Also known as.

About once a day, something will strike me as odd, and I will think to myself, "That would make a good blog post," but then I get Embroiled in The Daily, and the odd thoughts get forgotten. But here is an example: today, someone in my neighborhood was on our neighborhood Facebook page trying to sell a puppy she could no longer care for. The breed, she wrote, was RARE. So she was selling it for ONE THOUSAND TWO HUNDRED dollars. For a USED puppy. Also all of its Fancy Puppy Accessories, which included several sweaters. DOG sweaters, mind you. Not even cute human ones from Anthropologie.

This year has just flown. So much faster than the other ones.

 This week Helena did a Great Americans presentation. We had a difficult time choosing her Great American. I got a cute picture book full of great American women (A is for Abigail by Lynne Cheney) and Helena chose based on who had the prettiest dress. I checked out a biography of Shirley Temple Black and also a couple of her movies, which we all enjoyed. Then, two weeks before the project was due, Helena decided she did NOT want to be Shirley Temple, even though she liked her movies very much. So, she decided to be Betsy Ross, which was convenient since Harper had just done a presentation on Betsy Ross. (That flag deserves an entire post. We tried, and failed, to use the sewing machine. The day before. We broke the sewing machine on the third stripe. The rest was hand-sewn using stitches that were about three inches wide. Which would have made poor Betsy WEEP.):
Alas, Betsy Ross was already taken in Helena's class. So, we (I) decided on Abigail Adams. She was a model of fortitude, perseverance, and was also a wonderful Writer of Letters. We practiced and practiced, but when it was time, the actual presentation was done using a very tiny voice, and there was some hiding behind her pictures:

Why yes, she is wearing panties on her head! You can do that when both your husband and your son become president of the United States.  I had tried to make a bonnet for Betsy Ross, but it was pitiful. So, the night before Abigail Adams, I sewed the legs shut on this ruffled beauty, and voila! A lovely colonial bonnet. Desperation is the mother of all kinds of things.

Hudson was Gideon sometime last semester. We spent lots of time on that as well, then, on the morning of the presentation, one of the sisters accidentally(?) removed the sword from the carefully prepared "take to school" costume bag, and we got to school (perhaps you will remember it is a 45 minute drive away from home) and Gideon was sword-less. Perhaps you will also remember that the Big Deal of Gideon is when he gets to hold his sword aloft and shout, "A SWORD for the LORD and for GIDEON!" Hudson simply could not recover from the lack of weapon, and his presentation was done in a quiet, sullen monotone. The pharaohs, the Moseses,  Esther, Mary, and especially Cleopatra wondered at his melancholy surliness.

Arise.

Last year we painted eggs in the general time frame of Easter and I never got around to posting the photos. I wish I had a picture of what I looked like blowing the insides out of the eggs because it was pretty. One of Harper's was Texas-themed-- a bluebonnet, a lightning whelk (the state shell of Texas, but of course you knew that), and a mockingbird. When I found them this morning, I thought I would hang them from Easter lily we got at church yesterday. Well, they had stuck to the inside of the egg carton I had stored them in, then I realized the leaves were too floppy to hold delicate eggs. I sighed and took a picture anyway. Next year it will be PERFECT and ON TIME and there will be an appropriately sturdy hanging apparatus that will display the glory of the risen Savior AND their artwork. In the meantime, reality is okay too.

 It was drizzly outside and the husband was with the band during the actual photo booth time, so this is best family shot we got. Hudson's button job is awry. In fact he was so opposed to this shirt that he almost managed to sap me of my resurrection peace before we even left the house. Next year it will be PERFECT. In the meantime, reality is okay too.