Shifting Time, Adapting Traditions

November 15, 2022

Shifting Time, Adapting Traditions


Yesterday a notification from my calendar app popped up on my phone.  It read, “Pearson Family Thanksgiving at Mom & Daddy’s.”  It was an old recurring appointment I’d just never deleted.  I guess I hoped we’d restart it someday.  The recurring day was always the 15th of November and time was set as 4pm to 7pm just because my app in 2010 with my first smartphone didn’t allow “all day” appointments to give me day-before notifications.

Why would our family Thanksgiving be on the 15th instead of the fourth Thursday of each November?

Good question: here’s the historical answer…

It started after the first year Louis and I got married.  We had just tried to do Thanksgiving at his family’s (Grandma Jeanette’s house) and then Thanksgiving at my family’s – and were exhausted and Louis complained he was too full from one place to eat half of what he wanted to taste at my parent’s house.  Same happened at Christmas!  At least the food part wasn’t a big issue at Christmas.  His family always did presents and stuff at the crack of dawn (not really, but early) and my family usually had a big breakfast, tried all the kids’ patience, setup everything, made sure all the service workers had gotten a good nights’ sleep so it was later and lasted longer.  Christmas was easy.  Morning with his family, afternoon with mine.  

Plus, as the second year holidays approached, we realized that three of us (Louis, Katy, and Becca) worked service industry and didn’t have the actual Thanksgiving Day off.  Hmm… That made the decision even easier!  I approached my Daddy with an idea: what if, we celebrated Thanksgiving on Mom’s birthday each year instead of actual Thanksgiving Day – of course, they could still do the actual Thanksgiving, but the Travel Thanksgiving Day celebration when we all got together would be Mom’s birthday.  Daddy said, “two feast days for Thanksgiving?  Great idea.”  (or something very similar to that, I don’t remember the exact words)

We started celebrating Thanksgiving with my family on November 15th, my Mother’s birthday!  It was perfect, service industry workers could easily ask and get a random day a week and a half before the start of the holiday rush (pre-Nights-of-Lights for us Saint Augustinians), and we’d always make or buy a cake for Mom!  It was perfect!  (Then we could go to our own thing or for us, go to Louis’ family celebration on Thanksgiving Day, if we were off – Louis usually tried to make an appearance; even it is was briefly.)

Lots of stuff has happened to my birth family and we’ve tried to keep that tradition alive, but it isn’t happening this year.  Instead, we are hosting Thanksgiving for anyone able from 11/23 to 11/27.  A few of our family will be in town and able to visit.  Maybe some friends might pop in over those off-days (we are off work and the girls on break from college, Louis is on call, but he’s always on call) – family and friends make for fun days full of memories!  

I smiled at the notification because it today would mark four full years since we’d gone over to Mom and Daddy’s for “Pearson Thanksgiving on Mom’s Birthday” and all my older girls remember “two Thanksgiving parties” every year!  Lucas attended some, but doesn’t remember them.  Thea hadn’t ever been.  

So many things shifted in our family that now, getting days off before Thanksgiving, when most of us are on vacation is like “really?” and two of our children are grown (okay, Becky’s not legally an adult yet, but I consider her one) so I want our home to be the gathering place.  I want to be like Grandma Jeanette, the “glue” that holds the family together.  I want everyone to feel welcome and this year we’ve officially started opening our home to anyone during holidays (it feels like we have more space even though we don’t).  Not that we didn’t say it before “oh, you can just come by” no, this year we sent out timelines to family and have offered verbal invitations to friends of our kids and their families.  I want to be the fun memory-making place – and it won’t matter that we won’t be in this house next year for any of the fall holidays, our new place will be the new gathering place.  I want to build memories so my younglings keep coming back – even if one day they show up and say, “Dad, Mom, can we do Thanksgiving at your house on your anniversary instead of actual Thanksgiving Day?” – and yes, we’ll shift with the time to accommodate what our youngsters and their growing families need… but that’s WAY in the future, right?  

(Who am I kidding?  It seems like yesterday I proposed the question to my Daddy…)

Thank you for Reading!

Type at you next time!

~Nancy Tart

Dressing the Part

#DressingThePart #ChristinaCanDressUp #DressUpDays #Halloween2022 #Halloween #SillyMemories #Silliness #BeSilly #BeFun #Family #Memories #LetsMakeMemoriesTogether #CreateSillyMemories #DontLetYourFunStop #WGVGymnastics #ParentsNightOut #ChristinaHasWayTooMuchFunDressingUp

November 12, 2022

Dressing the Part


Christina likes to dress up.  She turns into “Christy the Elf” after Thanksgiving and loves dressing up to our themes at work.  This Halloween is the first we’ve lived in a community where people actually trick-or-treat!  This made her super excited!  She had Jaquline’s big speaker outside playing creepy and fun Halloween songs (some were soundtracks to different movies, others were funny like “the Monster Mash”).  She had invited a bunch of friends but most had other plans and attending a friend’s Halloween “party on my driveway giving away candy” is not a valid excuse to play hooky from work.  

One of her best friends showed up – in a totally amazing costume my nerdy girls loved! – and these two college girls goofed off and enjoyed giving away candy to all the trick-or-treaters.  A table of glowing fun candles and cute props, two smiling young ladies handing out candy, and a bunch of spare candy bags hiding just inside the door made for hours of fun. 

Christina worked our October Parents’ Night Out where the coaches are encouraged to dress up. 

Before she left, she was crawling around the house “getting into the dog character” just to make all the little ones laugh.  Christina knows how to make little ones laugh.  Maybe that’s why she excels as a preschool coach.  

Louis looked at me, “what in the Earth?” because, you know, she is nineteen.  Or is she?  

I love that they have the freedom to dress up and play pretend and goof off – one has to feel very confident in their own skin in order to act silly in front of others.  It is amazing how my girls’ first jobs give them options to be silly.  We dress up (okay, not me, but the other coaches do), we goof off with each other and our kids (yes, I goof off with the preschoolers and tots), and yet all of us are very professional about our job.  We love our kiddos!  We want the best for them!  

I always take time to do fun kid things with my children.  Thea wants to play legos (we set up the lego base boards and each gets a spot to build).  Lucas wants to play boggle with Thea (yes, they both get words now, it’s almost scary – Thea won one round because she had a 3-letter that beat Lucas’ two-letter and she’s told everyone!).  We spend family day(Sunday) with at least one board game like Monopoly or Risk.  We do silly dance parties or sing karaoke.  Sometimes we have been known to spend hours watching parakeets or guinea pigs or lizards or chickens while narrating (speaking for the poor animals).  

Sometimes when you are being silly, you totally dress the part – like Christina. 

Sometimes it helps to make you join in all the silliness and pretend you are a part of a world where imagination reigns.  Crawling around like whatever animal you are pretending to be, making the littles squeal with joy and run from you, or pretend they are “protecting” and wrestle you; always make time for “silly” memories.  When I think back, some of the most heart-warming memories with elder members of my family were the silly ones (i.e. my granny at eighty-something throwing cartwheels to teach a group of us kids how to do it, running through the sprinklers with my Daddy, “braving” the rain from a Sams Club with my mom) and then the ones I remember making with my siblings and children… twirling in the middle of a flower garden, singing silly songs on bike rides, people-watching on the bayfront, tickle wars, covering kiddos with sheets and “smashing them” while I try to fold sheets or make beds, reading stories that will never be published as they shred them apart with kid-questions, letting them “cook” stuff in Star Ocean while we fold clothes, etc.  Silly stuff we remember as so much fun.  

Enjoy your silly memory-making moments and don’t be scared to “dress your part” if the mood hits to be silly!

Thank you for Reading!

Type at you later!

~Nancy Tart

God! Help!

January 5, 2021

God! Help!

This blog is for those moms, big sisters, teachers, coaches, etc. who have ever raised their hands up in the sky and demanded with tears streaming down their eyes, “God! Help!”

If you’ve never done that, please leave the rest of us in our private knowledge of complete crazy… nothing to see or read here… Thank you.

Now that I’m addressing those of you, who like me, know that they only get through life with God’s routine and very often injections of aid: understand that you are really, really not alone!

There are way more of us out here than you know.

But people don’t always see that. Still. That doesn’t mean we don’t completely loose it and at least internally… SCREAM for HELP!

