sometimes we're fancy

Before we reach the outer limit of time when it becomes inappropriately late to post Easter pictures, here's a few of the little ones and me all dressed up on Easter Sunday. Alex was on a plane returning to Austin when these photos were taken, so he missed our church's annual butterfly release on the Capitol grounds.

Our family's butterfly, which I'm pretty sure was a moth, was quite spritely this year and took off before I could get a decent photo. The little guys are usually stunned when they first come out of their envelopes (I'm still not clear on how that whole process works), but ours was ready to see the world.

hunting and waiting

It started as a chilly morning--at least by Austin Easter weekend standards--but that didn't stop the children from enjoying their second egg hunt of the season on the grounds of Laguna Gloria. We had to skip Scout's soccer game to make the hunt, but we had a good reason. Through some twist of fate (or perhaps a case of mistaken identity because there is another Sarah Wheat in Austin) I was recently elected to the board of Inherit Austin. Don't ask me the organization's mission statement yet--I'm still working on memorizing the FAQs that I received at our first meeting last week--but it has something to do with maintaining the historical integrity of the city. All joking aside, however, I'm excited to be part of this group, and one of its major fundraisers is the annual Easter egg hunt at Laguna Gloria.

Because I just joined, I was exempt from working the event, which meant I was able to enjoy it with my children. It turns out that "enjoying" the egg hunt with these three meant I got to hold everyone's balloon animals and donut holes, while trying to balance my coffee, as they ran wild in search of technicolored plastic eggs. Scout and Tillie were disappointed with their loot, but the bunny-inspired face painting made up for it...sort of [see group photo, below].

When the big event was over, which had kicked into gear at the delightful hour of 8:30am, we found ourselves jacked on candy (at 10:00am!) and no place to go. As we considered whether to crash the neighborhood egg hunt or go to the Capitol grounds for the festival our church puts on every year, I decided we should run by the Home Depot first. Now that we're homeowners again, I find myself at the Home Depot at least three times a week; it just felt like the thing to do on a Saturday morning.

It was a successful trip. Side note: I consider any trip to the Home Depot where all children come out with all limbs in tact a "success." But there was a surprise waiting for us in the parking lot when we returned to the car, and the car wouldn't start. It turned out to be nothing but a dead battery, but it took up the next two hours of our day and nixed our plan to hit as many egg hunts as possible this year (which, admittedly, was a terrible plan when you consider the amount of sugar that would have been ingested on such a mission).

Instead of whining and complaining--like I really wanted to inside--I used the dead battery as a teaching moment for the children. You know, the kind where you tell them sometimes adversity comes up in life, blah, blah, blah...and they just sit there like "Okay, Lady, but can we eat all this candy we just worked so hard to gather at the egg hunt?"

daddy's girls

In the midst of all the closing excitement (if you want to call it that) taking place last Thursday into Friday, there was something even more monumental on the horizon--Scout and Tillie's first Father-Daughter Dance. The girls had been talking about it for weeks, and last Friday evening they were finally able to get dressed in their Valentine's Day best and do the Whip and 'Nay 'Nay (I'm not even sure if I'm writing that correctly) in our church basement. Scout wanted to wear her tube socks with her dress, by the way, but I talked her out of it at the last minute.

Meanwhile Catcher and I had a date of our own (not pictured) at a cozy little Italian restaurant down the street. We went early and dined with the folks who go out at 5:00pm because we had to get home in time to watch Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire before the girls returned.

1/365

Knobby knees and backward socks: my first portrait of 2016. The other night during our New Year's Eve Eve party, I stated my "resolution" for the year was to take one picture every day. I was inspired by a mom-photographer who made that commitment a few years ago, and reading her story propelled me to do the same.

For the record, that mom is a professional who takes amazing photographs. This mom (the one writing) has gotten lazy under the excuse of being "busy" the past several months, so I need the challenge to keep me on my toes this year. If I can pull this off, then maybe next year I'll vow to blog every day.

the night before the last night

On December 30, 2015 the Wheat family partied like it was the last day of the year. With Alex's work schedule, I'm used to him working or traveling on most major holidays. Even on the rare occasion when Alex is home on New Year's Eve, our celebrations have been pretty low-key since having children. When Alex isn't here, I usually find myself sitting alone on the sofa watching Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve. And when he is home, then I have a companion to watch the ball drop with me.

This year I decided to mix things up a bit. I came up with the brilliant idea to host a New Year's Eve party in our house on December 30th. It was strictly a family affair, but I made everyone get dressed in their festive best and whipped up a fancy cheese board along with some other crowd-pleasing appetizers. There was champagne from Trader Joe's, Happy New Year tiaras and noisemakers (much to Alex's chagrin). We danced to the Taylor Swift station on I < Heart > Radio and waved sparklers around on the sidewalk in front of our house. Even though I greatly annoyed Catcher by making him put on shoes for the party, which he promptly removed and replaced with Scout's Hello Kitty slippers when we ventured outside, everyone agreed it was pretty much the best party ever. I think we'll do it again next year.

merry and bright

The kids and I had a deal. No one was allowed to open presents until 7:00am on Christmas morning. Catcher had his plan of attack scheduled. He would wake up at 6:25, stare at the presents in the living room for a bit, wake up the girls and then all three would wake the parents at 6:45. There would be 15 minutes of peace and quiet while the parents made coffee, and then the madness would ensue. This is how the scenario was sold to me by a seven year-old boy. I was convinced it would work.

At 3:30am, aforementioned seven year-old boy crawled into bed next to me because he had been lying awake in his own bed for two hours and couldn't get back to sleep. My first thought was to tell him to go back to sleep because Santa wouldn't come if he was awake, but then my sleepy brain told me Catcher had walked through the living room to get up to our bedroom and would obviously have seen that Santa had been there. So instead I just told him to close his eyes and go to sleep. It worked for a bit. During that bit his knees were grinding into my back, but at least he wasn't ripping open presents at 3:30.

At 5:30 he woke again and continuously checked his watch every two minutes for the next twenty minutes. I wouldn't have minded except every two minutes a blue light would flash in my sleepy peripheral vision, and it was kind of driving me nuts. Then he started planning a strategy for creating teams for our inaugural Family Game Night, which happened to be that night, and I realized I was supposed to be listening to what he was talking about. Did he not realize that his dad and I had stayed up late having cocktails while the children were nestled all snug in their beds? I wasn't ready to discuss strategy.

But then the waiting could last no longer, and he crept downstairs to wake the girls. For a hot minute I thought I would let them entertain themselves while I stayed nestled all snug in my bed, but the excitement coming from the living room was too much to ignore. So the groggy parents made their way downstairs just in time to see Christmas unwrap before them.

When we arrived, I blew out the speedlite that attaches to my camera. There was a loud pop followed by short sizzling sound and the smell of smoke. The drama only lasted for a few seconds, but within that time Tillie had managed to tear through all of her gifts and the ones left unprotected by her siblings. Catcher was still on gift number one because the first he opened was some sort of Jedi mind reader thing, and he sat still in the middle of the room with his fortress of gifts protecting him while a toy cube read his Jedi mind.

As I was trying to reconfigure my camera and make sure no rogue sparks--perhaps I imagined the sparks to create a diversion--had reached the wads of paper crumpled up on the floor, the excitement fizzled. I contemplated staging the children's walk into the living room to create a "photo story" for Christmas morning, but then I saw the story was happening all around me. It didn't matter if I missed the photo of Scout tearing open the Inside Out DVD, because I have the memory of Scout jumping up and down, waving the DVD around while screaming "This is all I wanted for Christmas! I don't care about anything else." I also don't have a photo of the rack of princess dresses that Santa left for the girls, but I heard Scout tell Tillie she could have them all because they looked too small for Scout, and she didn't care (remember, all she wanted was Inside Out). But then Scout discovered the faux fur capelet hanging on the front of the rack, and she quickly claimed that one for herself. Catcher was still testing his Star Wars trivia on the mind reader thing.

Before brunch there were tears, as you come to expect on every Christmas morning when the children are sugar-rushed and sleep-deprived, but it all worked out several hours later as we played The Game of Life on our first Wheat Family Game Night. All that talk about "teams" worked out in my favor, by the way, as I was paired up with Catcher the lawyer. Tillie and her partner skipped the college route and went straight for a career because, as Tillie pointed out to us all on the board, "You can get married quicker." #goals