Only the Good Die Young

I have been meaning to post some pics of the kitty cats for several weeks now, but this is not how I wanted this post to be. Last Friday, our sweet kitten, Ella, was hit by a car and died. We did not know it happened until we received responses from missing cat signs we posted around the neighborhood on Sunday afternoon. It has been a difficult time, especially for me because I love all our cats so dearly and Ella was one of my favorites. (I love them all, but sometimes you feel an extra bond with one that you do not have with the others.) Somehow you always feel like you are going to have these little fur-babies forever. No matter how many pets you have had and lost, when you bring home that kitten (or pup) you hold them close and picture quite impossibly that they will always be with you.

These are the last photos that I have of Ella. She was a marvelous cat with a cuddly & curious attitude. She had the silkiest fur and sweetest face. Ella was a magpie and loved to find & take small stuffed toys to carry around the house. She would play bat & chase and lose them under the furniture. Finding her favorite toys around the house now brings a lump to my throat. Ella's favorite spot to sleep was sprawled on the rug in the hallway upstairs. At night, she loved to jump on the counter in the bathroom and watch the water run in the sinks. I would pet her while I brushed my teeth and readied myself for bed. It is hard not to have her cheerful presence in the house... gone so quickly, gone too soon.

Franklin & Ella were littermates- truly the best kittens we have ever had! You could tell that they were brother & sister not just because they looked alike, but because of how they curled up together to sleep. They would bathe each other sweetly and often these grooming sessions would dissolve into sneak attacks and spontaneous games of chase. Whenever I see Franklin, he reminds me a of a lone bookend.... a salt shaker without his pepper.

My heart is still aching from this loss (this post has been so difficult to write). I scoop Franklin up in my arms more frequently now and think gratefully about how lucky we were to have Ella in our lives, even if for such a short time. Over the Rainbow Bridge, forever kitten, our Eleanor Bella Roosevelt: you are loved and missed.

Kyrie at Age 6

My little girl is growing up! So often these days, I look at her and catch glimpses of the teenage girl she will become (and not just in the sass & attitude department). Another big year has passed, filled to the brim with new activities and adventures. It was another year of firsts with lost teeth, surgery (ear tubes) and a pretty pair of eyeglasses. Kyrie continues dance, gymnastics, swimming, art classes, children's choir and piano. This past year she added Girl Scouts, horseback riding, German school, library clubs and zoo school to her busy calendar. She enjoys all of these activities, especially spending time with her friends, old & new.

Kyrie has done really well with her homeschool lessons this year. She has made a lot of progress with addition & subtraction. Her handwriting and French vocabulary has improved, and she is starting to take more care with things like coloring and cutting. Kyrie continues to work on her pre-reading skills and exhibits knowledge of all the letters and their sounds. We have added sight words to our lessons, as well as thematic words that she works to decode phonetically. She is not reading yet (and I do not expect her to be) but I am pleased with her skill level and continued progress. Next year, she will be an official homeschooler!

Kyrie does not like to practice the piano or put away the laundry. She wants to stay up late every night, and she can be quite shy. She is not always the best listener and has also been heard whining, fighting with her brother and frequently telling her parents 'no.' However, she is also optimistic nearly all of the time. She is helpful and has a great laugh. She is a great big sister and loving daughter! I am so proud of the beautiful little girl that my baby has become! We love you, Kyrie Belle Alyce!

Last week (Sunday through Friday), Kyrie had a fever that would not be remedied (the nurse said there was a virus going around that caused a weeklong fever). She slept most of the first day of the illness and napped the rest of the week. She had a runny nose with an occasional cough, but mostly she had the fever. She was tired and weak and ate almost nothing the entire week. Often she would ask for food only to leave it untouched. I canceled all of our activities and tried my best to keep her comfortable. She awoke without a fever on Saturday, and we have started back to our activities, but you can tell that for Kyrie our usual days seem long. Today, she had her annual appointment and the impact of her illness registered in her reserved behavior and on the scale which showed her at the same weight she was a full year ago (about 3 pounds lighter than the last time I weighed her a few weeks ago). All in all, the doctor says that she is healthy and grew nearly 3 inches in the last year. The doctor prescribed her an optional antibiotic because she saw evidence of a probable bacterial infection. It is my hope that her upper-respiratory conditions will improve after several doses.

