Tag: Anastasia

Easter Cuteness

April 30, 2019

Easter Cuteness

Easter Sunday was so much fun for us this year!

Not only did our little Thea officially turn two months old on Easter, but neither Louis nor I was working, neither of us was tired, and we had the whole weekend to ourselves!

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Baby Thea dressed up (minus her cute socks and shoes) in her Easter dress from Aunt Becca & sister-cousin Anastasia!

Louis and the girls dyed eggs – our brown and pink eggs made some unique color experiments and tasty “angel eggs.” (Grandma Joanne started that; she redeemed the deviled eggs so they are “angel eggs” now.)

Louis was waking me up almost every night in the week before Easter as he excitedly told me about the newest item he got for the girls’ baskets – crazy plastic grass, cool candy, a bag of change for the plastic eggs and such.

We love family time!  On Easter, we got up early, went to church, and talked all about the first Easter Sunday and Jaquline decided we had to watch a Jesus story movie – “The Greatest Story Ever Told” is the go-to for us.  About lunchtime, we snacked on angel eggs and fruit while Louis crafted an amazing ham – this would be early dinner.

And… Egg hunt.  The girls learned that Spring Egg Hunts were a result of people letting their hens and ducks out to range in the spring grass and then having to find their eggs for food – young children were tasked for this job and finding the eggs meant the end of winter harshness and the beginning of spring’s bounty.

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But for us, Easter Egg Hunt means “see who can hide it best” (for the hiders, adults and teens) and “see who can find the hardest eggs” (for the younger ones).  Kimberly decided she is still a youngling for Easter and joined the hunt as a hunter!

Becky took some pictures.

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Christina’s hardest eggs were teal, Becky’s were green, and I hid the hard-boiled ones.  Mine I wanted found quickly, so most were just rolled in the patches of clover so their stickers showed.

Down to four remaining eggs… One Teal, one Green, and two Boiled!  Mom ended up winning with the “hardest” egg being inches from the walkway in plain sight!

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Becky made up some adorable pictures with the baskets.  Check this link to see her Guinea Pigs in the Easter Basket pictures!

Thanks for reading!

Type at you later…

~Nancy Tart

Upcoming Show 2019!

Come join us for fun!!

April 25, 2019

Upcoming Show: 2019!

It’s that time of year again!

April 27, 2019 is the fourth annual Family Fun Fest in Saint Augustine, Florida!

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Check out this video (the smiling butterfly is my niece, Anastasia!) and “like” them on Facebook to keep in touch with updates!

Come join us for a wonderful day!  I’ll be at a table with books, DVDbooks, Audio CDs, (some of the girls’ craft goods) and an activity center where children can make a complementary bookmark to take home!

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My oldest two girls will be volunteering (probably gone all day and might drop in for water occasionally), Kimberly and Jaquline will be “on younger duty” in rotation (meaning they get to play with Anastasia, Jillian, and Lucas), and Jillian, Jaquline, and Kimberly will be rotating “salesgirls” at the table!  Lucas and Thea will be entertaining others (most likely Grandma & and friends who stop by) and I’m sure Kimberly, Jaquline, Jillian, Lucas, and Anastasia will be familiar faces for everyone monitoring a child’s activity!

There will be an obstacle course to watch – many teams have already signed up, it is amazing!

There is other live entertainment, vendors, bounce houses, information booths, food trucks, and raffles!  All of this will be supporting the Alpha Omega Charities!

Our table gives 50% of what we make plus usually, the girls give all of their “tip jar” money!

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Come enjoy an awesome family fun day at Francis Field, downtown Saint Augustine, Florida on April 27, 2019 between 10am to 8pm!  (We will be there all day, please find us and chat!)  Oh yes, your kiddos will definately sleep well afterward!

Thanks for reading!

Type at you later… (And see you on Saturday!)

~Nancy Tart

Gymnastics Party

“Parents Night Out” aka Gymnastics Party no child wanted to go home from!

January 22, 2019

Gymnastics Party!

