Just a few months late...

Our darling Irish boys

Eyes

Mara teaches Gideon to accessorize.

Bernadette: "He looks like Apollo."

Pia speaks

P (to Gideon, in the singsong, high-pitched voice she hears the grown-ups use): "You are my little prisoner! Yes, you are."

Mama: "What does that mean, Pia?"

P: "It means that the baby crawled out of the car and rolled on the floor."

OK.

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P (in the Barnes & Noble restroom): "Dear Mama, I'm thirsty, said Pia."

Overheard fragment of conversation

Bernadette: "I didn't tell you to do that!"

Isaiah: "I do a lot of things you don't tell me to do."

Duh, Grandpa.

Mara: "Kill the spider, Grandpa!"

G: "Why should I kill it?"

M: "Because it's alive!"

A poem by Mara

"Wobbly Head"

Wobbly, wobbly, wobbly head.
If someone is holding Gideon
and not holding his head,
it wobbles!

Pia

I asked the girls to tell me one thing they would like to do today.

Mara: "Paint."

Pia: "Get married." (Further questions revealed that what she actually wanted to do was dance at a wedding reception.)

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Pia (as she watched me flipping through CDs): "Could you play 'The Greatest Showman'?"

Me: "No, I'm going to play something else."

P: "Monopoly?"

Gideon sneezes

Mara opens

More Pia

The haul

Pia

Mara bakes

An Arch visit, just like when I was a kid

St. Louis Wedding for Andrew and Emily

Mort, Marian, Lisa and Daniel

James and Matt

Matt and Fred

Friedrichses

Phil, Fred (seated), Charlie, Galen and James.

Old friends: Bob Luppen

Kateri's Birthday (it happened on time!)

Catchup with Pia

Let's see if I can get caught up and get back into the regular blogging mix:

Football game.

Pies!

Quotes from Babyland

Pia: "I not baby anymore. I'm da big sister!"

Kateri: "If I were Gideon, I wouldn't cry so much."

Mara: "I would. I would cry so much, my eyeballs would almost pop out!"

Caught one!

Camper girls

Mara is 4?

Shakespeare fest

Kateri

Climbers

Casual Mara

Making grape jelly

Pep talk

Kateri was waiting for me to help her vacuum the living room. I apologized to her for taking so long, but I was very tired. Her response: "But that doesn't matter because you're still a mom. Moms are nice and moms are beautiful, and you are one of the kind that is Mama."

Recent gems

Bernadette: "You're the best mommy because you make good desserts and you know how to fix things."

Mara: "Mama, you were right. Chocolate melts."

Kateri: "Oh, my gosh, is that a b or a d? I don't know and I don't wanna know! But I need to know because I want to read!"