Ever had a friend compliment you by saying, “wow, you were so calm.”

Your mind goes, “um.. what????” And you realize that only God saw your frantic desperate prayers as you grabbed napkins, wiped up your child’s blood trying not to freak out at her big sister’s just-started party while on your way to meet said child in the bathroom with unknown injury as you realize another daughter is already cleaning more blood (MORE BLOOD?? God, let me not scare her, make me calm.) on a gym mat. You realize that the frantic prayers were interpreted as deep breaths – thank you Jesus for oxygen and working lungs! Said child cries and you are thinking, “God, this injury is serious, help me!” but when you clean it and she whines, “I don’t want to go home! I want to play with my friends!”

Then there’s the serious prayer as you fight the urge of laughter-that-borders-on-insanity, “God, give me patience with this child!”

Bloody head wound clean. Check.

Bleeding stopped. Crisis averted. Check.

10,000+ frantic “God, you better help me” prayers in the span of 45 seconds while dealing with said child who doesn’t see that this is an INJURY and wants to GET BACK UP AND START FLIPPING! Double check.

Super glue, band-aid, and the older kids are like, “do we need to go?” Decision time. (This was supposed to be a food party & dinner & home is 45 minutes away plus party will be over & have to pick up actual party-goer in about 2 hours.) Stay.

Instant heart attack what feels like 5 seconds later when said injured child is about to show off her routine on bars – “DO YOU WANT TO LIVE TO ADULTHOOD??” (No, I didn’t scream that.)

But. I WANTED TO!! Instead it was “GOD HELP ME!” in my frantic brain while I think I may have jumped the knee wall to grab said child and firmly direct her back to my table in a solid seat (DID YOU REALLY JUST LEAN THAT FOLDING CHAIR ON TWO LEGS!!!???) beside me to watch her. Calm. Breathe. “GOD! HELP ME!” (Of course, that was a mental scream again.)

End the frantic night. (Thank you, Jesus!)

I’m laying in bed, praying that her head heals well and there’s no infection. Reading Proverbs for whatever chapter the day was (you know, when you can’t think of anything but Proverbs has a chapter for every day in the month?), I came across timeless wisdom that basically said (my brain translated the words to the following, it is NOT a direct quote:), “give everything to God and know that you aren’t perfect without Him.”

Truth.

Give over my worries. Give over my fears. In. Real. Time.

If I just write it on paper (or type it in a blog), that’s just words. What shows that I do trust God is in real time. When my toddlers decides to tilt her head back and scream bloody murder with a huge smirk because I’m on the phone. (PATIENCE, PLEASE!) When my boy is annoying his sisters for the bazillionth time in one minute. (Please, God, don’t let them kill him.) When an attack comes and it feels like the life-breath from my lungs is being sucked out by a giant vacuum. (Calm. Breathe. God. Help. Me.)

This is trusting in real time.

This is choosing to know that I cannot do anything without Jesus.

This is knowing that with Jesus I ca do all things. I can breathe. I can parent. I can mother. I can coach. I can love. Without Him, I can’t do any of those things.

So, yes, I know I’m imperfect. (I’m FAR from perfect!)

But…

I trust in the perfect one. I ask Him for help daily (um… thousands of times a day, in every situation I get stuck in!) and He answers with comfort, ideas, calm, and love.

Take a breath. Breathe in Jesus, breathe out, breathe in love, breathe out; now face your challenge! (As I hear a squeal from the kitchen followed by a crash… doesn’t sound like anything broke… “MOM!”) God, they are your children; HELP ME! I need to parent them to lead them to You, show me how.

Type at you later!

~Nancy Tart

P.S.: Those who were there, yes, I was freaking out inside. Yes, she is okay and nothing left to point at proudly and say “look what happened to me!”

Miracles!

May 25, 2019

Miracles!

 I haven’t been writing for my blog often.  I’ve been very busy lately!  (And yes, the picture is an old one, like 4 years ago, but it’s one of my favorites of Becca & Anastasia.)

This past week was totally amazing in how God just orchestrated things to work out for good.

If you’ve been reading, you probably know my little sister has been going through some rough medical challenges.  Read this if you don’t know about it.  (Okay, she’s always going to be “my little sister” to me, even though she’s a very competent adult.)  On Wednesday, my Mom texted me at work (she was playing taxi for Becca) with awesome news!

God had closed up one of Becca’s varicose veins!  But she was already prepped for surgery and had prepaid for it so the Doctor said they’d do the worst vein on the other leg.  That was so amazing!  Actually, they scared her to death before telling her it was good news.  The nurse with the Doppler says “stop talking” and moves the Doppler around with a serious face.  Becca’s heart jumped into her throat.  Then she sets the wand down.  “Let me get the Doctor.” And then Becca had to find her calm place and bite her tongue as they both moved the Doppler stuff around and made comments like “I see it” and “yes, that’s odd.”  Becca said finally the nurse says to the Doctor, “shall I tell her, or do I?” and then they told her it was gone.  They offered, since she was already prepped, to just start in on the other leg (the worst, largest vein) so of course, Becca said yes.

The second miracle happened two days later.  Anastasia has been severely allergic to eggs all her life.  Like so allergic she needs an EpiPen and can’t touch anything that touched eggs.  We have chickens, so you’d think our house was a definite no-no, but we are very diligent about keeping her away from our eggs and washing everything (hands, countertops, etc) to keep any contaminates from her.  And we bake cookies, breads, ice cream, and cupcakes without eggs anytime she’s over.  She’s really good about asking if it has eggs in it.  (Louis picked up a cookie snack from Aldis when she was shopping with us & she asked, “does it have eggs?” so we put it back and Christina made eggless cookies instead.)

Anyway, so much for backstory… at the end of school, the school gives back all medications to the parents.  Normally, that’s on the last day, but they almost gave Anastasia’s EpiPen back on Thursday instead.  Her Dad wisely didn’t take it; he told them her Mom would get it on Friday.

So her EpiPen was at school for the party day.

And that was when she needed it.  She misunderstood somehow and thought the cupcakes were eggless, so she ate one and two bites into it, her body rejected it and it ended with her in anaphylactic shock.  Although she had to go to the hospital, my brave 5-year-old niece recovered fine.  Becca raced from work to get to her.  The paramedics let Becca drive her to the hospital and she was admitted with a “severe level 5 reaction” so the doctors had to observe her in case her reaction returned as the medicine wore off.  (It didn’t.)  The Doctor was extremely helpful and handed Becca his card, which had John 3:16 written on it!

God lined everything up so that Anastasia would have her medicine and get just the right care.

Our family has felt the love of God and amazing miracles in the prayers, support, and love from all of you!  Please continue to keep Becca in your prayers!  I just had to pass along how awesome our week had been in the way God had been letting Becca feel His presence through these challenging moments.

God always has our best.  We give Him our lives with all of our stuff and He blesses us with His constant love and care.  He shows us love and grace and we are the hands, feet, and arms of Jesus on Earth.  Sometimes we are the givers and sometimes receivers.  And sometimes God shocks everyone with something totally unexpected like healing something in our bodies!

Thank you God, for Your warm arms gathering my little sister and her baby in Your tender care!

Thanks for reading!

Type at you later…

~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

 

 

Pearson Christmas Party 2018

Picture overload! My family’s Christmas party 2018.

December 22, 2018

Pearson Christmas Party

Imagine twelve adults and thirteen children racing around a beautifully decorated house and every single one of them is acting like they are somewhere in that magic child age around 5 to 8.  That was our Christmas party this year.  It was the best!

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My amazing sister and brother hosted.

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Katy is always ready for a picture!

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Livy painting faces!  Anastasia is concentrating on being very still.  She was rewarded with a beautiful butterfly!

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Jaquline got snowflakes to match her dress!

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Mrs. Claus and helpers!  Tina, Christina (Christy the elf), and Mandy (Elsa-elf!)

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Liam was here, but jumped out of the way!  Brother-cousin time L-to-R JJ, Lucas, Isaac

This video shows our baby sister’s personality – it matches the hat!

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Group Selfie! Tina, Ray, Becca, Charles, Allison

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The teenage grandchildren (Becky, 13, and Christina, 15)

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Bouncy Hat plus Sherlock Pipe (both with accents…)

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The pro (Aunt Becca) teaching JJ how to take a selfie… (He knows he’s adorable!)

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Mom and the boys (silly faces): L-to-R Nathan, Ray, Tina, Charles, Louis, and Andy

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Mom and the girls: L-to-R Mary, Kayla, Katy, Allison, Tina, Becca, and me.

We did not get a group picture, or a full cousin picture, because everyone was just having too much fun!  The girls (my pictures come from Christina, Becky, and Kimberly) managed to get many active shots.

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This was our first year without my Daddy.  Katy and Andy had set up the layout so that he would have a comfy chair, a central view, close to food, close to everything in what Kimberly called “Santa Boompa’s throne.” (The chair with the footstool, Mom’s seat was supposed to be the matching one next to his.)  From this view you could see Livy’s facepainting station (she is so talented), the Selfie station (which was hilarious), the “dance floor” (right in front – so much fun!), the food and beverage buffet area was to the left (easy access to refills and the silly shenanigans going on in there), and the covered porch area was just behind it (where not just the boys were showing off their strength… or trying to).

Even though he wasn’t there, I didn’t feel like Daddy was missing.  I heard him in my brothers, Mom, and several of the children.  I heard his laugh when the boys were showing off.  I could hear him cheering each one on.  I felt his smile as Anastasia passed out gifts for each of the sister- and brother-cousins.  The little ones ran around giving drawings, toys, and hugs to each other and I felt him smile because he loved to give.  I felt his heart as Kimberly reminded me she needed my phone to “take pictures and movies for Grandma,” because “Granddaddy always likes to get pictures for Grandma!”

My Daddy’s legacy lives as the humor and fun he always had rubbed off on us kids and our children.  We love to see each other smile and laugh.  We encourage each other.  We share with each other.  We love.

This makes me so happy I cried on the way home.

Daddy isn’t really gone.  I miss him so bad; I miss being able to talk with him.  No one listens to me chatter away about the story ideas I have like he did.  Daddy didn’t seem to mind if it was the fifth – or fiftieth – time I told a cute something the kids did or a neat thing I learned; he never said “I’ve already heard that.”  I miss that, yes.

But he’s here.  I keep hearing the sing-song voice from the Disney cartoon: “he lives in you.”

Daddy lives in all 25 of us that were there (and the 4 who weren’t) in some way.  His legacy is us.

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

Fun and Games

April 2, 2018

Fun and Games

Yesterday for Easter Sunday we went to an Easter Party with the Landmark Family.  Any time we get together is a party. (You should come on Saturday nights at 6:30pm, it’s never boring!)  We call ourselves the Landmark Squirrels, which inspired a group of children’s books too!

This time there was food, (we have some amazing cooks in our church!) games, (the relay race had a sack race, egg-n-spoon-carry, and hopscotch – it was very entertaining!) and lots of good company.

While the adults were eating and chatting, two almost-three-year-old boys, flaunting their independence and comradeship, had wandered off.  They had discovered a sand pit!

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I decided to get a little closer!  One of those sandmen was mine – Lucas, in the striped shirt.  I know, they are both in blue & jeans but that was not planned!  Lucas loves playing with Grayson.  Anytime we are going to church, he reminds us days in advance, “I go to Grayson’s church!” We’d been planning attending this party for at least a week, so Lucas kept reminding us anytime someone said “Easter” – “I’m going to play with Grayson on Easter!”

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Trying to get a close up without disturbing wild animals in their play is challenging!  I managed two more shots before Lucas spied me.

The children found hidden Easter eggs.  Most were filled with candy (the prize ones had money!) but Kimberly said she found the best prize egg of all – it had a lovely little flower in it!

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We played bean bag toss and the little ones chased bubbles.  We chatted about fun things and ate delicious food.  Most of my youngsters chose carrot cake and brownie-like cupcakes over their candy.  That is, until the boys drifted away and demolished an entire basket of candy, secretly (or so they thought!) but they’d been spied. (Moms are wise here; they knew the boys dropped more chocolate in the sand than what got in their mouths so this piracy was actually a good thing.)  We had a wonderful time!  It’s always fun to get together with family!  I always wish I never had to leave.

Thanks for reading!

Type at you later…

~Nancy Tart

 

 

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