Tag: Becky

Easter Surprise!

April 5, 2021

Easter Surprise!

Becky has been spending six weeks with Grandma up in Tennessee visiting family and traveling around. The best part I’m sure being the special time with Grandma.

Originally, I thought she would be back just before Easter, however, it became April 5th return in time for her dentist appointment and braces adjustment.

I try very hard to be a mom who lets her children slowly develop independence. I let my older girls plan their schedules, agree or deny to work outside jobs like babysitting or dogsitting or volunteer time, choose their college classes, lay out their educational and financial goals, etc.

They start on their journey toward independence as soon as they can pick clothing by choosing to dress themselves and it expands as their responsibility grows. I mean, one of our main goals as parents (mine as a mom, at least) is to raise responsible and independent adults, right?

I was honestly sad about the thought that, for the first time, one of my babies would not be with us for Easter.

Christmas and Easter are big holidays in our house.

Christina and Kimberly have both missed New Years due to encampment, but we don’t do much there anyway except stay up late and watch movies like “Holiday Inn.” (Sometimes the big girls buy sparkling grape or apple juice and toast in the New Year.)

I know that as they grow there will be holidays were we are not all together. I know this. I try not to let that make me sad. But in a hidden back spot in my mother heart, it does.

When Easter came, Becky texted me to say they were on the way. It’s a loooong drive from Tennessee. I expected Monday.

At church, I dropped my Thea at the nursery, Lucas and Jillian were at kid’s church, Christina serving, and I was sitting with Louis, Kimberly, and Jaquline. As I sang, the first song was one of my favorites, I reminded myself to be thankful for my family and chose not to be sad about Becky not being with us.

Then this face smiled at me.

I found myself crying and overwhelmed with emotion. Thankful beyond belief, happier than I thought I would be, Becky and Mom had surprised us by showing up for service!

What an amazing Easter surprise! Christina cried when they popped into the nursery before coming to service! (And she had recently lamented that no one ever surprises her.)

Thank you, Jesus, for my amazing family and for all You give us!

Type at you later!

~Nancy Tart

Walk and Enjoy

February 3, 2021

Walk and Enjoy

Louis likes to do “spur of the moment” fun.

We had a lovely Saturday; work, the guys watched a game, we played outside, we had some really good food some of the girls helped Louis with, and we were winding down for the early evening when suddenly…

“Let’s go downtown!”

“Yippee!!”

Everyone grabs warm top layers for the wind. They have learned that Florida winter off the Bayfront can be cold. “Shoes? Socks?” I have to remind the gymnast crew that feet need to be covered as well. We load into the van and we text Becky (who was babysitting) and her charge’s mom to make sure they wanted to come and had permission.

We swing by and grab two more singers to add to the movie soundtrack sing along concert and windows down – well, down partway because we can’t freeze the baby! We continue to the only spot you can find parking on busy Saint Augustine nights (behind the Lightner Museum, you’re welcome) and walk down MLK to the Bayfront.

Well, actually, that is the cliff notes version. It sounds tame. Nope, not tame at all! Jillian was just 9 and commented on how we are all odd for now. 17, 15, 13, 11, 9, 7, 5, and 1. Thea will be 2 shortly but yes, for almost a month, all of our family and Anastasia are odd. One of the kids pipes up with, “but oddballs all the time!” Which makes all of them laugh and act silly. All of this and we haven’t reached the front of the Lightner!

We climb, jump, skip, or literally skip the steps up to the grass (Dad jumps up the wall instead of using the steps). “Cartwheels!” and there are five gymnasts showing us backward rolls, cartwheels, roundoffs, handstand rolls, and other such skills on the “softest grass around town” and two or three popped into a handstand contest. This turned into running in circles around a small tree, playing a quick round of tag, and pointing out horses and trolleys as they passed. And dogs. Christina noticed every dog of all types from a pair of tiny Maltese scurrying along like fluffed up marshmellows to the giant Newfoundland walking with his huge head taller than Jillian’s!

Now after most of their giddy energy has been spent, we are ready to walk our normal almost 2 mile route. They always giggle and ohh and ahh like this is the first time they’ve explored downtown. I love that! As we are standing at the intersection waiting for the walk signal, Anastasia announces, “Huge group coming through! Party of ten over here!” One of my teens at the rear is literally pointing and counting heads! We look like crazy tourists!

“Ooooo!” shriek six voices, “look at that cute doggie!” Please don’t hurt the doggie’s ears!

At the Bayfront, they all turn toward the bridge, “May we walk the bridge?” “The bridge, yeah!” “It’s so windy we better hold on tight!” (It’s not that windy, but let their imaginations run wild!) “Look! Lights on the boats!” And, yes, we walk the bridge! They pause, run, race, and walk; depending on whatever imaginary fun thing they are doing at the moment. Louis keeps up with the racers in the front and Mom slows to stay with the chatting teens in the back. Really, Mom is walking or jogging at Thea pace. Thea thinks she is scared of the big lions – never before has she been scared of them (vacuums, lawnmowers, air dryers, showers, yes, but not large carved critters until today). She is not scared of the grate over the water anymore (or maybe because it’s dark and the water looks black just like the grate?) which makes crossing the bridge easy.

Craziness walking back (all as a group this time, which is interesting with the motorized bicycles that are in the narrow walkway! “Single file! Don’t try to fly right now!” – yes, I yelled that ahead!) and watching boats from the “turret” (the spot where we can all fit!) while they sang jingles and cracked jokes.

Along the stones at the Bayfront, the moon was gorgeous.

Many people were just walking right from the sidewalk up to the sea wall without stopping to see the obstacles so it was another “straight line please!” and “not on the grass!” or “watch out!” as five duckies from 13 to 5 maneuvered through the groups of tourists like a long snake in a single row with the 5 year old leading to the fort.

Fort! Finally!

They run up the grassy hill to the midsection where they all have ingrained lifetime memories of rolling to the bottom. Same five duckies go rolling down the hill in three, two, one! Rolling over each other, around each other, past the baby roller to reach the bottom, laugh, and climb back up to start again.

Now it is walk down (they rolled) to the crosswalk that gets us in the alley by the Pirate and Treasure Museum (We’d love to go in, but it’s closed which means window shopping and vivid imaginations run wild!) to St George Street. They read t-shirts from windows, announce shop names, talk about where family members have worked, and sing along with songs from the live bands we pass or sing along with whatever they are humming in their own head.

Lots of “ooh, doggies!” and “wow, look, a horse!” exclamations later, we get back to our van and the parade turns into another dance and sing-along party where the whole backseat is heads bobbing in time and Thea’s whole body is wriggling like a worm (except for her torso, tightly strapped in the baby seat). By the time Becky and Anastasia get to their destination, two of the adventurers are asleep.

I love making happy memories! I love Louis’ spur-of-the-moment perfect outings and ideas! Thank you, Jesus, for my family and for fun! Thank you for the time I have with them!

Walk and enjoy!

Type at you next time,

~Nancy Tart

Let Thea Do It!

January 1, 2021

Let Thea Do It!

My almost 2 year old thinks she’s a gymnast and the gym is her second home. She thinks she’s a member of Civil Air Patrol like Christina and Kimberly. She thinks she can ride Lucas’ bike. She thinks she can build shelves like Mom. She also thinks she can hide from everyone in plain sight.

She thinks she can fly. (From any object straight into a big sister’s arms without warning!)

She’s been going to WGV Gymnastics attending the Parent and Tot classes (yes, we have classes for those just walking to 3 years old) for a few months and Lucas (big brother) has been doing the Preschool Program for a few months.

Kimberly is in competitive team and set up a workout area on the wall marked with degrees (set up with sticks, a protractor, and a pencil) and was like “I need to go from here to here.”

“I can do that!” Says Lucas.

Bingo.

“Let Thea do it!” Thea says.

Bingo.

Kimberly tosses her hands in the air playfully, “I give up!”

We laughed and asked, “Why?”

“My baby brother has a bigger split than I do!” Kimberly laughed, “actually,” she tries it, “maybe not.”

We all laugh because the littles are so enthusiastic about everything. They love anything and everything big siblings or friends are doing. Thea consistently tries to do everything her big brother and big sisters do. She walked into the front room last night and turned on the game computer, “play a game with Becky!” and the mouse pointer went straight to the correct icon for Becky’s game.

Thea loves to do it! Thea loves to do everything!

“Mom!” (I’m washing dishes, Thea is dragging the stool over to the sink…) “Thea can wash dishes, please?”

