but baby it's cold INSIDE!

Today, I got a preview of the rest of my summer. I woke up this morning to rain, so I dressed accordingly: pants, shirt, sweater. I was so glad that I did because all day at work I was freezing. I sat at my computer, wrapped up in a blanket or I would take brief jogs up and down the stairs just to keep the blood circulating.

Six shivering hours later I emerged from my igloo expecting to be hit by a wave of frosty air. Instead, I broke into a sweat before I had a chance to peel off my sweater. I guess rain in the morning and 82 in the afternoon make muggy weather.

By the time I pulled into the driveway I had rivulets of sweat trickling down my neck. I got into the house and immediately changed into appropriate summer attire, ate a late lunch with Tanner, and then we all piled into the car to get Kate from school. Georgie saw the school building first and started to screech, "Tatie! Tatie! Come here!"

After we had successfully secured our eldest daughter. we headed for our favorite park and played a game of tag. Even Georgie got into it though she thought the idea was to get tagged. It was at the park that I noticed Kate's shoes. They just looked funny. They didn't match her height, so after the kids were all sweaty and exhausted we clambered back into the car and went to our favorite store.

I measured Kate's foot. She is now officially a size 1. Just. To give her room to grow, we had to buy size 1.5. The shoe she had been wearing? 13. I picked out the tennis shoes. She picked out the dress shoes. The dress shoes are strappy, pink and sparkly. The tennis shoes are tan. I sometimes feel way too practical. Since we were getting Kate shoes, we also got shoes for Reagan and shoes for Georgie. They had both grown a size as well. Reagan begged for a pair of pink slippers with pink "diamonds" on the band. Thank goodness Georgie doesn't know any better and all she wants is "Thooos!"

Easter Sunday

What an odd experience. This was the first time that Tanner and I have attended an Easter Sunday Service at a mainstream church. As we pulled into the parking lot, there were parking attendants and areas sectioned off for guests. Tanner looked at me and said, "They're not seriously expecting THAT many extra people to show up, are they?"

Our church has three services. Most of them have about 300 people attend and the parking lot is big enough to handle all of that. Today, we drove round and round the church looking for a parking space. We concluded that maybe it was because we were early. We were wrong. We ended up parking near the freeway and walking to the church.

When we walked into the narthex, I wondered if perhaps the first service had just let out. It hadn't. We were standing in line for the second service. They had added 10 extra rows of chairs to the auditorium, and still there was only standing room available. We managed to squeeze into a pew. I guess all the sermons about not being a holiday Christians are actually pertinent.

The girls wore their Easter dresses today. The twirled and whirled their way into and out of church. Little spots of glowing color amid all the pastels and pinks.

We came home, and I donned an apron. The night before I had made cupcakes so that Kate could celebrate. The girls frosted and decorated to their hearts content while I got the ham in the oven, the potatos peeled, veggies cooked and finished filling the Easter eggs. Then Tanner and I went outside and hid the eggs all over the yard.

I love watching the girls dart from bush to tree to grassy knoll. I love the excited squeals from Reagan and the triumphant shouts from Kate. I love watching Georgie gaze in rapt wonder at the single egg she managed to find. I love her voice when she holds it up and says, "tany! tany!"

We had a frustrating Easter lunch though. Apparently, ham, mashed potatos, stuffing, corn, bread and green beans are "gross!" I caught myself saying, "there are starving children in Africa..." We finally managed to get some nutrition down them by telling them no chocolate bunnies until they ate their green beans.

Other than that, we had a great day. A nice little holiday in our busy lives.

The day before Easter

This morning Tanner and I had ice dancing lessons at 8:30, so we tumbled out of bed, fed the girls breakfast, grabbed coffee and tea, pulled on sweats, sweaters, jackets and stepped outside only to be hit with a blast of warm air. I did a double take. The weather up until now has been temperate with only one day hitting over 80. Last night it had rained.

We both shrugged, and decided to walk to the rink instead of drive. There is nothing better than a spring stroll in the morning in Texas. The grackles were cackling, the mocking birds were mimicking car alarms, the red cardinals were darting into the bushes as we passed and the bright sun warmed our backs as we headed down the gently sloping road.

I'm not sure how succesful our practice was. I'm breaking in new skates with a huge toepick, and I keep tripping over them and doing lovely faceplants across the ice. I did suggest that part of our act be sliding snow angles, but for some reason our coach just wasn't into that idea.

After a short day of work, I came home, made lunch, watched the girls gyrate across the room to canned music and tried to convince them to go outside to play. That should have warned me...the fact that they didn't want to go outside. I shrugged and let them stay inside. At least I've developed a studied reaction to their, "I don't want to go outside!" complaint. I don't ever make them go.

After they watched a movie, I put them all down for a nap. Did I mention that Tanner was sleeping during this time? The house got very quiet and a snuggled up with a good book. It dawned on me that maybe it was hot when I had to turn the ceiling fans on in the living room. At 5:00, I rummaged through my stash of "deals" and found the clearance pool I had bought the previous summer. Tanner was up by then, so he got out the compressor, filled the pool and we let the girls splash and play until dinner time.