Since I've Been Gone

Ben and I chaired a silent auction and carnival at the kids' school, and it ate our entire lives for the last 2 weeks of April and most of mine this week because I have been dealing with the financials (why no, no I am not the treasurer.  Hmmmmm.)  So, here are eleventy billion pictures of what we've been up to in the meantime:

Harry and Jack had twin day at school, and I found this pick of them twinning 8 years ago:

 Here's a half-assed Skirtathon outfit I forgot:

 Beach Day (the school carnival was tropical themed, and the school day before was beach day)!

 I took this picture the minute we finished set up, seconds before we went to the golf course bar and the bartender said he was so sorry he was out of martini glasses and served my cosmo in a tumbler.  Which was JUST WHAT I NEEDED.

 Snicker.

 Ballet Dorothy!

 We had a babysitter for Dorothy and Cooper so Ben and I could work the event and Harry and Jack could roam, but I sneaked away to watch Cooper, who was PRESHUS.

At the after party:

 I found this on the front porch:

 I was in so far over my head the week of the fundraiser (the week before the LAST WEEK OF CLASSES AT MY SCHOOL) that the kids made their own lunches, even.

 There's always time for the library:

 This is basically how I feel all the time:

 While I was slamming clothes on Dorothy before we ran out the door in time to take every one to two schools and take Harry out to special breakfast before his doctors appointment I tasked them with taking a selfie in their May 4th shirts.

 I mean, this diner is famous for pie, so.

 I heard a weird splishy sound one day during lunch and saw that Dorothy had painted her body with her apple-dipping peanut butter.

 I have teal toes after a weird nail polish selection moment.  I always buy the color of polish my tech uses so I can have it on hand for touch ups, so now I have months and months of teal toes if I want them, but, um, I don't.

 It's all of the sudden gorgeous, so we can go to the park after dinner-- I love when our days have that rhythm.

 Cooper can climb trees, and our trees are climbable. BOTH MILESTONES.

 Jack had a check up today, and we went to our favorite greasy sppoon, as per our tradition.  My favorite!

And now for some self-promotion.

First, COME SEE LISTEN TO YOUR MOTHER at the Barrymore at 3:00 on Sunday, May 8.  I will be reading something from this very blog!!  Buy your tickets HERE.

And I wrote THIS on the Madison Moms Blog, so check it out!!

Skirtathon again

I did that thing where I wore a dress every week day in April and took selfies and posted them on a private Facebook group again.

And I basically wore the same clothes as last year only this year they are all way tighter.  So, awesome.  Excuse me while I go eat my feelings.

April: What I read

For reason that I will whine and complain about next time (LUCKY YOU), I have no idea how I even read anything in April.  But, apparently, I did.

10.  Cold, Cold Heart by Tami Hoag: A totally serviceable thriller.

9.  Pretty Girls by Karin Slaughter:  Beat out the Hoag by a sliver, but it's the same kind of book (that I have a total weakness for).

8.  13 Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl by Mona Awad:  I liked this but did not love it.  I did love Awad's voice-- so refreshing and smart and funny.

7.  I'm Glad About you by Theresa Rebeck:  This was a quick read, kind of trashy and really, really entertaining.
 
6.  What She Knew by Gilly MacMillan:  A way better than average thriller.  I hope it's a movie STAT.

5.  The Nest by Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeny:  A great story with wonderful characters, but I felt the whole time like it was trying too hard to make me like these people.  They reminded me of Wes Anderson people but not as lovable.

4.  Tuesday Nights in 1980 by Molly Prentiss:  This was great!  It's got to be so hard to write about art in a way that's really interesting, but I loved this book and all the sad, flawed people in it.

3.  Alice and Oliver by Charles Bock:  This is HEAVY, but the very last chapter made it all worthwhile-- what a great story.

2.  Hidden Bodies by Caroline Kepnes: I read the second book in the series first because that's the way the library holds came in, but I am going to read the first one anyway because DAMN.  This is great and you should read it right away.

1.  Evicted:  Poverty and Profit in the American City by Matthew Desmond:  My school picked this book for our common reading program, and I totally supported that decision because WOW.  There are some flaws, and if you read it, we should talk about them.

I am up to 39 books for the quarter-- not too bad.  Last year I was up to 56 books already, so there's that. In 2014, I had already broken 40, and in 2013, I had already read 49.  I have some catching up to do, apparently!

Des Moines Weekend.

My whole family (well, most of us) decided to come to Des Moines to visit my grandma and go to Seder at her temple for Passover last weekend.  We made these plans 5 or 6 weeks ago when my little brother Jon and his partner Caleb booked their tickets from New York. My aunt sent us menus so we could lock in our dinner choices.  Ben and I contemplated buying the kids shoes that aren't filthy and maybe some khaki pants.  And, most of all, I complained.  Basically to anyone who would listen.  That I didn't want to take the kids to temple because they are little heathens who wouldn't know how to behave and would be so embarrassing and don't need nice clothes in any other context so they'd be a waste of money and blah blah blah.

And then my grandma had a stroke.

And Seder at the temple was off the table.  And of course, that's when I realized that it was a table I really did want to be at, actually.

Since we already had hotel rooms and plane tickets and plans to see each other and since we wanted to see my grandma even more than usual (and, I mean, we usually want to see her pretty badly since over half of us live far to far-ish away), we met up in Des Moines anyway and ate pizza for Passover (I KNOW) and visited her in the hospital and talked about her move to a rehab facility and made bad jokes and tried to cheer each other up and ate to much and drank just enough.

These stooges always enjoy a good road trip.

 Seder!  The most relaxed on ever.

 We met up at my grandma's house for dinner and the kids played ball in the backyard with my aunt and my cousin's boyfriend.

 Dorothy's new thing is blowing dandelion fuzz, and it;s pretty cute.

 I love that she wore her heels to the pool

 You know I am addicted to mid-air pool shots.  GET READY FOR SUMMER.

 The kids love it when I get in, which makes me think I should get in more often.

 My brother and Caleb and my parents came with us to the Blank Park Zoo which would have been funner if any of the food places were open because we were HANGRY.

 Jack was holding his breath like a seal.

 LOL

 The merry go round!

 Which Dorothy HATES

 Cooper had a massive fit about not going into the gift shop that was really about being HANGRY

 So we went to the Drake Diner for fatty food (I had a deep fried grilled cheese with mayo) and milkshakes.  Also, Jack has adopted Ben's trick of taking a picture of himself when I ask him to take a picture of me.

 After lunch, we tried to get the 5 cousins in a pic.

 This was the closest we came

 As long as we were right by Drake, we checked out the campus and interrupted my cousin Molly's studying.

 Ben took one for the team and stayed in with the kids to have room service (but Harry and jack ended up having the time of their lives hiking with my aunt and eating at the mall food court where they reported they had Dairy Queen Blizzards in a medium-- they said this really pointedly because I make them get smalls because I am a mean old witch, obvs) and I went out to Noah's a family favorite restaurant and somewhere I always went with my grandma after shows.

 My roommate took advantage of my absence to take up 75% of a king-sized bed.

 She brought her own luggage.

 We came home to baseball, soccer skills training, and another baseball game and then hit the ground running this morning with work, volunteer projects at school, and so much laundry.  The end of the semester if a doozy this year.

This weekend was not the weekend we thought it would be, and it was sad and scary, but I have a great family.  They're all so damn funny.  Thank goodness,  Because, as Truvy says in Steel Magnolias, "Laughter through tears in my favorite emotion.: