11/52

"A portrait of my children one a week, every week, for a year"

 

 

Lili: reading...again

Audrey: running a race in the backyard, dirty feet and a (miraculously) clean dress

Kateri: tuckered out midday

Isaiah: very serious about cheering on those backyard races 

Some Dallas Birds...

...came to visit us a few weeks ago for the baptism of our newest cousin: Thaddeus Joseph. It is so funny to see this band of boy cousins come along after 7 girls.

Boy cousins playing Matchbox cars was a new and strange sight to see at the Speier house.

It kind of looks like they choreographed their dance beforehand.

We tried to beat the heat with popsicles and sprinkler fun

Oh Leah...you are the happiest child. Sometimes I think your real father was Buddy the Elf.

 

 

As usual, I dropped the ball on picture-taking, but we had a ball with these two little cousins and Aunt Becca. We can't wait to spend some more time with them in Scituate!

 

10/52

"A portrait of my children once a week, every week, for a year"

 

Lili: not doing an awful lot to prove her sister wrong

Audrey: enjoying some frozen grapes

Kateri: surprised and slightly embarrassed to be caught playing airplane pilot and talking into her headphones

Isaiah: baring his lovely flabby farmer-tanned arms



Paper airplane notes and blue toys

One fabulous thing about summer vacation is that the girls get to spend so much time playing together, just the three of them. Which gives them ample opportunity to work out disagreements by themselves and practice conflict resolution. At least that's what I told myself when I found a paper airplane with this correspondence between Audrey and Lili scrawled on it:


Sorry, Lili.
Do you want to play blue toys*?
O that's right I fergot, all you like to do is READ!

I  was going to say later, but now it's NEVER.


I don't know what prompted this rather backhanded olive branch, but I didn't hear anything about it, so I guess they worked it out on their own.


*blue toys: our eclectic collection of action figures. It used to be housed in a blue plastic bin, but it cracked and was replaced by a new clear model. They still call them "blue toys" and spend hours dividing them up into hilarious random teams like this one:

The roster from left to right: Piglet, "Una's Lamb," Shan Yu, a freaky bald My Little Pony that I need to throw out when no one is looking, a Cowardly Lion Pez dispenser, a stegosaurus, Greedo, Richard Parker (a new addition; thanks, Aunt Becca!) Sully sporting a wikki-stick bandage, Strawberry Shortcake, Gold Batman, and a baby giraffe who seems to be borrowing someone's Endor poncho.

9/52

 

 

"A portrait of my children once a week, every week, for a year"

 

 

Lili: enjoying a homemade popsicle

Audrey: loves a good game of solitaire. Good thing she remembered her purse

Kateri: hanging around

Isaiah: Siesta with a sister; who needs a baby monitor?

 

My amazing girls

I've just decided to go ahead and write a brag post about my girls. I worry about sounding like one of "those parents," but really, the whole point of this blog is for them to be able to look back at our happy little lives when they were kids. If I get hit by a bus tomorrow, I'd like for them to be able to look back and know how proud I was of them.

 Their school has a little awards ceremony on the finally day of the year, and we were lucky enough to still have Nanny with us to see them get their awards. Both girls got a certificate for making straight A's all year, and Audrey got her certificate for perfect attendance. Perfect attendance is a pretty funny award, in my opinion, and it was even funnier how badly she wanted to keep her streak alive all year. She actually had one day where she came home sick, but apparently the school didn't hold it against her. I guess she is just lucky to have such a strong constitution. I'm sure if she had given an acceptance speech, she would have thanked me and my ever-worsening germaphobia and militant hand-washing campaign, but alas, she had no such opportunity.

Lili received a special award called the Cor Mariae award, which goes to a well-rounded student who is close to Jesus and Mary and has set a good example for other students throughout the year. After the awards ceremony, Nanny said to me, "Aren't you proud of me for not jumping to my feet and cheering when they called her name? All I did was cry a little." Oh Nanny, what would we do without you?

I might have teared up a little, too, because I am ridiculously proud of you girls and the people you are becoming. It makes me so happy to see you rewarded for your hard work and your perseverance. 

Speaking of perseverance, here is a little clip of Kateri, who has been working hard on learning to skip rope with a cheap dollar bin rope that is about a foot too long and keeps losing its handles: 

 

 

 

kateriskippingrope from Allison Speier on Vimeo.