Height: 3 ft 9 in (50 %-ile)

Weight: 35 lbs (5 %-ile)

Easter Sunday Best

Here are a few of the pics I got of the kids after we came home from Easter service at church. It was a sunshine-y day, but a little chilly, so Kyrie was not overly excited to be posing outside in her short sleeves. Still, I was glad to get a few pics of them because they looked so precious!

The rest of the day was very relaxed. My dad was in town for the whole weekend, so he came by that afternoon with Easter buckets for the kids. We had a lamb roast for supper, and spent the rest of the day watching the kids play (& Darren work in the garden) and talking. It was a great Easter!



Easter Morning 2012

Overnight, the Easter Bunny came to visit and hid lots of eggs and surprises around the living room. I tried to get some photos of the ensuing hunt, but there were not very many that turned out because the kids were racing about so quickly trying to find everything. They both did a great job and only needed a few hints from Mom & Dad about spots that they had missed.

Love this picture!

With baskets full and the coffee table filled with small toys & craft kits, the kids opened their eggs and dumped them into a large bowl to share. We had Mommy's favorite breakfast: CHOCOLATE!

I love this photo, too!

Darren's Bourbon & Cola Cake

Darren is not a real dessert person, but he does have a few things that he likes. I wanted to make him a special birthday cake this year that he would really enjoy. I saw a few ideas for cakes on Pinterest. One was a cake made with Coca-Cola and another was a Jack Daniel's cake. Darren likes chocolate cake and his favorite drink is bourbon & Coke, so the wheels in my head were turning. As you know, I rarely can just follow a recipe. My mind is always working out how I can make something taste better or be prepared more easily. In this case, I also needed to figure out how to "combine" these two recipes. I went to the cupboard and pulled out a chocolate cake mix (easy). This particular mix had a fudge swirl, so I prepared the cake mix as directed substituting cola for the water in the mix and bourbon for the water in the fudge swirl. I put it in the pan and topped it with Oreo cookie crumbs simply because I had them on-hand and Darren likes Oreos. I am not really sure that there was much cola flavor in the cake, but it was a good chocolate cake and you could smell the bourbon in the fudge swirl, so I felt like I was on the right track.

For the icing, I made a chocolate buttercream, but subsituted bourbon for the water. It was hard for me to tell if it was good or not because I have a very limited appreciation for alcohol. I took a beater out to Darren who said it was great and that it reminded him of a European chocolate liqueur. I had not told him what I was planning until that moment, and he was excited to hear it! Darren, my dad & I had cake late into the night on Darren's birthday, and both boys raved about it! Hooray! Happy Birthday, Darren! I love you!

Eggs to Dye For

This was the first year the kids dyed Easter eggs! I am not really sure why we never did it before, but I think it just seemed like more work & mess than was worth the kids' interest in the project. At last year's Easter clearance, I bought a kit to motivate me to dye eggs this year. The kids had fun dying a dozen eggs. They colored the eggs with white crayons while I prepared the colors. Then they put the eggs in the dye- nothing fancy here, just drop the eggs in and let them sit. Afterward, they decorated the eggs with stickers. A simple project that they enjoyed! I used most of the eggs to make deviled eggs for our Easter supper. (Neither kid is too eager to be eating hard boiled eggs.)

Easter Bunny 2012

We made our annual trip to see the Easter Bunny on Good Friday this year. We were there early, so we didn't have to wait too long in line (though the bunny was late). The kids did a good job, though our picture this year was just so-so because both kids now feel like they have to try very hard to have big smiles. Still, they looked super-cute in their spring clothes!

Outdoor Update

Darren has been very busy working outdoors as spring has sprung! I wish that I had more photos to share because our yard and neighborhood are so beautiful this time of year with all the sunshine, green grass and budding trees! It is nearly impossible not to smile when you look outside!

