Sunday, May 29, 2011

Almost Done...

...with our first vacation. We are currently in CT at Grandad and G's house. We have been having a wonderful time so far. We arrived Wednesday night just in time for dinner. We spent Thursday morning relaxing, hiking in the woods, reading and playing games. Then Thursday afternoon we went crabbing. Around 4:30ish we packed clothes for one day and then drove to Attleboro where we spent the night at the LaSalette Shrine. Then bright and early Friday morning we drove to a subway station in the outskirts of Boston. We took the subway into downtown Boston and got off right outside the Boston Commons. From there we started the Freedom Trail which took us past the famous historical sights of Boston including, the Old North Chruch, Paul Revere's house, the USS Constitution and ending at Bunker Hill. We stopped for lunch at Quincy Market where us older kids enjoyed shopping at the numerous shops and stalls. Overall it was a fun day which we all enjoyed.
We headed back to Grandad and G's house that night and yesterday (Saturday) we went to the lake and swam. We have the rest of today and tomorrow left and then it's time to go back home.
I will post pictures when we get back.
Love,
Mary Kate

Friday, May 20, 2011

Spring is Ending, Summer's Starting

School ends on Monday. The last two shows of Cinderella are tonight and tomorrow. We leave on Tuesday for our annual trip to Grandad and G's in CT. We experience our first flooded road which forced us to turn around on Wednesday coming home from school. The bird nest I posted pictures of in the previous post is now full of five adorable baby birds. Our basement flooded from all the rain b/c the drain got backed up. I've been sleeping on the couch in the living room since Easter b/c we just moved the giant humidifier (that heats my room up like furnace) out of my room yesterday. But life is good. Crazy but good. Oh and Cecilia and her best friend (my best friend's younger sister) got to come to the Senior High Youth group for the first time last Sunday. It was weird having a younger sister there. :)
And I finally figured out how to get super large pictures (something I've been trying to do every since I saw Kelle Hampton's blog Enjoying the Small Things. So onto the pictures:
My mom bought Joey this adorable lion sleeper.



Do you like it in b&w or color better?

At DreamWrights.

I've been trying to get up really early (like 5:30) and the first morning I did it this was the sunrise. Every day since then has been cloudy which = no pretty sunrise :(

Driving home from school on Wed. was beautiful. There was soft mist and low clouds everywhere!











This driveway was completely flooded!






Love,
Mary Kate

Thursday, May 5, 2011

April and Easter 2011

Hi everyone! I know I haven't posted in a while but I have been way busy (mostly with the local theater, I'm a stage manager for the current show, the musical version of Cinderella) and also with school. And then I had a bunch of problems with my prom dress. And then our computer crashed because of a virus it got and we just got our computer fixed today. Soooo now I'm finally posting about our month of April and Easter and prom and everything else in between! (This will probably be a long post. :D)

*Misc. Pictures from April*

Grammy:







Rosie learned how to ride a two-wheel bike in the past few weeks! She's now gotten really good at!






One Thursday before Easter John Paul decided that they were having "crazy clothes" day in school and so this is Benny's outfit: (A fancy sweater vest, inside out and backwards, and his bathing suit shorts backwards)

Front and Back

Max's outfit: (one muddy boot, green camouflage pj pants, tucked in, backwards red t-shirt, a grey suit jacket, a fleece blanket, and an Indian dress up headdress.)


They had a picnic outside:


Rosie:


John Paul is now an avid reader, reading everywhere:


Can you see JP, Max and Cecilia? They are having a race, JP and Cecilia on scooters and Max running. You might think that's unfair to Max but Max actually wins a lot. He is incredibly fast thanks to basketball and soccer.




Riding her bike again:





Yes Benny is eating yogurt outside :) Look at Joey, he follows Ben everywhere!






Our beautiful Cecilia:


*Easter 2011*

Easter morning started a bit differently then we all expected. In the night the pipe bringing water to the fridge got two pinprick holes. All night water was leaking behind the fridge soaking the wall and floor. The fridge happens to be directly above my bed so Easter morning we had to move my bed, move the fridge, move panels from my drop ceiling, find the problem, shut off the water going to the fridge, set up fans and then finally make our brunch. In order to shut off the water to the fridge we also had to shut off the water to the upstairs bathroom so we only had one bathroom with all the Anthonys over.

About to eat:




We dyed eggs Holy Saturday night and my mom got the cute idea of putting them in these little birds nests (made from brown paper bags, glue, and twigs and leaves from outside) from a familyfun magazine:



Our brunch consisted of omelets, fruit salad, punch, and peach danishes I made. We were going to have sausage too but with all the stuff with the fridge we forgot about it until we were sitting down and about to eat.
The peach danishes:




The rest of the Anthonys came over later in the afternoon and we had a giant Easter egg hunt for all the kids. Beth, my mom and I hid a couple hundred eggs all over our yard. This was the first Easter at our house (we've always gone over to Grandma and Papa Anthony's house) and our yard is 4x bigger than theirs so there was a lot more room for Easter eggs to hide.

All the kids lined up listening to the few rules and boundaries:


Max spotted one of the seven eggs in this picture, can you find all seven in this picture?


Benny enjoyed finding eggs with Lauren and Joey in the front yard (aka the little kid zone)


We made it hard for them, Tyler had to climb up into the trampoline to get a few eggs:


John Paul, Nathan and Tyler racing for eggs:


Cecilia found the ones in the bird feeder:


Beth had David in his stroller and was getting quite the workout pushing up and down our hill:


"I found a lot!"


Emily found the egg that was hidden under the blue hat:


An Anthony family Easter tradition that has been going on since before I was born is confetti eggs (also known as cascarones). I think they are a Mexican tradition. Anyway, they're hollow whole egg shells filled with confetti and then the tiny hole is taped shut. Everyone gets one and you pick a victim to (gently) crack the egg on top of their head and thus showering them in confetti!
Tyler chasing Beth trying to get her with a confetti egg:


Getting closer: (for the record he never did catch up with her)


Lauren got an egg cracked on her:


Papa got Rosie:




"Look what she did!"


left over shells and confetti on the concrete:





After the Easter egg hunt and the confetti eggs we all came inside for our Easter dinner. As my dad poured the wine for the adults he noticed the light hitting it perfectly and called me over for a picture. Good call Dad!


Another wine shot:



The ham:


While we were praying David got a little fussy so Beth handed him a hard-boiled egg...


It turned his hands and lips blue!


*The Desserts*

For anyone who knows us, you should know by now that when it comes to dessert our family does that well. It helps to have a mother and three oldest kids who love to bake and eat delicious desserts.

Cecilia's chocolate bunny cake that she made and decorated herself:


One of John Paul's two chocolate pies (made completely from scratch, they're not chocolate pudding pies):


Lemon bars I made:


The pound cake I made (served with sugared strawberries and whipped cream):


And the peach cheese torte I made:


Jesus Christ is Risen! Happy Easter everyone!

*The End of April*

We found a birds nest in the lamp right by our door (it doesn't work). Aren't these the cutest little eggs, I'm not sure what kind of bird it is:




Our house and several of our wonderful trees, it's funny but now just a week later there are already so many more leaves:


Enjoying the nice weather, Ben is such a good big brother!


*Prom*

I went to my first prom on Friday April 29th. It was CHA's home-school prom at Martin's West in Baltimore. It was so much fun!

Inside the lobby next to the HUGE chandelier:


The main chandelier inside the room:


The CHA sophomores that attended:


I also made the honor roll all year and we had our honor roll breakfast on Wednesday at the beginning of school. All the honor roll students:




So that's everything that happened in April! I hope you had a great April and Easter too!
Love,
Mary Kate