How do I say no? I hope she always keeps the can-do will-try attitude she currently possesses.

Type at you next time!

~Nancy Tart

Building Buddies

December 28, 2020

Building Buddies

When we think of toddler, stuffing every unknown object into their mouth is standard, right?

I had two where the answer was shockingly “NO!”

They both loved all things small – squinkies, legos, and polly pockets.

The thing I like about small items is that they are easily portable! A small pencil box could hold an army of squinkies, a city of legos, or a family of polly pockets.

You can’t exactly take giant mega blocks everywhere! Well, maybe one or two blocks, but really… tiny is better for portable applications. I love tiny toys to keep littles entertained when on the go. For most of the kids though, tiny toys were not an option until the everything-in-the-mouth stage was finished. I love starting off with tiny toys!

We have been building large mega block forts with the same blocks for over 16 years! From Christina under 1 to Thea now at almost 2… I shake my head at that – yikes! That’s too many years of building forts and garages and houses with mega blocks! (Maybe that’s because mom doesn’t want to admit to that many years of kid toys!)

The building buddies right now are Lucas and Thea. Lucas gets very creative with the big blocks and super detailed with the tiny legos. He’s made Becky even get interested in coming back in because he occasionally gets a sorting bug and sorts their collection! When sorting happens, Becky is like, “yippee!” or comes to show Lucas how to best sort them. She had taught him well.

Thea is not so big on sorting small things into smaller groups – but one type of toy always must go in its correct bin. Grandma gave her a collection of squinkies for Christmas. Those stay in one bin along with their little eggs. Her gravity propelled horses that walk down tracks are in another bin, teething toys (sadly, very few of those left) in one bin, socks take up one of the toy bins (Thea’s idea, not Mom’s), and other small collections in the small bins. Thea keeps a baggie of legos and a few assorted squinkies in her back-pack. (This was another gift from Grandma this year and she carries it literally everywhere now.)

What I love to see is the building buddies when two or more of them are sitting in the little ones’ room surrounded by legos and building their respective creations on boards or the tops of the containers, in a “giant land” as Lucas calls it. (I guess city isn’t big enough.) Becky, Lucas, and Thea, or Kimberly, Jillian, and Thea, or Jaquline, Jillian, and Lucas… all with their own bits in their tiny toy world.

And, yes, Mom ends up in there often too, building some castle-hidden-in-rocks or house-hidden-in-trees on request. I load mine with secret tunnels or passageways, treasure, tiny details, and stories! I love building models of some story land my characters are in and acting scenes out with Lucas and Thea. They always come up with neat ideas that I’m forgetting.

Building buddies are the best! Taking time to encourage the creativity and imagination of little ones is a wonderful thing to be a part of.

This Christmas as I was building some huge lego tree with robin hood and castle pieces (who can remember those cool sets?) with Thea and Lucas, I remembered being about three and building the gray castle in the basement/garage in Cherry Hill with my Daddy. The black castle followed when I was four along with Robin Hood’s hideout (Daddy called it that, not sure what the name is that goes along with the set, but I know the number!) – classic sets I can actually print out instructions for from the lego website now! He took the time to build with me (and boost my ego… I was very proud of building a set that had an age on it higher than my current age.) and full circle, I’m taking time to build with mine.

Maybe I haven’t ben fishing with my kids as often as my brothers and I went fishing, but I’ve been building with them! So maybe we are “Building Buddies” instead of “Fishing Buddies” – and in my crazy brain I see five Golden Retriever pups building forts with mega blocks!

Type at you later!

~Nancy Tart

(P.S.: for those wondering… my computer has been down since just before Thanksgiving so I’m a little behind on by release of Devonians #6, but thanks to an awesome gift from a friend – old laptop too old for games but perfect for writing! – it is now just waiting on a cover!)

Sharks and Legos

Not this weekend, but still a good story! (I’ve saved up some stories from my month of not writing on here.)

Becky and Dad thought it was okay to watch Jaws with Lucas.

(WWHHAATT??!!) Exactly. Thank you.

This screams through every mom’s head when you have a boy who likes to repeat everything and has been slashing duplo and cardboard light sabers at everything and everybody for years – add on his uncles, big sisters, and “the meats” from Lord of the Rings and yes, Mom is sure someone lost their senses.

What does Lucas do after watching Jaws?

Jump in the ocean at 6pm the next night with no reservations. He actually teases Jillian, “there might be a giant shark in here! Cool!”

Nope, not scared of sharks.

He makes a lego model of the fisherman’s boat and says to Dad, “I think we need a bigger boat.”

Mom facepalmed…

But here is his boat plus Becky’s updates (he went to Becky and asked for her help to make it look “really real”) I added a cute picture of Lucas with Legos ages ago because he wouldn’t sit still for a picture!

So he played with Becky’s updated shark hunter boat for quite some time, and yes, he knows lines from this iconic movie now – this child can replay an entire movie in his head.

Normally, it’s a battle from Star Wars or a scene from one of Jaquline’s favorite swashbucklers (yes, her “movie crush” is Errol Flynn and my family laughs at that because he was mine too) or from the latest John Wayne war movie, but for said entire weekend it was from Jaws. The funny part? The Lego shark was nowhere near the right proportions of the shark from the movie so Lucas kept claiming his hand was the shark and the little lego shark was “his tiny friend laughing.”

…and this is where most of my inspiration for children’s books comes from!

Type at you later,

~Nancy Tart

Growing Little Love

June 1, 2020

Growing Little Love

Thea is getting independent by giant leaps.  I don’t do the whole months thing unless I have to (I love math, but “over one” is just as good as “fourteen point two five months” as far as describing my baby’s age goes) so when people ask, she’s one.

Lucas gets a new bike, and Thea has to try it!

Lucas gets a water balloon maker (thank you, Grandma! The grenades have shredded latex shrapnel all over the yard – so Thea likes to clean all the pieces up)… and Thea is right alongside them filling up balloons.

At the beach she’s looking for shells with Becky and running into the surf with Lucas – not as far as Lucas, at least she still got a healthy fear of the deep!

Building a cage?  Oh yes, Thea is right there trying to screw in the wood… well, Mommy and Lucas were using this tool on the wood: Thea just hasn’t figured out screwdrivers drive screws!

Grandma brought a pool – “Mommy!” Thea wants it set up so she can splash!

Daddy gets stakes for the garden… Thea is helping him drag them to the right spot!

Thea loves her shoes (Thank you, Jesus! Finally a child who wants her feet covered outside!) and will bring them to her bigger siblings since she can only get her feet partway in and she knows that isn’t proper. …and reading – she loves anything Becky is reading. (Actually, anything Becky is doing!)

I love watching them grow.  I drove Christina and a friend to another friend’s graduation and his mom mentioned how much Thea has grown.  I can already see her at 16 and graduating in a year like her eldest sister… time flies.  Enjoy every minute with them! 

Life has taught me, fortunately at a young age, that we are not promised tomorrow.  The byproduct is that I am frank, honest, and don’t hide my care and concern for those I love.  I try to remember that each time I speak to someone may be the last – I have lost many people and none of my losses are plagued with regret at the last words spoken.  I pray that I keep love first.

I watch my younglings grow and I continually pray that I am guided to teach them how to live without regrets.  To love honestly, to speak in that love, to always stand for truth, to live life taking risks so as never to say, “I regret…” wistfully thinking of some word or action they wanted to do but decided against.  I pray they guard their hearts from evil and think on positive things.

I watch Thea grow, as I’ve watched each of the others and my younger siblings, I smile at her growing independence and blooming personality.  I am so thankful and humbled that God blessed us with the honor of raising our children and leading each of them toward their own way. Our time with them is short. Enjoy every moment.

Type at you next time,

~Nancy Tart

Monopoly Crazy

May 6, 2020

Monopoly Crazy

Yes, my family is crazy. Maybe.

We love board games – especially if it involves everyone. This is difficult as most games like battleships, mancala, and chess are two player or maybe four player like labyrinth, the mall game, trouble, spelldown, scrabble, and Lord of the Rings Risk. Even the regular Risk is just six players, along with all the trivial pursuits and Settlers of Catan with the 5-6 player expansion set. Yes, we alter it by adding extra pieces to trivial pursuit (we have four different card sets and ten player pieces with the total amount of wedges) and by using two yahtzee sheets instead of one, but a game where we don’t have to alter?

Yippee!

Monopoly here we come!

Granted, our monopoly set has been victim to a few mishaps; added to from two quarter yard-sale finds with a few pieces here or there, but we maintain the exact number of applicable hotels, houses, and chance and community chest cards. Unfortunately Lucas demolished the Cinderella castle board from a Disney set – but we have the tokens and a few ones and hundreds have Disney characters on them. (Actually, most of our ones are Disney, and due to Barbie Bake Shop and Restaurant Store drafts over 13 years, there is a shortage of one dollar bills insomuch as we have to “borrow” 10 white ones from the poker chip collection to play.)

Today, Aunt Becca took Becky off to babysitting land and Jillian had cleaned the table and set up piles of Monopoly money around the board – “Who wants to play Monopoly?”

“Wait?” Daddy says, taking a second glance at the table with five eager (okay, four eager and one required teenager) faces grinning at him, “everyone is at the table?”

“All except Becky,” pipes Jillian.

“She’s not here,” I added, “so everyone who is here.”

“Not Thea!” someone quips, “but she can’t play yet.”

To answer this, Thea squeals with joy – as Louis says, “roll the dice to see who goes first then I’ll sit down.”

Yippee! They all get excited about playing with Daddy and Mommy… Daddy is the cannon, Mommy is Walt & Mickey (statue from the Disney version), shoe, candlestick (from Clue), Miss Scarlett (from Clue)… someone was Mr. Thimble Moneybags (the thimble with the moneybags inside and the hat on top) – Yes, we collect old tokens from games bought at yard sales for extra pieces! Thea demands Mommy pick her up. Mommy smiles and sits by Lucas. Lucas, Jaquline, and Kimberly all rolled 6s so they roll again. Mom goes to change Thea. Lucas rolls highest! He goes first!

“I’m taking Mommy’s spot by Lucas!” Daddy announces. “I go second!”

Mommy does a mental facepalm… luck my foot.

We sit back at the table in the remaining chair between Jillian (#3) and Kimberly (#5) as Louis pops two doubles and lands three properties – 2 of a 3 group already.

At one point, we have Kim roll onto Louis’ hotel, die. #6, Christina, roll onto same hotel, DIE, and #7, Jaquline, roll onto Jillian’s hotel – DIE! Three out of seven down in one turn… with Mommy out the next and Lucas following. We ask Jillian (no hotels by this time) if she’s ready to concede that Daddy wins…

NO WAY! “I don’t quit a game – if I lose, I lose, but I don’t quit!” (Where does that come from? Remember Risk games during Daddy and Mommy’s dating days, brothers and sisters? One lone dude in Australia against the entire red world… “I’ll never surrender!”) Mommy has to laugh.

One thing for sure, out of the government shutdown garbage, Lucas knows how to break a twenty and what change to get back from a $10 or $20 on the $6, $8, and $14 properties (…almost typed the names… I’m too nerdy!)

What board game does your family love to play?

Thank you for Reading!

Type at you Next Time!

~Nancy Tart

Becky’s Parakeets!

Becky’s Parakeets!

May 2, 2020

Becky has been dreaming of and saving for parakeets for over four years. When her savings goal of the summer camp all three teens were to do together canceled due to COVID-19, she decided to invest in Disney shares while they were record low cost (someone has been Christina’s study buddy for Personal Finance), buy her “smaller” cage (we will build a much larger one at our new house), and her birds!

So… Cage…

And now Birdies!

Better introduction of each bird will be coming, but for now, they are all young and sweet with blooming individual personalities. Becky loves them all!

She waited so long for these pets – they have the best! She included toys, feed, treats, bedding, and even a nest box in her budget (not yet in the cage though). She has a continuing budget for new toys and feed – she grows specific plants they love like carrot tops (they love the greens from carrot tops), parsley, basil, and millet. There are others, but I don’t know them all yet. The birds get tasty apple bits occasionally.

And Becky already has them coming to eat from her hand!

When one dream is canceled, you adapt and move on to something else. No, the three oldest will not be able to do a summer camp together because next year Christina will be doing flight and starting Embry-Riddle, but they can enjoy the birds together & Mom got to do a project (the stand, here) with Becky! As they say, your character is showed by how you react to whatever life throws at you – and adding beautiful birds to our family is definitely a plus!

Thanks for reading!

Type at you next time,

~Nancy Tart

Big Building Blocks

April 24, 2020

Big Building Blocks

On our shop day last week when we were building the bird cage stand, Lucas and Jillian discovered some big building blocks!

Lucas made some boats with tall sails.

Jillian hopped out and made more boats!

Lucas made the tiny ones sneak up on the big ones and I heard “Boom!” and “Thud!” the blocks (the bad guy pirate boats) fell to the floor! Everything is a toy. I love Lucas’ wild and crazy imagination. Everything he finds is a new something with a story. His boats had many adventures while Becky and I built… and his big sisters took pictures.

I love cultivating their imagination! He learns so much letting his stories come alive.

Enjoy the imagination of those around you. Follow along with them and see just where it will lead… you never know what kind of adventure a few beads, sticks, crayons, chalk sticks, or bits of board will take you!

Type at you later,

~Nancy Tart

Our Beach Morning

April 22, 2020

Our Beach Morning

On Saturday morning the beaches of St Johns County decided to open back for restricted times. No “gathering” though so we couldn’t take the baby shade tent which meant limited time for us due to not wanting baby burned. But we went!

Sunday at sunrise we gathered ourselves, tried to wake the more sluggish members of the family, and trouped to the beach. It was a gorgeous morning with nice steady surf and almost high tide when we arrived (well, arrived, changed Thea into her beach romper, let Lucas go potty, and walked over the ramp). There were dozens of surfers out and several fishermen with their coolers and pole stakes. Normal beach life. Actually, quite crowded for our experience, but then after the hurricanes the beaches are always full! Guess quarantine has the same effect as an extended hurricane on beach gatherings.

Thea was excited about the water today and ran out into ankle-deep water. It was cold enough to stop her. Lucas, though, wanted to go out where the surfers were! He couldn’t talk any of the big girls into going with him, so he would run into a wave, jump and land in a push up position half-floating and laugh heavy belly laughs. Tiny conch, mussels, clams, and assorted bivalve sea creatures were washed up under our feet by the thousands! Baby Thea loved them! She kept wiggling her toes and saying “tickle tickle!” The little critters ticked her toes as they burrowed back into the soft sand.

Lucas and Thea also waved and greeted everyone who passed. Anyone they noticed, they wanted to say hi to. Thea wanted to run to every other child and every dog she saw. One actually stopped to let her toddler greet Thea. Both babies were enthusiastic about seeing each other! It was so cute!

Suddenly, a creature was on a shell on the high tide line where I was looking for shells – and I called Becky (seriously, she did Marine Biology, she knows all sea life) to find out what it was. “Oh my! It’s an anemone!” and she gathered it carefully and rescued it by putting it back in the water. After a few more live anemone discoveries and “oh my!” shrieks by Kimberly and Becky, Thea grabbed a random shell, yelped “oh my!” and raced back to the shallow waves to fling the shell into the water like a frisbee. It’s the thought that counts, right?

It was a short visit as Thea’s tender arms let us know it was time to leave (Each person has a limit that we figure out and we go in when the first “red flag of warning” lets us know we are about to get burnt.) About an hour and a half of rescuing sea life, collecting beautiful shells, watching Jaquline and Lucas build a sandcastle, watching Lucas bellyflop into each oncoming wave, seeing Thea no longer be scared of the crashing waves, and watching the beauty of the morning sun in the length of the spring day.

The beach always refreshes me. I love it. I can breathe! This morning felt like a worship service. Our church has been closed for 4 weeks but being in nature is close – everything, including the little mollusks, the variety and beauty of their shells, the glorious waves, the sweet-salty spray opening up my lungs, all of creation shouts God’s glory!

Each of thousands – maybe tens of thousands – of those tiny creatures were each magnificent in their own individual beauty. Just like us. Each of us are independently unique and individually beautiful in our uniqueness. I glanced in my memory at the surfers on the waves; all different, each individual with the common bond of a passion for the stoke of riding the waves. Each of us beachgoers; all different, each individual with the common bond of our enjoyment of the beautiful beach.

This is the beauty in creation. The exquisite beauty of each small piece. Tiny grains of sand that look like gemstones under the microscope. We are more precious than diamonds – knit together by God.

Thank you for reading!

Type at you next time…

~Nancy Tart

Follow me!

Get my latest posts delivered to your email: