved on me!)  Oh yeah, we also finally rented a storage unit so that we can start making better progress on sorting/storing/donating/packing our belongings for our move that's coming all too soon.  Two loads of boxes and belongings later, the basement was in much better shape for our house guests coming the next week.  AND we're trying to finish up house projects and decluttering so that we can put our house on the market very soon!

Week 3
This week was more late nights for Brian while I was juggling organize/baking for/running a bake sale at the hospital for the Resident Spouse's Association (thankfully, my last one ever).  The day after the sale I hosted a sewing party at my house (the first of some unknown number to come) with Brian's female co-residents and spouses to hand craft some gifts for his class to give to their attending physicians.

Next my attention turned to Jennie's wedding weekend.  When I first found out the date of the wedding, I immediately called my mom and booked her as my all-weekend babysitter, and it was such a relief and a help to have her here.  This past Friday I got to have breakfast with Sarah Branch, who was back in town for the wedding.  Then Friday afternoon/night was the rehearsal and basically all day Saturday I was gone for the wedding.  The Mastroiannis also arrived at the house Saturday afternoon after I had already left the house.  Sunday was church, a nap (thank goodness!) and then an afternoon at the park with our family, Melissa and the kids (while Dom was still trying to sleep off  the stomach bug).  Sunday night I finally got my first chance to really visit with Dom and Melissa and us four adults had a really great time together.  Melissa got sick Monday morning so Dom and I wrangled the kids that morning before they left for the airport after lunch.

Week 4
I don't count this week as really starting until Monday afternoon as the kids and I eased back into our usual routine by heading to the library for the afternoon.  Tuesday morning was school for Nathan, but except for dropping him off and picking him back up I spent the day at home recovering from all the crazyness of the past two weeks.  Wednesday was a trip back to the wedding venue to pick up the stroller that Dom and Melissa had accidentally left at the wedding but didn't have time to get before their flight on Monday.  They graciously offered for me to keep it if I went and got it (best hostess gift ever - thanks guys!), then that afternoon the kids and I headed to the mall since I had been promising Nathan for WEEKS that we would go.  Thursday was preschool for Nathan, errand running for Sarah and me, more sewing in the afternoon and a rough call night for Brian.  And once again, most of the week was late nights for Brian. But now the bright light at the end of the tunnel - a week for vacation for Brian starting today.  HOORAY!

Mastroianni Visit: 5 Kids, 5 and Under

I know, I am soooooooo behind on the blog... so here's just a quick post to get us going again.  My plan is to start posting from current happenings and back-fill posts as I get to them.  So. Many. Pictures. To. Sort. Through.  Ugh!

This past weekend was Jennie and Adam's wedding. It was beautiful - the ceremony, the venue, the weather, and the obvious love that Jennie and Adam have for each other. I took a few (bad) pictures at the rehearsal and no pictures of the wedding, so I hope to borrow some pictures from her photographer to share once they are on Facebook.

In the mean time, I have pictures to share of our houseguests for the wedding weekend - the Mastroianni kids! We had a blast with them and their parents.  All of the kids got along wonderfully with each other the whole time!  Unfortunately their family was passing a stomach bug around while they were here (they stayed in the hotel for the first night and then we all thought they were "safe" to come here, but unfortunately not), but the time we did have to visit with Dom and Melissa was a ton of fun!  Now we're just praying that none of our family caught the cooties.  So far, so good.

As they were packing up to go home on Monday, Nathan asked Dominic, "Can you come visit us next time? Can you come to Boston?" So, yeah, we are definitely going to have to start visiting more often. I guess our family could start planning yearly vacations to Florida/Disney/Mastroiannis.  I know it would be a huge sacrifice for us, but we could probably suffer through it!  Hmm, maybe in the middle of a Boston winter? 

So thank you God for great friends and fun times!

Easter Fun at Church

After church on Easter Sunday we had a potluck, a visit from the Easter Bunny and a crazy, ridiculous Easter Egg hunt (1,000 eggs for about 20 kids).  We all had tons of fun!

Sarah catching sight of the Easter Bunny.

Nathan's reaction to the Easter Bunny!

Nathan was super cool with the Easter Bunny and gave him a high-five.

However, just like at Christmas, Sarah was less then thrilled by my attempts to have her sit on the Easter Bunny's lap.  She actually decided she didn't want to be in the same room as him, thank-you-very-much!

Sarah had recovered her composure by the time we had the Easter Egg Hunt, and with her practice from the day before, she did a great job hunting eggs!

And Nathan was LOVING the egg hunt!

I'd say he racked up!

Actually, he told me he needed another basket to find more eggs, but was agreeable when I suggested that maybe he already had enough eggs.

My 5k Race and An Easter Festival

I ran! The whole way! And made pretty good time doing it (for three weeks of training)! The number emblazoned into my memory as I crossed the finish line was 30:12, but later I found out my official time was 30:17, both giving me a 9:45 mile pace. I did NOT fall down or almost trample someone else at the starting line (though I saw it happen beside me), I ran the whole course and even speed-ed up a little on one of the hills (gack, there were some rough ones in the second half of the course). And since I was just ready for the race to be over, I almost sprinted down the home stretch. (There was a professional photographer at this point in the race, but not sure when/if I'll see any pictures I may have been in, but I'm sure they're super flattering!)

Unfortunately between my finishing faster then I anticipated and Brian's trouble finding parking, I didn't see him and the kids at the finish line cheering me on (though there were more people cheering at the finish line then I had expected so there was a chance that I may not have seen them anyways).  They were actually walking up a side street toward the finish line and did see me as I ran past.

I wanted to commemorate my first 5k by a picture with my two biggest fans.  Unfortunately, first I got a picture with moody child...

...and then goofy child with a stick-your-tongue-out sidekick.

For some reason I have this super close shot of Nathan, which shows in great detail his trip-to-the-emergency-room scar and re-growing (hooray!) eyebrow.

After the race, there was an Easter festival at the baseball park where the race was held, so we decided to spend a fun family morning together.  Nathan was super excited about the inflatable obstacle course...

...and then he and Sarah both enjoyed riding the carousel (though on his first ride, Nathan decided he wanted to sit on the bench rather then ride on the animals). 

Next we went down on the field for the bunny run (Nathan chose not to participate) and then the eagerly anticipated Easter egg hunt.  It was ridiculous the number of eggs on that field - and this was just for the three and under crowd!  Both kids waited patiently for many minutes at the caution tape for the egg hunt to start.  As expected, there was chaos when they let the kids go, so we let ours pick up 10-15 eggs before we called it quits.  The eggs ended up being filled with little toys and stickers, and the biggest hit with the kids were the two monkey tattoos which they were both eager for me to apply to their hands/arms after we got home.

Then we brilliantly headed back up to the inflatables while the bigger kids were having their egg hunts, allowing Nathan and Sarah to have exclusive use of this inflatable for quite a while!

Sarah just had a blast!  I was so pumped for her because I didn't think she'd have a chance to play with so many big kids around.  While we had the inflatable to ourselves, she had a wonderful time running around and then playing catch with the super nice inflatable attendant.

Nathan made a reverse basket! (up through the bottom of the net)

Then we closed our day out with three back-to-back rides on the carousel.  Let me just say that trying to take pictures and/or videos while on a carousel is a recipe for nausea - both Brian and I will attest to that!

We did take some videos during the Easter egg hunt and the carousel ride, but I haven't even looked at them yet to see if we got any good footage. So they may or may not make it up here eventually. Pictures still to come: church Easter egg hunt, home Easter egg hunt and dying eggs!