High Five for Friday (3.30.18)

1. On Thursday evening we picked up this little girl's new glasses. I should confess...I cried a little after we left Hallie's eye appointment two weeks ago. After needing corrective lenses for decades, I know all too well the struggles - physical, mental, and emotional - that can accompany wearing glasses and dealing with contact lenses as a child, tween, and teenager. Kids called me names and laughed at me because of my glasses (especially once they were paired with braces), and my glasses and contacts made participating in nearly every activity and sport more difficult. My glasses and contacts were also another expensive possession to take care and keep track of, and when something did happen to either of them, I felt AWFUL going to my parents.

I realize my feelings on Hallie's glasses might sound silly and irrational to some people - after all, she needs them and they will only make up one small piece of the puzzle that is Hallie's life. But Hallie has a couple of challenges in front of her already, and it hurt my mama heart to add glasses to her plate.

Well now, that's quite a high five, isn't it? 😂 I ran completely off track with this one, but I'm going to leave all those feelings up there because they're real and relevant...and because I hope to someday come back to this point and laugh about how I needn't have worried about Hallie and her glasses. 

The high fives here are that I think Hallie's glasses are adorable and she looks beautiful wearing them. Hallie also thinks her glasses are adorable and she looks beautiful wearing them. And perhaps most importantly, Hallie is in love with her glasses case. Is that enough high fives to make up for my rocky start?

2. On Friday night we celebrated this beautiful friend of mine. She is kind, generous, funny, and fun, and she has both the best laugh and the best hair of anyone I know. I'm grateful for her friendship and the opportunity to help her ring in another birthday!

3. On Saturday our family had (what felt like) 35 activities and events on our calendar...and we managed to make it to every single one. We started the day with a roof inspection, thanks to a recent hail storm. Then Will crushed his district-wide UIL Chess Puzzles competition, taking first place in his grade for the second year in a row. He also relearned the "you win some, you lose some" lesson when his soccer team fell 0-3 to an opponent they felt they should have beaten. At her dance studio's Senior Gala & Awards Ceremony, Hallie earned her five-year award, performed two dances, and ate seven brownies. We wrapped up the evening with one birthday party, one lock-in, two hours of work at my McOffice, two rounds of disc golf, and one frozen pizza on the living room couch at 9:45pm.

4. Now that the NCAA Men's Basketball tournament pool has been whittled down to the Final Four, the standings are as follows:

Tom: 36
Erin: 67
Will: 68
Hallie: 69

And since Hallie is the only member of the family with teams still in the tournament, she has officially been declared our winner. Congratulations, Hallie!

5. Happiness Highlights:

They like to be touching. It reminds me of the
Piglet quote, "I just wanted to be sure of you".

Morning kisses for his boy.

Officially sending the kids' names to the sun
on the Parker Solar Probe's memory card.

For the first time, Hallie baked and decorated a batch of cupcakes
completely by herself - oven work included. She may even have
done so without much adult supervision, seeing that I was at
soccer with Will so Tom was in charge on the home front...  

Summer has arrived (not really, of course, but temps climbed into the
upper 80s last weekend so it felt like summer) so I made my favorite
summer dessert for Tom and me on Sunday night. Ah.Maze.Ing.

Happy Friday, Chasing Roots!

Linking up with High Five for Friday here: