{Pretty, Happy, Funny, Real} My Little Man

Capturing the context of contentment in everyday life...

{Pretty}

Can you believe how big my handsome little Man Man is?  He'll be six month's old on All Saints' Day.  His expressive eyebrows remind us of Muppet characters.

{Happy}

You wouldn't know this thanks to my incredibly sparse blogging, but every Thursday since Anthony was one week old, I've been taking pictures of him on the chair in the nursery with this bear.  Today he decided after a few pictures that he was going to snuggle with his bear.

{Real Funny}

Bryan snapped this picture of Anthony tonight.  I love his expression.  This little guy has to be our most expressive baby ever.   Oh and did you notice that he's sitting all by himself?  Last week he figured out how to sit up on his own and now he does it quite frequently.  A few days ago he started getting up on his hands and knees and rocking back and forth.  He'll probably be crawling soon enough!

Visit Like Mother, Like Daughter for more pictures of contentment.

{Pretty, Happy, Funny, Real} VBS 2014

Capturing the context of contentment in everyday life.

Last week was VBS week.  I switched VBS programs this year so the new changes and additions made my job as director a bit more challenging than years past, but it all came together nicely.  Our theme this year was Living in God's Kingdom from Loyola's Catholic Vacation Bible School book.  I was so pleased with the way the program turned out this year that I'm already looking forward to using the other two themes that are in that book for the next two years.

{Pretty}

One of the crafts the kids made at VBS was a prayer card holder.  Each day the kids received a new holy card to color and take home.  The color your own holy cards seemed to be a hit with the kids.  We laminated all of the cards each day which made them look really nice.

{Happy}

I have some amazing friends who help me out with VBS each year.  I'm convinced that the program wouldn't be as great as it is without their help and passion for teaching.

I think I also have some of the best student volunteers.  This year I was the only volunteer with kids young enough to need a nursery so I scrapped the nursery knowing that my little ones wouldn't stay in there and instead had two awesome assistants who not only helped me a ton with relaying messages for me and delivering things to classrooms, but they also spent most of their time holding Katie and Anthony while I ran around doing all the things that I needed to do to make sure everything was running smoothly.  

{Funny}

Ever since last year, I like to tease Deacon Al about what costume I'm going to have him dress up in for VBS.  Originally I wanted him to be a jester to go with the medieval kingdom theme, but I never got around to ordering him a jester costume.  I was delighted when a friend of mine came in with a monk costume.  We were all amused to meet "Chip Monk" as he went from class to class with his Italian accent talking to the kids.  I have to start thinking about who he will dress up as next year.  I think he secretly enjoys dressing up in these costumes.

{Real}

My main goal with VBS is to plant as many seeds of faith as possible hoping that some of what the kids learn will take root.  My approach is to infuse as much Catholic culture and prayer into the program as I can.  Most of our crafts include a prayer.  For the prayer card holders the kids made we included a prayer for vocations.  It was an idea that just came to me one day and the more I thought about it the more it made sense.  Our parish presently has a seminarian who is studying in Rome and we now have three more young men from our parish and/or young adult youth group who are entering the seminary this fall.  I had one of our new seminarians do a video on Divine Mercy for the campers and in his video he explained what a vocation was and what a seminarian is to help this prayer make even more sense to the kids.  Who knows, maybe our parish will see even more vocations to the priesthood and religious life in the coming years.

Visit Like Mother, Like Daughter for more {P,H,F,R} and Clan Donaldson for more Vacation Theme Thursday posts.

{Pretty, Happy, Funny, Real} and Theme Thursday on Friday

Capturing the context of contentment in everyday life...

{Pretty}

When I saw that this week's Theme Thursday theme was dishes I knew I had to tell you about my new set of dishes. For years I debated whether or not we should replace our everyday Corolle dishes with a new set that was a bit prettier but every bit as durable as the ones we had.I'd play with the cart until I had everything just so for the twelve placing settings of pretty white dishes I wanted and then I'd decide not to spend the money on them.  I always came up with an excuse to keep using the dishes that I brought a couple of years before Bryan and I got married.  Yes, I was so looking forward to getting married and having my own dishes that I actually brought them before we were even engaged.  That's how you know a guy is a keeper, when he knows you've purchased dishes [with flowers] and he doesn't run away like he's been doused with gasoline and set ablaze.  Anyway...my mom and dad got us the pretty white dishes I've been wanting for the past two or three years for Christmas.  Ever since, I've been heard saying "I really like these dishes." and "Have I mentioned how much I like these dishes?" and "I don't know why I didn't just buy these dishes a long time ago.  I really like them!"  I think they're getting sick of hearing me talk about how much I like the dishes.

I seriously have moments when I open up the cabinet and I feel like squealing because I'm so happy to see my new dishes sitting in the cabinet.

{Happy}

My newphew came for a visit on Sunday.  We were all happy to see him.  Isn't he adorable?  

Katie couldn't wait to hold him.  She's so cute with the baby.  She holds him and says "aww, baby" over and over again.  She was so upset when I let Ellie have a turn holding him.  She wants the baby all to herself.  She's going to be a handful once our baby is born.

{Funny, Real}

This is life with a two year old.  Minnie Mouse ears and shoes, Dyson handle for pony rides, or pretending to be Gandalf (or so it seems, although she has no clue who he is) and a pair of sunglasses because it's what all the fashionable two year old girls are sporting today.

Visit Like Mother, Like Daughter for more {Pretty, Happy, Funny, Real}

{Pretty, Happy, Funny, Real}

Capturing the context of contentment in every day life...

{Pretty}

Yesterday Madeline decided to make herself a fruit salad for lunch.  Apparently I have driven her to a point where she hates pasta.  Most days I have a bowl of pasta for lunch.  At first, she would happily say yes if I asked her if she wanted any.  Now she's all about variety and not having pasta.  What she doesn't understand is I'm a creature of habit and I rather enjoy eating the same foods day after day.  When I get sick of them I move on to eating a different food every day for weeks, months or years.

{Happy}

Last Friday my mom and dad came up to visit with the girls.  They took Madeline and Ellie to see the Lego Movie and then went out for ice cream.  Katie was happy to have her PopPop draw pictures for her on her little MagnaDoodle.  She wasn't too happy when she realized that her big sisters were going somewhere with my parents.  However, it was nap time, so she got over it and was pretty excited to wake up from her nap and find that they came back with a chocolate ice cream for her .

{Funny}

Katie makes us laugh with her goofy fashion sense.  She found these goggles in Ellie's dresser and had to wear them.  What you can't see in this picture is that she had to wear two different shoes (she apparently can't decide which she likes best and opts to wear one of each) and two different hair clips.

{Real}

Ellie made this snow man.  I was so impressed that each of the girls made rather sizeable snow men.  Ordinarily they only stay outside for about 15 minutes and they have never made big snowmen on their own. When I looked out back and saw two big snowmen I did a double take.  Unfortunately Madeline's snow man fell over before we could take a picture.  The snow was a very wet slushy type so the snowmen didn't stay standing for very long.  

Visit Like Mother, Like Daughter for more {Pretty, Happy, Funny, Real}

{Pretty, Happy, Funny, Real}

Capturing the context of contentment in everyday life...

{Pretty}

Just before heading out to play in the snow storm.  I love that the girls felt that jazz hands were necessary for the picture.

{Happy}

{Funny}

This kid makes me laugh.  She's figured out how to help herself to snacks.  So I walk into the family room to this scene of my two year old vegging on the couch watching the Disney Princess movie du jour.  Oh and did you notice that she's not in diapers?  We're two weeks into potty training and it's been an amazing success.  She's even taken to using public rest rooms like it's no big deal. 

{Real}

We got about a foot of snow on Tuesday.  Ellie had a snowday from school on Wednesday and Madeline got her school work done early so they could all go outside and play for a bit.  

Quick Takes with a Dash of {PHFR}

It's been a while since I've done a quick takes post and I think the same is true for {PHFR}.  So I'm going to multi-task a bit.

~1~

Do you ever have moments where you sit back and say to yourself that something is so crazy off the wall that people will think you're making it up?  I don't know what it is about me, but I have so many stranger than fiction moments in my life that are 100% {real} and often very {funny}.  It's stuff I simply file under I can't make this stuff up.  So back in October my aunt passed away.  She lived alone and was a bit of a recluse when it came to interacting with family.   My uncle is handling the estate and is a bit surprised at what he's finding.  Now he lived a few states away from my aunt, but I spent 22 years living a block away from her, so my parents and other relatives who lived near by knew how she lived.  But, even when you know someone, you can still find some surprises.  Can I tell you that I spent quite a while laughing when my mom forwarded me this picture that my uncle sent to her of my aunt's back yard? 

That fine piece of life sized bovine statue was something my aunt picked up at an auction.  If any of you are interested in acquiring this piece for your back yard statue collection drop me an email.  My uncle is looking for a buyer.  I'd like to meet whoever buys it.  

~2~

I've spent who knows how long avoiding the supermarket.  I've gone to Sam's Club and Target but not to the supermarket since October or possibly early November.  I suppose at some point I'm going to have to break down and get to the grocery store.  Anyway, on Monday it was pretty clear that we were sort of running out of food options, so as much as I dislike going to end of season soccer banquets, I was quite happy to fill in for Bryan and go with Ellie so I could have my fill of so-so buffet food that didn't require me to cook or visit the grocery store.  Ellie was  very {happy} to get her soccer trophy.

~3~

I'm 18 weeks along today and I'm feeling {pretty} big even though everyone assures me that I'm not.  Usually I don't have any sort of baby bump until I'm more than half way though a pregnancy.  I already have people coming up to me asking when I'm due.

~4~

I feel so unprepared to have a baby boy.  I've known for nearly a month now that we're expecting a little boy and I just feel like I need to get everything in order NOW.  After three girls I just feel like I have no idea what I'm walking into.  Even selecting a name seems far more difficult.  I am pretty sure we're settled on the baby's name.  

See if you can guess his first name based on the picture above.  I'll be ordering this from Abbey Ceramics for his bedroom soon.

~5~

I'm realizing that my standards for grading Madeline's work for homeschool might be too high.  We submitted her first ever book report to Seton a couple of weeks ago and we got her grade yesterday.  The book report that I told her was probably going to get a C at best came back with a 95 on it!  She's thrilled and I'm starting to realize that perhaps Bryan is right when he says I'm expecting too much.

~6~

I have no idea how the display screen on my camera broke.  I had ordered a replacement screen but I really have no idea if we'll be able to fix it successfully.  Since electronics and small screws are involved I'm just going to leave that to Bryan.  In the meantime I decided to try and reduce my chances of cutting my nose on the broken glass by adding a layer of packing tape.  Yeah, it's about as classy looking as it sounds.  This is the before picture in case you're wondering.

~7~

I think I may have killed our paper shredder this week.  I was working my way through over two years worth of papers that needed to be shredded and this afternoon it made some sounds that make me believe that our shredder has seen the end of it's useable life.  Fighting with the shredder makes me wish we had a fire pit in the back yard or a real fireplace instead of our gas one.

{Pretty, Happy, Funny, Real} Disney World

Capturing the context of contentment in everyday life...

Two weeks ago we packed up the minivan and headed to Florida for a much needed vacation.  It's hard to believe that it was just a week ago that we headed home.  I feel like so much has happened in the past week that we can't possibly have been home for just seven days.

We had a great time in Disney World.  We went to all four parks and amazingly didn't wait longer than fifteen minutes to get on any of the rides.  I attribute that to us having the nifty "Magic Bands" that allowed us to schedule a fast pass for three rides per day as well as being able to use our room keys to get additional fast passes.  We also made sure we were at some of the parks right when they opened so we could take advantage of shorter lines.  It worked out so well that we managed to get on all the rides that tend to have very long lines with 0 and 5 minute wait times during the first hour that the park was open.

One of the nicest perks of our vacation was getting the Disney Dining Plan for free.  Free food is awesome when you are in Disney World.  They gave us so much food that we could barely eat it all.  Poor Ellie kept turning down dessert! Since ages nine and up are considered an adult at Disney World, Madeline really enjoyed getting to order off the adult menu, especially when it came time for dessert.  

{Pretty}

On our first day in the parks I took the obligatory picture of the kids in front of the castle.  If I didn't my mom would yell at me.  Now I wish I could tell you I took this picture as soon as we got there but unfortunately the skies opened up and it started pouring as soon as we made it through the gate.  It made for a very wet day, but we still had a lot of fun.

We spotted this pretty rainbow on Main Street on our next to the last day of vacation.  I don't think I've ever seen a rainbow in Disney World before.

I love this picture of Katie.  She was trying to watch a little show that was going on when I was taking pictures of her so she actually stayed still long enough for me to get a few good pictures.

{Happy}

Katie was star struck when she saw her favorite characters.  She was so excited to see Sophia the first that we ended up having to stand in a twenty minute line so she could meet her.  Her reaction was priceless.  She was beaming the entire time.

Even though they aren't going anywhere, the girls were happy to pose for a picture in the cute little Dumbo photo-op spot.

{Funny}

I like looking for hidden Mickeys and other little things of that nature in the rides.  In the Pooh Bear ride at the Magic Kingdom there are a few Mr. Toad shout outs in the ride.  The Mr. Toad ride, which was my favorite, was removed in order to make way for the Pooh Bear ride.

I particularly like the Donald Duck pinata that is found in the boat ride in Epcot's Mexico.  I wish they sold that pinata out in the little marketplace area they have.  I bet he'd sell fast!

Phone booths.  How many of you have kids who are totally unaware that there was such a thing in the days before everyone had a cell phone?  The girls went nuts when the saw the red phone booths in the UK area of Epcot.  "Hey, they had that in Harry Potter!"  Ellie wanted her picture taken in it so she started to play in the phone booth which was a total novelty to her.  Then she comes out and tells me that it has a real phone in it.  So Bryan and I took the opportunity to tell the girls about how phone booths used to be all over the place before people had cell phones.  We totally blew their minds!

{Real}

I'm shocked and amazed that we actually got a family picture where everyone was looking at the camera and looks reasonably happy.  We have a few others that are close to this but I think this one is the best.  I don't know why it's so difficult for us to get a nice family picture.  I guess it's just one of the mysteries of life.

Visit Like Mother, Like Daughter for more pictures of contentment.

{Pretty, Happy, Funny, Real} Alpaca Field Trip

Capturing the context of contentment in everyday life...

Yesterday Madeline, Katie and I went on a field trip with a local homeschool group to a nearby alpaca farm.  The trip was a lot of fun and we learned some interesting things about alpacas, including how alpacas and llamas differ.

{Pretty}

One of the highlights of the field trip was getting to feed the alpacas.  It took me some time to work up the courage to feed one.  I was pretty nervous about it.  I'm happy to report that I still have all of my fingers.  Oh, and from what we were told, alpacas don't bite.

{Happy}

I'm not sure who was happier, the alpacas or the kids.  The kids all thought it was funny how the alpacas wiggle their lips all over your hand when you feed them.  It was a really odd feeling.

At the end of our field trip the kids got to make an alpaca ornament.  I think they cookie cutter used to make the ornaments was really cute.  

Madeline was happy with how her craft turned out.  Or maybe she was happy to get a morning off from doing school work.  Either way, she was happy.

{Funny}

This alpaca made me laugh.  She realized that I was holding a bag of food in my hand and I think she was doing her best to get my attention so she could get that food.  She seemed like she had quite the personality when compared to the other alpacas.

