Moran Family Fun

Mother's Day was two weeks ago and I'm already looking forward to next year when my kids will cater to my every whim!  Seriously, because my husband and our children are amazing my mother's day was also amazing.  It started off with the usual breakfast in bed - cinnamon toast, scrambled eggs, and orange juice.  What wasn't so usual was that Jared was there with the girls to deliver the breakfast.  Usually he's already at church when I'm waking up on Sunday mornings.  I really appreciated that he took the time to rearrange his schedule that morning so I could see him for a little while before he left for church.  I was also grateful that Samantha climbed in bed to snuggle with me because I was full after the toast and she very kindly offered to eat my eggs for me.  That way whichever child made those eggs wouldn't feel badly that they didn't get eaten.  I came upstairs to a clean kitchen and children dressed and ready for church.  Not a bad...

Emily is a smarty pants and she has a certificate to prove it!  At the beginning of May she brought home an application to become a member of the National Junior Honor Society (NJHS).  Madison has been busy with their school's chapter of NJHS for the last two years and Emily really, really, really wanted to get accepted into the chapter as well.  She filled out her application and then proceeded to worry and obsess for the next two weeks.  It was torture for her as well as for the rest of the family.  Every day at least once a day we would have conversations about if she was going to get in or not, how she would feel if she didn't get in and her friends did, or if she got in and her friends didn't. Once she learned that parents would be contacted the week before the induction to let them know which kids made the cut, things got even worse.  Daily questioning from Emily commenced - "Did you get an email from NJHS yet?"  or "So and so got a letter in t...

Last month Natalie's Kindergarten teacher asked me if I would play the piano for their upcoming 20th Anniversary Fest.  Feeling excited that the Germans would even think to ask me, I immediately said yes.  Then I went home and started to worry about it and wish I'd said maybe or at least asked to see the music first.  At the beginning of this month I finally got the music and was able to start practicing.  It's not too difficult, but I still feel as if I've taken on too much by agreeing to help out. The music was all handwritten by Natalie's music teacher and while the notes weren't hard to read, the little notations she wrote were all in German.  I don't know any musical German so that was tricky to figure out.  On the plus side though, now I do know some German musical terms.  Plus, I don't mind playing the piano here at home where there is not an audience, but I don't love playing in front of actual people.  Still, I practiced away at home an...

There's something about taking a piece of fabric or two, some thread, and some notions and making something with your own hands.  Or starting with a pile of ingredients on the kitchen counter and turning them into a delicious meal for your family.  I really like making things.  I like being able to say "I made that" when something turns out well (or even when it doesn't turn out quite like I'd hoped!) I've been sewing more than usual lately, trying to complete some projects that  have been on my sewing to-do list as well as use up some of my old fabric so I can go out and buy more fabric!  Most of what I sew does not stay in our house - I sew baby gifts, birthday presents, and other things to give away.  A few of the things I've made recently have stayed here with our family.  Want to see what I've been creating? An apron for my Mom for Mother's Day My favorite part is the pintuck detail along the waistline Pajama shorts for Emily and...

Around here it's the time of year for band concerts.  I think they like to get all the concerts out of the way well before our mobile military families and their kids start moving!  Emily's concert was last week and Madison's was this week.  They both played well and have enjoyed band so much this year.  Their band teacher, Mrs. Fatek, is amazing!  She really does a great job motivating her students and getting them excited about music.  Besides getting better at playing their band instruments, Madison and Emily have both improved their piano skills as well this year.  Because I've been a slacker mom/piano teacher I know that their improvement is all thanks to Mrs. Fatek.  I just wanted to share a few pictures on here of Madison and Emily playing away at their concerts. Emily plays the clarinet.  According to her, it's really important to play without puffing your cheeks out.  See how unpuffy her cheeks are?    .  ...

Natalie has been wanting me to make her a "princess dress" for a while now.  A princess dress, to Natalie, is any dress that is floor length.  As I was going through my clothes and getting out things for spring and summer I came across a skirt that I just didn't wear a lot last year because I wasn't in love with the fit.  I realized how simple it would be to transform my old, ill-fitting skirt into the much asked for princess dress.  It became even easier when I held the skirt up to Natalie and found that the length was right where she wanted it - swishing around her ankles.  I didn't even have to do a new hem!  The skirt already had a large smocked waistband so that became the bodice of the dress.  I measured our little lady, cut away the extra fabric, sewed up the side, added some straps made from the extra fabric, and was done.  It took about fifteen minutes and Natalie now has a new dress. I had to get some pictures of her because it really ...

A couple of Sundays ago our weather here in town was the magical combination of rainy and sunny.  I was hoping we'd get to see a rainbow, and just before the sun went down one finally appeared.  I know rainbows are not really such  a big deal, but this one was particularly beautiful.  I first saw it out the kitchen window and told Jared and the three older girls to look outside.  What I didn't realize and couldn't see from the kitchen was that it was a full rainbow.  We could see it arcing from what looked like the end of our street to just behind our neighbor's house and  it was a double rainbow.  You can just see it in the picture below on the left side - two rainbows parallel to each other.  Jared was certain that he'd never seen so many colors in one rainbow before and Emily was determined to find the end of the rainbow and took off barefoot, running down the street to try and get there.