Goodness! Well...here's an update

Wow?  Has my lack of posting gone on so long that now Google blogger has a whole new format to compose posts?  I guess so.

It appears that half my entries in the blog start with apologies to my dear viewers for the lack of posting, and, well, this post falls into that category.  We are in June, and my last post was in March.  Ah, oh well!  If you are reading this then your commitment to me, and my bogging, is still in tact and I hope to not disappoint.

So much has happened (as you can imagine in a house of two girls under five) in the last few months, but let's start with the biggest news - TATUM TURNED FOUR!   And to celebrate, we had four parties for her, more like four celebrations....

The Shearer Family celebrating at Outback Steakhouse thanks to a birthday gift card from Pop Pop.

A super happy four year old celebrating with friends at preschool.

 

 

For the past year or so I have been working on Karma Triyana Dharmachakra's (KTD) National Steering Committee for Family and Dharma programming.  KTD is the monastery I belong to and have been affiliated with almost my entire life.  In case you didn't know, I am Buddhist!  My work lead me to participate in a Family Weekend hosted at KTD where Tatum and I took our first trip together to join my mom and grandmother in Woodstock, NY.  That's right - four generations!  It was the first time I had returned to KTD in ten years, and it was a wonderfully magically weekend full of activities, crafts, nature hikes, life releases, and fun!  And even more special, Tatum turned four while in New York.  She was able to share her birthday with her new friends, my mother, and grandmother (not to mention a whole plane of strangers too as we flew back to LA that night).  

 

Above - Tatum poses in front of prayer flags near the pond. 
Right - Tatum insists on swimming in the gorge although it is freezing.  Like mother, like daughter - where there is water, we will get in!

The rest of the family, meaning Andrew and Hazel, are doing great.  Hazel is still smiling with only six teeth in her head, but that does not keep her from eating anything placed on the table.  We finally moved Hazel out of room and set her up in Tatum's room.  The girls enjoy their shared space, and we parents LOVE having a room to our own.  The simple freedom of being able to walk into my bedroom and turn on the light no matter what time is an act I will never take for granted.