Pleas and Praise

First of all, I'd like to make a plea: if anyone has any pictures of Beth's communion, could you please email them to me? Our camera, due to stupidity on my part, ran out of batteries early on, so I only actually have three decent pictures from the day.

Now on to detail the fun part:

This past weekend was lots of fun.

My wonderful Mother-in-Law took the human wrecking crew (I mean, Abbie and Lucy) off of my hands so that I could feverishly clean the flu-ravaged house from top to bottom. Cleaning when no-one is interrupting you is fun! This ended up being not only convenient but life-saving as well, as my dishwasher broke yet again.

No! It didn't! Oh, yes. It did. About three hours before my family came in.

My mom, sister, sister's boyfriend, and three of my younger cousins all made the trek up to celebrate with Beth, and we were so glad they did.

Between the ever-present flu and frugality concerns, we haven't been out and about much this winter and spring, so it was doubly-fun for us to visit our local roller-skating rink while the cousins were visiting. The high adult-to-child ratio also helped, because my kids are not exceptionally coordinated.

I will say, though, that taking a 4 year old to the bathroom while the both of you are wearing roller skates......not easy. Not easy at all.

We also made an appearance at my parish's Hibernian Tea, which was oh-so-awesome. I have to admit that, deep down, I have a real love for kitsch and the Hibernian Tea delivered on many levels. Plus they had an insane amount of food there. I especially loved the very Irish madeleines and bagels with cream cheese. Food was served on actual china, and every table had two adorable tea-pots filled with hot water, and an assortment of teas. It was just super-cool, and it was fun for me to do something like this with extended family.

My childhood was spent going to things like this - parish fish fries, spaghetti dinners, those awesome and terrifying peirogi ladies, always in the company of a large and loud mob of family, and I've missed it. At one point, I looked over at Katie, who was running back and forth from the table to the buffet with Sara, delivering food and drinks, and it reminded me so strongly of my childhood that I couldn't help but smile.

It's good to have these kind of memories, and even better to watch my kids build more.