Tomorrow will be our first (mostly) solo flight.  I’ve been a little worried about keeping Avery busy this week but at least we have lunch all sorted out.  She’s been eating the same thing almost everyday for the last several weeks.  I guess I shouldn’t care too much about that considering the variety, or lack thereof, of what gets packed in Chase’s lunchbox.  Lunches are hard.  I’m always talking about what works and what doesn’t work with my friends.  The consensus seems to be hold on tight to whatever works for as long as you can.

Lately I make her tiny kabobs of ham, cheese and pickles with toothpicks.  She seems to love it.  Today I didn’t even fully make the kabobs and let her pick up the bits herself with the toothpicks.  I was talking about this most excellent phenomenon with a friend last week and now she has me thinking about fancy toothpicks with the colored fringe on the end.  That’s going to be my next move should the excitement start to wear off of in terms of the current arrangement.

Today’s lunch was served up with half sours instead of kosher dills.  She didn’t seem to notice except to demand MORE than usual.  I can’t tell if this means that she’s not at all discerning in her pickle choices or that she has an incredibly refined pickle palate.  I guess the only way to tell is to try to go back to the kosher dills and see what happens.  Also, apparently this type of lunch is kind of fancy so if you’re going to try it out be prepared… it’s hard to sit in a booster with a full length skirt on.

My kids?  I missed them too.  I was really missing these little faces.  Home?  I was worried that all the clutter and bustle of home would get me down.  I worried that it would smell like a zoo.  Happily, none of those things turned out to be true (I’m coping with the clutter just fine).

I was missing our friends too.  Home is full of smiling faces, hot dinner, fresh bread, strawberries, pickles, beautiful wildflowers you name it.  I was missing the porch too.  The weather is perfect.  So grateful… for everything!

She so kissable and so totally squishy squeezy.  I can hardly stand it.  She’s my biggest baby yet at over 9lbs but feels just as tiny in my arms as Avery did at 6… just without the chicken legs.

This is turning out to be an extremely long 3 or 4 days.  The days are long and I don’t know what the weather’s like outside anymore.  I bet it’s nice out there.  I’m looking forward to eventually getting out of here but am a little afraid of what I’ll find at home.  My mother in law was here for a while to help us and now Ben’s holding down the fort though so I’m only a little afraid.

The girls have been coming to visit with me and their sister for a short while each day.  They’re really excited they like to help me and it doesn’t hurt that the nurse lets them help take my vitals and that sometimes there are leftover grapes from my fruit cup or whatever.

Lots of changes for out little family but so far so good.

Opening their big sister presents at dinner.

Thomas panties!  She was so happy.  So happy that she wanted to share the Strawberry Shortcake ones with her sister.

I hope it was terrific.

There’s nothing like hanging out with people who love to kvetch about how dinner has to be made EVERY DAY, how they’re seriously slacking in the housekeeping department or, you know, about library fines or whatever.  Cause that’s all right up my alley.

And my kids, well they love it too.  There they are sitting under the table we set up today for the community junk hunt.  We made exactly two dollars profit but it was still worth sitting out there all morning for the laughs.  The kids amused themselves playing with new treasures (Thomas tea party anyone?) and a wildly successful bake sale and lemonade stand.

Good times.  Even if we didn’t sell anything it was fun chatting and seeing all our friends that stopped by.  A great way to spend a Saturday morning.  Also, yes, I’m still here.

PS my friend Sherry took this picture.  Check out her work she has a great deal going on right now.

I didn’t do anything to the berries, just sliced them over the top.  The kids loved it.  Avery helped the most and we may have eaten ice cream for lunch today.  This recipe is from Sweet Cream and Sugar Cones.  The recipe was straightforward if not easy and every single other recipe in the book looks delicious too.  So delicious that I might ask for new cookbooks for mother’s day!

There’s lots of stuff going on around here this weekend.  You can still catch Nearly New and Sheep & Wool but Free Comic Book Day is over.  Did you go?  Free comic books.  What’s could possibly not be fun about that?  The rest of the afternoon we spent outside getting (over) tired out.  All of us.  Tomorrow I’m taking Chase to see Mary Poppins.  Cross your fingers for better seats than we had for The Lion King.  And Monday?  On Monday I recover.