My gym hosts a charity event once a month they call “Parent’s Night Out” – the kids participating call it “Gymnastics Party.”

Every third Saturday, or 4 or 5 hours, depending on the month (February and December are 5 hours), parents can drop their child(ren) off at WGV Gymnastics so they can enjoy a supervised gym party while the parents enjoy some alone time.  Each event has a different theme: from Luau Night (September 21, 2019) to Superhero Night (July 20, 2019), Pirate and Princess Night (April 20, 2019) to Glow Mania (March 16, 2019) each event is sure to entertain!

The proceeds benefit the WGV Athletics Booster Club (a non-profit group whose primary purpose is to provide financial support for WGV gymnasts during their competitions).

The partiers loved the gym, fun games (“Night at the Museum,” “Alligator,” and “Freeze Dance” were the favorites!), a dance party, pizza, and encouraging camaraderie!

As our time came to a close, partiers tried various methods to pretend they didn’t have to go home – one of my nieces was stiffly sitting in her line after noticing mom.  I whispered, “your mom is here,” and her reply was made without moving her mouth, “I know, I just wanted to pretend I didn’t see her yet.”

My teenager who wasn’t participating this time (she’d been babysitting for a family friend from about 6:30am & it was about 6pm when she arrived with Grandma) took a few pictures and videos of the cousins at the event:

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JJ hung out with Grandma watching the older kids play.

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Anastasia was very excited!

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She got to jump on Tumble Track!

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Isaac almost didn’t come out of the foam pit!

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He spied Becky’s candy-striped leggings!

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Sweet T standing in line – we found her most at the Tumble Track!

And a tiny video of Tory on Tumble Track doing her “twirls” – so cute!

My girls have decided to “come to work” with me every Parent’s Night Out since they had so much fun!

Thanks for reading!

Type at you later…

~Nancy Tart

 

 

Cousin Visits!

Cousin visits to our “mini-farm” aka place to get messy, play with animals, discover eggs hidden outside, and enjoy togetherness!

January 18, 2019

Cousin Visits!

My sister, brother, and their three little ones (Sister-Cousin and Brother-Cousins!) have moved back from Kansas!

They came out to our mini-farm (muddy spot with a pond, outside tank with tadpoles, indoor goldfish, foraging chickens, playful Guinea Pigs, cute fluffy bunny, and jumpy adult dogs who think they are 4 months old) over the weekend and the kids were totally excited!

This time, we had very few photographers snapping pictures because they were too busy playing with their cousins!

Lucas was so excited to share his green car (motorized car his Grandma Joanne bought him for his 2nd birthday) but the battery ran out too quickly – so he shared his Christmas bicycle and his train tracks.  For him, those items are his dearest things in the world; train tracks, cars, his bicycle, and his green car.

“Baby JJ” – who isn’t a baby anymore! – and Lucas played train tracks for a bit.  JJ liked the bicycle too.  Outside JJ and Mandy wanted to see all the fluffy animals.

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Anastasia helped show off Minuit, Kimberly’s little black Dwarf Holland Lop Bunny.

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Little Minuit loves to eat carrot bits!

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Mandy found Jaquline’s “hidden spot” in her bunkbed!  (With big paper on the “wall.”)

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Taylor and TobyMac did their popcorn jumps after the girls loaded them with Spanish Needles greens (chickens, bunnies, and Guinea Pigs love them before they turn to seed aka the needle part).

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Above is the wildflower called Spanish Needle, a favorite food of many small animals.

Jillian showed off her Uncle Buddy knowledge by telling them that people can eat the wildflowers and leaves too.  (Yes, but they are bitter unless cooked, and I hoped her younger cousins were distracted by the cuteness of the piggies and missed the “you can eat this weed” tidbit.)

We love cousin visits!  It is always fun with family shares their time with each other.

Thanks for reading!

Type at you next time…

~Nancy Tart

Plans Change

Sometimes plans change; some life encouragement 🙂

November 3, 2018

Plans Change

Sometimes life just doesn’t go the way you want it to go.

You have to let it go.

Tonight I wanted to go to a get-together.  I’d been planning for about a week

Everything seemed to be working out okay; the washing machine showed up early (Amen!), Anastasia got dropped off before 4, Christina had packed up her “civies” (I still mentally laugh hearing her call regular clothes that.) in her bag when I dropped her at the Cyber Patriot qualification in the morning, and we just had to get the house clean and get everyone ready before 3:40, pick up Christina at 4, and head to the get-together – we’d be late, but there.

Then there was a reservation for 5:15pm.  No one else was working and I can’t cancel on them because it’s morally wrong to promise someone something and cancel an hour and a half before you have to pick them up.  My word matters.  And, I’m really thankful for my jobs!  I know God gives us the jobs we get and we are expected to do our best. (I look at it as “God wants them in my car for some reason!”)

Honesty.

I had an obligation to them.

Adjust plan: girls clean up and get ready by 6:15, when I was expected back, and we’d be late, but would still be able to hang out for a little bit.

Well, the plan got seriously adjusted!  I ended up having to cover starting at 3pm.  Picked Christina up at 4, then as I’m on the way there, another ride for 4:30 (yikes! I can’t teleport through traffic!) rolls in… long story short – it’s almost 7pm when I get home because I was late to both rides after Christina.  No one was ready.  And I can’t (legally) pack all 8 of us into the 4-Runner.  We are a 30 minute drive (usually 40 minutes with me driving because every traffic light in Saint Augustine always turns red when I’m three carlengths from it!) and it would take me about 15 minutes to get everyone ready.  Plus, to use the 4-Runner, we’d have to have left at least 2 people behind.  Nope.  So, we end up spending the night at home.  This was “cool” (per Jaquline) because we have awesome toys (per Anastasia), Christina can cook something good, and we’ll turn the front room into a dance party!

Sometimes a monkey wrench gets tossed into your plans, but if you learn to roll with it, you can turn it into a “look for the positive” teaching moment.  I love finding teaching moments in life!

Plan changed.

I have to let my plans go.

Accept that plans change and I have little control over it.  All I can control is my attitude toward it.  (I’m super thankful for my jobs!)  The last ride was a guy who had spent almost 40 years in the military (he chatted with Christina about the pros and cons) and a lady who had been a teacher and principal in St John’s County for 34 years (at one job her whole life)!  So just maybe, God wanted us to pick them up and encourage each other.  Only God knows!  (That’s me, looking for the positive!)

Thanks for reading!

Type at you next time…

~Nancy Tart

Birthday Dolls

A childhood collection becomes a family tradition.

October 20, 2018

Birthday Dolls

Do you have something unique that you do and sometimes you laugh at yourself and think, “this is so silly!” but your family wouldn’t stop it because it means something to them?

For us, one of these “silly family traditions” that I accidently created is the Birthday Dolls.

We have a display of “Growing Up Girls” birthday dolls that represent each of the children’s ages.

Currently it looks like this:

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Christina (15), Rebeccah (13), Kimberly (11), Jaquline (8), Jillian (6), Lucas (3), and Anastasia (5).

It started with my collection of age-dolls from when an aunt and cousin bought the first three each of my first three birthdays.  I loved them and once I was old enough to make money babysitting and mowing grass, I started collecting the rest of the blonde ones.

Fast forward to when I have two young girls and we didn’t have much display space so Louis suggested I just leave a few out.  I left Christina and Rebeccah’s ages.  When Kimberly was born, we added the baby one.  This became a tradition from then on.

Through twenty-odd years many have broken (by little siblings and my children! Super glue is a porcelain doll’s best friend) a few shattered irreparably, and since my girls are mostly brunettes, any replacements we tried to find with brunette hair.  When Anastasia was about 2, she wanted to add her “age” to the dolls – so we added her age doll.  Lucas came along and I discovered the same company made “Growing Up Boys” age dolls so we started collecting those as well!

