Katie hit a milestone on Sunday, First Communion. She was well-behaved (if reading over my shoulder she'd say 'of course!') and looked so pretty in her satin dress. After mass, we has brunch at our house for the grandparents and godparents -- scrambled eggs and bacon, Katie's favorite.



A rather windy family picture.

A close-up of just the girls.

Katie with her godparents: my sister Jill and Erik's brother Keith.

Our Little Dare-Devil

Gretchen is unstoppable. She routinely jumps instead of walks down the last two or tree steps on any staircase. She will happily climb up ladders, unable to see the top. She loves to hold on to your fingers, climb up your legs and flip over.

Lately, her favorite heart-attack inducing activity is to pump the little two person thingy on the rickety swing-set up above the fence line, all by herself. She is physically unable to slide down a slide like a normal child. Her favorite method is exactly backward, preferably in a dress.

Today, this back-fired slightly. I don't think any of us realized how much it had rained. She slid down the slide into a puddle with quite the splash. Mom, Erik and I hadn't laughed that hard in a long time. This picture is from the "hey, go do that again." While there was not much splash left the second time around, her hair has been caught mid-flip.

It is so nice to top off a busy weekend with a quiet evening. Gretchen's daycare is closed tomorrow so she is spending the night with Grandma Rena, Katie is sleeping soundly and Erik is at work. I am sitting on the couch. Ahhh, peace and quiet.

It was rather strange though, just me and Katie and it hasn't been that way for a long time. We folded laundry, she painted her toenails, I grilled a couple steaks for Erik to have tomorrow and we watched "Bedtime Stories." It was a really cute movie and ended with a Journey song -- can't go wrong with that.

We checked out Jill & Todd's new house, Erik helped Dan & Sara load furniture to move to their new house, we made pork roast, cheesecake and cupcakes for our family Easter dinners, went to church, had two egg hunts and zero naps. No egg hunt at our house this weekend, but the Easter bunny did drop off bubbles, sidewalk chalk and nailpolish along with a few pieces of candy and some quarters.

Tomorrow kicks off another busy week. While I would have preferred more sunshine and less wind, all in all it was a nice weekend - too short as usual.

Random pictures

Here is a picture of Erik's motorcycle - his new favorite thing. He has already been taking apart pieces and customizing it. Those are new tail pipes and new handlebars, re-positioned the turn signals and says he's done for now. Next up, the helmet should be here any day now and he'll be signed up for class as soon as it fits on our calendar.


One of the new hamsters -- Dasha, Mika -- pick a name, they are identical and very hard to get on film. The girls just love them, I'm quite happy with the super-absorbent, odor-free bedding.

This was found on the bookshelf in the living room, rather coated in dust. It is Erik and me taken sometime in the spring of 1997 in front of my dorm room door at Kresge Hall by my dear neighbor Becky Manchester. His shirt is bright green, mine is either red or blue, I had the same shirt in both colors. I look at it and think about how it's pre-everything. It's one of my favorite pictures of us.