Easter Weekend

After a miserable two weeks of varying degrees of sickness for everyone in our home, we are finally all well again! Just in time for spring break. It's been a loooot of time away from school for Jack. And for me. The word I would use to describe the last few weeks is "defeated." I was already feeling the strain with Alice giving up her nap, and me not getting that built-in break each day to rest or accomplish some of the many things that need to get done. Then early last week, the other provider who works with Jared was let go and all his patients went to Jared. So Jared's workload has pretty much doubled, and as if he wasn't already getting home late before, now he is realllllly not getting home until late. Like, after rush hour has ended for the day late. After Alice is fully asleep for the night. After dinner has been long cleaned up. After Jack's extracurriculars and evening wind down. They are long days for both of us. Throw in a few sick kids, and I truly have just felt so defeated and drained. It's already tough to accomplish anything beyond the daily essentials when parenting young children. These days I feel like I can't even get to the bare minimum. Even throwing a crock-pot meal in the slow cooker for dinner has been beyond my capacity many days in the past two weeks. 

I have never been so grateful for a holiday weekend, and for my foresight to ask if Jared could take the kids to the cabin so I could stay home and catch a break (big-time parenting burnout for me lately), and tackle some more unpacking and to-do list items. He was only able to go for two days, but I have never needed the break more and am so grateful for it. They should be back home in a few hours, and I made a big dent in our terrifying pile of miscellaneous boxes left in the garage. Also happening right now--a big tractor is in our backyard as I type this, leveling things out and getting our yard ready for retaining walls to be added. Our backyard is underway! By the end of the month it should be leveled, sodded, patio'd, and fenced. It's a good month. 

My grandmother is quite sick. I have been to visit her a few times this week. I'm so grateful for her--for her love and how she raised her family, for all I have learned from her about hosting and how it should feel low-key, and not a big to-do. For her example of faith, and strength. For how she carries herself in the world and interacts with others. For how she has encouraged me to keep this family blog all these years. I am grateful to be be able to visit her during this hard time. I have a feeling she may be too sick and not reading blog posts anymore, but just in case she's reading this, I love you so much grandma. Always. For your Christmas present this year, I'm committing to another year of weekly blog posts in 2027. Thank you for being a wonderful example to me❤️

And now, for some pictures from our week:

^^Visiting Grandma during one of her better afternoons. We have better pictures of the 4 generations of Roper girls, but it is always so special when we can get the four of us together. Grandma is an only girl with 6 older brothers, my mother is an only girl with 4 brothers, I'm an only girl with 4 brothers, and Alice is of course the only girl as well. It's a special bond we share.  

^^Morning Allie with Baby Lovey. My favorite part of going to get her in the morning is her play-by-play of how Baby Lovey slept during the night haha

^^Our bedroom is functionally coming together! It will probably be a few years before I nail down the design and get it all pulled together, but now we have proper window treatments (the curtains are temporary--I'll get different ones down the road). We went with top-down bottom-up shades. During the morning and evening I like to have just the bottom third of the windows covered, to have privacy from the walking path behind our house but keep the view of the mountains/sky. The chaise isn't my first choice for design style, but the price was right and the functionality is great. It is such a comfortable spot to lounge with a book and a drink, and look out the window to our peaceful foothill view. We had a couch here before and it was just too bulky for the size of the room. Now it's a great reading area that I use daily. 

^^Matching cousins! I was so grateful that my sister-in-law Abby offered to host an Easter lunch the day before easter, knowing that the rest of my family would be at the cabin on Easter. We had a yummy ham lunch and easter egg hunt. 

^^A visit to my grandmother after Easter lunch. I want to remember what her beautiful wedding ring looks like, so I snapped a picture. In my future life, I will keep beautifully shaped nails like Grandma. Or beautifully shaped press-ons lol

^^My girl. She requests "Special Mommy Daughter Time" at least 8 times a day, even on days when Jack is at school for 7 hours. No amount of Mommy daughter time is quite enough for this sweetie! Love her.