It was sad to say goodbye to Oprah on Wednesday.  I had a few friends over for the finale.  We toasted with Moscow Mules and enjoyed listening to Oprah's advice and lessons from her 25 years.  Several things she said struck a chord with me at this place in my life. Here are a few of my favorite things she said:

• Everybody has a calling, and your real job in life is to figure out what that is and get about the business of doing it.
• Because that is what a calling is. It lights you up and it lets you know that you are exactly where you're supposed to be, doing exactly what you're supposed to be doing. And that is what I want for all of you and hope that you will take from this show. To live from the heart of yourself. You have to make a living; I understand that. But you also have to know what sparks the light in you so that you, in your own way, can illuminate the world.
• Wherever you are, that is your platform, your stage, your circle of influence. That is your talk show, and that is where your power lies. In every way, in every day, you are showing people exactly who you are. You're letting your life speak for you. And when you do that, you will receive in direct proportion to how you give in whatever platform you have.
•  Start embracing the life that is calling you and use your life to serve the world.
• Nobody but you is responsible for your life.
• You are responsible for the energy that you create for yourself, and you're responsible for the energy that you bring to others
• Remember physics class? Did you pay attention to Newton's third law of motion? Let me tell you, that thing is real. It says for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. That is the abiding law that I live by, articulated to perfection by Miss Celie in The Color Purple when she finally gets the courage to leave her abusive husband, Mister. ... 'Everything you done to me already done to you.' It is the Golden Rule to the 10th power.
• There is a difference, you know, between thinking you deserve to be happy and knowing you are worthy of happiness.
• every single person you will ever meet shares that common desire. They want to know: 'Do you see me? Do you hear me? Does what I say mean anything to you?... Try it with your children, your husband, your wife, your boss, your friends. Validate them. 'I see you. I hear you. And what you say matters to me
  .'"
• Your life is speaking to you. What is it saying?
• what I hope is that you all will be that safe harbor for somebody else—their safe place to fall. Do for them what you all are telling me the show has done for you. Connect. Embrace. Liberate. Love somebody. Just one person. And then spread that to two. And as many as you can. You'll see the difference it makes.

I wish I had time to write about what each of those means to me... maybe a post for another day.

Catching up...

Hello again, blog friends.  :)  Another semester is over for me and I figured it was time to update my antiquated blog.  :)  Things are going really smoothly these days in the Biggers' household.  Kindergarten is almost over (13 more school days!) and we are starting to have spring weather, although today was cold and rainy again.  I only have 2 more semesters of coursework left (and Carter only has one!) so there is light at the end of the tunnel for both of us.  The big "D" word (dissertation) is looming, but not a topic for today.  :)

Annabelle is 18 months old as of yesterday, and she lives up to her middle name, Joy.  This girl is hilarious and sweet, adores her big brothers (as they do her) and keeps us all smiling.  After a rough few months, she had ear tubes put in both ears this winter and that has really seemed to help her stay well.  She had 5 ear infections over the course of about 7 months and even through all of that (with teething mixed in here and there) she was still a happy girl most of the time.  She is still a great napper (2 a day!) and sleeps through the night unless a tooth is breaking through.  She has a ridiculously huge vocabulary, too.  People are amazed at how much she talks, but I think part of that is that she is so tiny they don't expect her to be 18 months old either.  She loves shoes, jewelry, purses, and bows, and also has a serious fetish with gadgets.  She loves to play with cell phones, keys, calculators, or anything that makes noise.  Her favorite show without a doubt is Sesame Street and she recognizes and names Elmo, Zoie, Abby, Ernie, Oscar, The Count (she calls him Ahh-Ahh) and Big Bird.  We're still working on Grover, Bert, and Snuffleupagus (who was one of my favorites but sadly doesn't appear very often and I have no idea how to spell his name!).

Palmer and Harrison have had a great year in Kindergarten.  They were in separate classes (by our request) and have made their own friends and really developed their own interests.  Harrison has dearly loved playing keyboards in music class and Palmer is really blooming as an artist.  We have one kid who is an absolute rule follower and one who is more free-spirited.  I'll let you guess who's who.  :)  It will be fun to watch their talents grow and change with them.  It has also been really fun to watch them learn how to read, do math, get along with others, and get into a serious daily routine.  We have been reading Harry Potter at night as our bedtime stories and they love it.  This was one of those things I dreamed about doing as a parent "some day" and can't believe it is finally happening.  Carter has also introduced them to Star Wars, so that is another big theme at our house these days.  His mom and dad brought his old Star Wars toys from their attic and he and the boys have gotten a lot of fun play time with them.  Another big deal with them lately is Legos.  I love that they love legos... we are having so much fun building with them.  Uncle Jay would be so proud!  We also started "Friday Night Family Movie Nights" this year and have watched a new film every Friday night that we were all home.

We have really slacked off on taking pictures this year.  With cell phone cameras, I hardly ever think to carry our "real" camera with us anywhere, so Easter pictures are really all I have since the Chicago trip.  I always swore I wouldn't be that parent who didn't take pictures of the third child.  We have a ton of pictures of Annabelle, but most of them are on our phones.  (Note to self: download pictures from phones!)

Mama and her ducklings on Easter morning

Hooray for automatic camera timers :)

The twins battle it out in the annual cascarones battle

Annabelle's first Easter egg hunt... sorry I forgot to rotate this one

We are looking forward to a busy summer.  Carter will be at home with the boys during June.  In hopes of maintaining her routine, Annabelle will stay in day care full time for June and part-time for July and August.  I'm working full time all summer on a research grant which will (hopefully) be the data for my dissertation.  We start T-ball in a few weeks and are seriously looking forward to our Biggers' family trip to Destin.  Thanks for keeping in touch!