I always check resale and thrift shops for any ones I don’t have (right now, boys from 7 up).

Just a cute little story about how a collection became a family tradition. (Yes, they have already planned that I’ll have to buy more of those to display my grandchildren’s ages someday.)

Thanks for reading!

Type at you next time…

~Nancy Tart

The Exuberance of Life

“Look Mom!” and what else is Lucas excited about?

October 6, 2018

The Exuberance of Life

Today we had impromptu tennis.  Christina and Becky rode their bikes to the park, Louis, the younger children, and I drove.  It was a lovely day and since the “cooler than 90 degree” weather has them all excited, we have been outside most of the day.

Lucas was shouting songs in the backseat; periodically announcing “Stasia loves this one” or “Stasia said her Mommy has this!” or “this is one I like!” (Since Anastasia is not there to announce such things, Lucas must in her absence!)

We claim an open tennis court (okay, two, but that’s just because not all eight members of our team are great with their aim yet).  Lucas has his own special racket and claims every ball that hits the net – the inaccuracies of learning kept Lucas entertained for over an hour!

At home, we’re now enjoying outside.  Christina is texting the UCC team, Kimberly is running her scooter (kid powered), Jaquline is on her bike, and Jillian has a chicken – no, it’s a guinea pig.  Lucas is driving his “Green car” (a 2nd birthday gift from Grandma Joanne that has seen daily use except for one six-week stint while we waited for the replacement charger).

“Look, Mom, the pig-pig is driving!” Lucas has Custard contentedly chewing on grasses in his lap!  (Custard is one of the 4-week-old Guinea Pigs.)

A few moments later…

“Look, Mom!  The chicken is driving!” And Jillian is sitting next to Lucas with a different chicken (this one is the biggest of the young cockerels we have for sale) sitting on her lap.

A few moments later…

“Look out below!” followed by giggles.  Lucas is driving the car under a rain of pinecones Jillian tossed in the air.  He catches one in the empty passenger seat, laughs, picks it up, and throws in into the little tykes car (human-powered) as he passes it.

A second later…

“Mom!  A train!” And Lucas is pushing his car, in reverse, with the little tykes car centered behind it, rolling along like it is the engine of a two-unit train.

Then he tries to join Kimberly and Jaquline’s soccer game while driving the car!  “Kim!  My car wants to play!”

He jumped out of the car when Jillian and Kimberly started with the foam football… “I love football!”

We should have such energy and exuberance toward everything in life!  Lucas looks at everything as an adventure, challenge, or treat; as a gift.  Life is a gift.  Thank you, Jesus, for this amazing life and all the fun moments we experience in it!

Thanks for reading!

Type at you next time…

~Nancy Tart

 

 

Look Who’s Famous!

The girls find their cousin’s face on a Family Fun Fest 2018 poster & are super excited!

October 2, 2018

Look Who’s Famous!

During our thrift shopping day, we found a gem!

I’ve been a vendor at the Saint Augustine Family Fun Fest for two years – and yes, it is an amazing family venue!  (Not the best for our sales yet, but most of our neighbors do very well.)  The kids LOVE it so much that they plan to be at the next one each time we are leaving.

My 12+ girls volunteer (last time, officially), and Kimberly and Jaquline trade between “guard duty” (where they walk Jillian, Anastasia, and Lucas around to play on rides, watch the shows, and visit vendors) and “working the booth” (helping to mind the booth and try to sell our crafts).

On a “Family Fun Fest 2018” poster in the Alpha Omega Thrift shop, was Anastasia’s smiling butterfly-painted face!  (In the little bubble just above all the sponsors.)

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We even checked our pictures to make sure (because she had two different faces during the course of the day).  Anastasia is the “butterfly.”

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And yes, it was their cousin, smiling down from the poster.

The girls got so excited!

Becky had to take a picture and send it to Anastasia’s mom with the line, “look who’s famous!”

Maybe not “famous,” but it certainly launched the girls into discussing their happy memories from the two fun fests and their hopes for this coming year’s event!  (The cutest part for me, is that almost every time I pick Anastasia up from school, she asks me, “when are we going to the next Family Fun Fest?” – she will love seeing herself on a poster for an event she loves!)

Thanks for reading!

Type at you next time…

~Nancy Tart

 

 

 

 

Oceans of Praise

One night of de-stressing by taking the kids to experience the beauty of the moonlit beach!

September 26, 2018

Oceans of Praise

It was a long, tired, stressful day.  It was the kind of day when as I’m driving home, the “Mandisa Fun” Pandora station (Christian Rock with catchy tunes and uplifting lyrics) was blaring out the speakers, windows down, and I’m trying to drum the day out of my head.

It was also nearing the full moon.  There were very few clouds, a refreshing warm-cool wind (I knew this would be “blustery” at the beach), and it was 86 degrees at almost 7:30pm.

I decided we’d go to the beach.

I got home to find Eddie and Louis watching football – only into the first quarter.  They do so little father-and-son stuff because Louis is always busy that I announced, “I’m headed to the beach,” knowing that would be cool for them to have father-and-son time.

“You’re taking the kids to go shark fishing?” Louis laughed.  “It’ll be dark by the time you get there.”

“No, we’re going to walk along the shore and play in the shallows,” I smiled, “don’t worry, they’ll all be back in one piece.  There’s a beautiful moon out and it looks amazing.”

Lucas almost stayed to watch football, but then realized all of the girls, including Anastasia, were going with Mommy, and this meant Mommy would be gone a long time.

We showed up to see this:

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And this:

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And that:

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God had an amazing light show for us!  It was so bright they could see to build a tribal village with walls, huts, and fields.

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Rebeccah took most of the pictures and her selfie:

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She tried to get pictures of us, but really we look like black blobs amid the darkness.

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This one was a little better:

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We raced up and down the shoreline.  The water and wind was warm, so Anastasia lay down in the surf to get covered in water.  Jillian, Jaquline, Kimberly, and Lucas followed her.  Each was completely soaked in the first fifteen minutes.  I think it took Rebeccah a half-hour before she let her hair get wet.  Our long walk ended up being over two and a half miles!  (1.3 miles one way, 1.3 miles back.)  We sang praise songs because the majesty of the night looked like it was praising God.

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We had to leave when Becca texted saying she was almost done with work.  Anastasia was giddy at the prospect of “beating Mommy home” so we trouped back to the van, cleaned up at Aunt Becca’s, and spent a few minutes after Becca got home chatting before my crew made our way home.  (Sister time for us Mommies!)

Thank you, Jesus, for a wonderful, exhilarating night.

And yes, my devious plan worked… all of them got back on their good sleep schedule.

Thanks for reading!

Type at you next time…

~Nancy Tart

 

 

Guinea Pig “Toddler”

June 30, 2018

Guinea Pig “Toddler”

Since we had a baby Guinea Pig (Sweet Potato) born on the fourth of June, we’ve been studying Guinea Pig growth.

Oh my, do they grow fast!

Not only do these amazing animal moms deliver live babies with a full coat, open eyes, claws, and teeth, but the baby is about 20% of the mom’s size.  (About 10% to 15% of her weight though.)

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Sweet Potato’s mom is Taylor (Picture is mom & baby)

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Her dad is TobyMac (Picture is dad & baby)

At 22 days old, Sweet Potato learned how to go down the ladder from the hutch where she was born to the ground to graze on grass (Guinea Pigs are better tractors than chickens!  They graze grass down to about ½” tall and then squeal because they want more!).  The girls have now stopped calling her a “baby” and claim she’s a “toddler” Guinea Pig.

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The girls have been loving on Sweet Potato since she was born.  They snuggle with and coddle all three adults, but Sweet Potato is the sweetest.  She knows how to tickle!

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One day soon, Sweet Potato will find a lifetime home, but for now, the girls love “raising” her so she will keep being sweet and friendly!

Thanks for reading!

Type at you next time…

~Nancy Tart

 

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