Springtime Things

As we're now into (a hot, humid, Southern) summer, I thought I'd round up a few photos from here and there over the course of the spring. I don't know that I've written much about any of these, so consider this a springtime round-up of things I never got around to (and if I've already posted them and forgot...so sorry):

At the beginning of March, poor Little Lily had the WORST time. She got the flu (even though we'd all had the flu shot), she had a bad reaction to Tamiflu (she hallucinated seeing bugs swarming on everything), and she wrapped up all of that with a double ear infection. It was so tough, but she was such a good sport. She suffered most from the quarantine I immediately instituted. It was so hard for her to be isolated from her sisters, which was heartbreaking. But, no one else got the flu, so I think it worked out for the best.

Waiting to be seen have the ear infection I KNEW she had officially diagnosed (it was diagnosed as "a rockin' infection")

Less than two weeks after we got Lily healthy again, Brynnie developed croup. Late at night, OF COURSE, which increased my anxiety about it. She and I spent the hours of 10:00 pm- 1:30 am at the emergency room getting a steroid and some peace of mind. It was a Saturday night, so she and I missed church (and nursery duty) the next day...

Sweetie baby.

...which happened to be St. Patrick's Day! Yes, I did put Brynnie in the green dress I had planned for her to wear for church so that I could get Sunday pictures. She was feeling better, so I didn't feel too bad about it. 

And look how happy everyone is!

And Brad was a sport and wore hues of green, too.

All of the girls have worn this dress and this headband. Aw...

St. Patrick's Day was on Sunday, so Claire's class had observed the holiday on the Friday before. Thankfully, she casually mentioned something about it that morning and I super-fast got her into a green tutu.

I didn't do as good a job of intentionally observing Lent with the girls this year, unfortunately. Some years are better than others, and three is a lot of kids. That said, we had great conversations about Palm Sunday and Easter, and the girls threw themselves fully into celebrating. We made it to a local church's Easter Egg Hunt + Festivities, colored eggs at home, and went to an Easter potluck with friends for Easter supper. (Unfortunately, Lily and Brynnie both had colds/allergies on Easter morning, so they and I missed church, bless it...we've had a really sick 2019 so far, guys).

 Waiting for the Palm Sunday processional

Not too crazy about wearing the egg-dyeing shirt

Lily accidentally dropped one of her eggs, which cracked. She, very excitedly, said, "IT'S GOING TO HATCH!!"

And she turned her hands into art

And hung some of their scratch art around the house

 Easter morning treats! (mostly from Nana...just a few from Mom and Dad)

Rockin' her lamb headband

This baby was so sad because of her cold. I was working hard to get her to smile (not only for the camera...just in general)

This one smiled a little easier...

...until we tried to take Sisters Picture. She didn't like that one bit. Note: I didn't make her put on her dress. She asked to.

Look at our beautiful collection of Easter baskets from our dear Mrs. Romine! They are the PERFECT size and colors.

There's not really a story behind these next few pictures; I just like them. Brad took the girls to our children's museum (we love it wholeheartedly and have been members *almost* since we moved in) one particular afternoon, and he got some great pictures in the butterfly house:

That's not Lily's hand...it's some other kid's hand. A kid who was trying to take it from Claire. Brad stepped in- don't worry.

Any other visit to the butterfly house is a little disappointing now, given that the butterflies don't always do this.

Claire did dance again this semester. Two sessions, actually. We weren't going to do the second session, but she just loved it so much and had such a wonderful experience that we made it work for the last session.

Brynnie practicing her stretching and toe pointing

We had the most wonderful experience with dance this year. I was pleasantly surprised.

The next bit is an eclectic collection of snippets that happened in our day-to-day:

Giving a little home haircut (this was the before)

At a friend's birthday party

Meeting the mascot of our local minor league baseball team

Little kid egg hunt..."hunt" might not be the right word. Maybe "egg collection?"

Why I don't wear a ton of earrings, y'all.

Locopops!

Drawing in the laundry room. 

I don't know.

Brad often gets posed with stuffed animals or dolls...and I'm pretty sure he doesn't even notice half of the time.

See?

You can't see it too well here, but Claire drew the cutest garden box of carrots on our front sidewalk.

A behind-the-scenes on a photo session

A rare one-on-one trip with Daddy to the outlets

Brad fixed our nearly-40-year-old washing machine for the third time! He's a wizard. And I really love this machine.

Spotted this when I was putting away Lily's laundry

A little quintessential, American family fun

Brad's brother, Tim, is marrying Jenna in September! They sent the sweetest box of treats and invitations to the girls to be flower girls. I'm just going to throw it out there that you might never have EVER seen more excited almost-flower-girls. 

Ring pops!

Fabric flower petals!

And invites for all!

Much of our spring was spent combating some pretty gnarly allergies. We had TERRIBLE pollen. So much pollen. Everything was just covered. Please look at our cars. After a rain.

Ew.

Not sidewalk chalk.

And then there's this. 

How's that for a photo dump? Maybe I'll try to do this again at the end of summer. I always have a lot of little snapshots that never make the blog, but maybe I should work harder to share them. I enjoy looking through them, and maybe my girls will, too, someday.