The front yard is still torn up from the mainline replacement we did over winter, but we just had guys come out who smoothed out the dirt and removed some of the bigger rocks in preparation for seeding. They also poured our new sidewalk (Happy Birthday, Darren & Kristin!), which turned out wonderfully! We finally got our new front door painted a few weeks ago, so the front of the house looks so much better (though we still need to repaint all the stucco, among other things that are not part of this phase of our remodel).

In the backyard, we had contractors chip our huge pile of sticks into mulch, which we spread around the play set. We had a huge pile of dirt delivered to fill the raised garden beds, too. The garden beds are nearly done, though we need more pieces to complete the tiered beds in the front and surround some additional plantings around the main beds. I need to take more detailed photos of the raised bed garden, but the photo below gives the view from the house. Darren has been busy at the nurseries. We lost two cherry trees over the winter, so he replaced those. In the off-season, he bought some blueberry bushes, and he purchased blackberry, raspberry and currant bushes also. Those will be planted around the raised beds. He also bought some strawberries, perennials for the kids' garden and some onion & asparagus starter sets. We do not plan to plant the entire garden this year, but we will definitely make a good start of it. I am going to try to get better photos of the garden.

There is still so much to do, especially before the heat of the summer sets in. It seems like every time we step outside, we think of one more thing that we need/want to do. I have a natural play area for the kids in mind that I need to think about some more to see if we will proceed or not. Not only do we have lots of work outside, but we are proceeding with the kitchen remodel. Darren is taking a few days of work so that we can pick out backsplash tile and lighting, among a long list of other things. In about 2 weeks, we will need to have the kitchen & dining room cleaned out so that demolition can begin on that big job. Whew!

Troop Tea Party

Kyrie's Daisy Troop met at the Glass Slipper for an afternoon lesson about the importance of manners as a reflection of self-respect and respect for others. They listened to stories, had tea and put on skits demonstrating what they learned. It was a fun afternoon for the girls, who came dressed in their prettiest dresses! All the girls earned another Daisy petal badge for their vests by participating in this activity!

Happy 6th Birthday, Kyrie!

We did most of our celebrating on Sunday, but I cannot let a birthday go by without making the day special. Of course, the morning started out with a birthday doughnut. We went to gymnastics and to lunch (her choice, of course) and that afternoon, the kids worked on making flowers using a clay crafting kit that she had gotten at her party the day before. In the early evening, we got dressed and headed downtown to meet Darren at one of Kyrie's favorite restaurants, Buca di Beppo. Kyrie ordered spaghetti and requested 6 meatballs (though she only got one giant meatball). After dinner, she had a big chocolate sundae with lots of whip cream & sprinkles that she shared with everyone! It was a lovely dinner! At home, she opened up all her birthday gifts from family! Happy 6th Birthday, Kyrie Belle Alyce! We love you!

Kyrie blowing out the giant, Buca birthday candle!

Kyrie's Fairy Dance Party

This year we had Kyrie's birthday party at the kids' dance school. We invited her best girlfriends for a Sunday afternoon party (on my birthday) of dancing & fun! We had a Tinkerbell Fairy theme for the party, so there were lots of fairy-themed goodies for the girl! While we waited for everyone to arrive, we had the girls work on coloring puzzle pieces for a giant puzzle.

I love Kyrie's face in this photo!

The girls spent about 45 minutes dancing. They played lots of dancing games and ended their session with a special birthday dance for the parents who stayed to watch!

After dancing, the girls enjoyed chips, fruit and lemonade while working on their puzzle pieces. When they were done with their snack, the girls worked to put the puzzle together! Then we spilled the pinata and the girls scrambled to fill their bags with chocolate, jewelry, stickers & toys.

Degen is so cute in this photo! He loved the party and felt perfectly natural as the only boy among all the girls!

After the pinata, it was time for cake! I made a little oopsy in positioning the candles on the cake and got one candle a little too close to Tinkerbell. Sure enough, her wing caught on fire and I tried to rush the kids through "Happy Birthday" before we had a full meltdown! Thankfully, Tinkerbell and the cake survived... though Tink had to have a bit of her wing amputated when we got home! Everyone enjoyed the cake, and then the girls gathered around to watch Kyrie open her presents as the party came to an end. I think that fun was had by all, and we are grateful to all our friends who came out to celebrate Kyrie's birthday with us!