{Real}

Katie wasn't all that sure about the alpacas, but she really liked this little goat who was wandering around in the alpaca pen.  I was shocked when I saw her nose to nose with this little goat.  And I'm pretty sure this little guy licked her face.  Katie thought he was the greatest thing.  Although I'm pretty sure she thought it was a dog.

Katie is beaming in this picture as she hangs out with her goat friend but moments later she was very unhappy with me when I took her away from him.  The little goat kept watching her from afar.  I honestly wasn't sure if goats were kid friendly or not and I couldn't just leave her with the goat while the rest of the homeschool group moved on to the craft portion of the trip.  She's my only child who has ever been so outgoing when it comes to animals.  It always catches me off guard.  

Visit Like Mother, Like Daughter for more pictures of contentment.

{Pretty, Happy, Funny, Real}

Capturing the context of contentment in everyday life...

{Pretty/Real}

Bryan and the girls picked all of the tomatoes on Sunday.  We had to wrap most of them and put them in boxes.  And even though it looks like we only had a few red ones, we managed to get several bags of diced tomatoes from them to freeze for later.  I'd say it was a pretty good end of season haul.

{Happy}

I can't tell you how happy I am that we have corn muffins in the house.  I've been wanting these for a few days.  The first day I went to the pantry to grab a box of corn muffin mix certain that we had some only to walk away from the pantry feeling very perplexed.  I realized the following day that I must have donated the boxes I knew we had to the church food pantry.  So yesterday I went to Wal-Mart after dropping Madeline off at soccer practice.  Would you believe that they didn't have a single box of corn muffin mix of any brand in the store?  I know!  Total craziness!  If any store should have had corn muffin mix I would have guessed Wal-Mart.  Aren't they a southern-origin store?  I thought corn bread was a southern staple.  Maybe I'm wrong.  So after walking out of Wal-Mart feeling crestfallen (Thank you, this week's lesson from Seton Vocaularly 7.) and almost in tears, I was determined that today I would have corn muffins.  Target had what I needed.  In fact, they had the brand I grew up using and two others so I brought two different types.  Look at me branching out and trying new things.  I will cry if I discover that we're out of strawberry preserves.  I didn't remember to look for it in the pantry before going shopping.

{Funny}

A few days ago when I realized that we were running out of lots of different household necessities and food, I took Ellie and Katie to Target to get some shopping done.  Ellie asked if we could look at the Halloween stuff, and the books and the girly Legos, and a million other things, and me, feeling like a super-awesome mom said sure since I figured the alternative would be me going home and laying on the couch feeling like I'm going to die.  So Ellie decided that she wanted to try on some foam wigs and asked me to snap some pictures.  This one is my favorite.  

Visit Like Mother, Like Daughter for more pictures of contentment.

{Pretty, Happy, Funny, Real}

Capturing the context of contentment in everyday life...

{Pretty}

Sunday was the first time I ever successfully got rubber bands into a certain pretty little girl's hair.  She wasn't sure about her pretty little piggies at first.

{Happy}

I think I could live on the hoagie rolls [and pizza] at the moment.  I've been wanting one for several days now and I finally got a few of them today.  

{Funny}

This child is such a goof.  She insisted on wearing the silly green pig tail headband her auntie gave her several months ago.  And you can see that she has a set of regular piggies, too.  She's getting used to me putting her hair in pigtails.  I think she looks older with them.  Her hair is wavy and curly and was looking too unkempt for me to bear keeping it down any longer.

{Real}

I came home from Mass this morning and the living room looked like this.  I think I would die if someone popped over unexpectedly today and saw this mess.  But, since I am too tired to pick it up, it will stay like this until someone picks up all those blocks and other items that are scattered all over the floor.  Bryan suggested that I just not look at it in the meantime.  I think he's on to something.

Visit Like Mother, Like Daughter for more pictures of contentment.