We Have a Teenager!

Every year on the anniversary of 9/11 we watch some of the documentaries that tell about that day where our world as we knew it was forever changed.  Even now, thirteen years later, that day still seems surreal.  I remember much of what I did that day quite vividly and I suspect part of that is due to the fact that it was also the day I went into labor with our first child.  In the small hours of 9/12 less than eighteen hours after the first plane hit the World Trade Center I was holding a small little baby in my arms and marveling at how amazing it was that Bryan and I actually had a tiny baby girl.  We had no idea what adventures lay ahead of us.

That little baby is no longer little.  She's grown so much and while she may drive us crazy at times, she also amuses us with her antics, her quirky outlook on life and her many quotable comments which those of you who happen to be my friend on FaceBook have no doubt seen.  From "crapple juice" (that's cran-apple to the rest of us) to "ravenous bears" striking poses in populated areas, she always keeps us laughing.

One can only imagine what the upcoming year will have in store for us.  I know she'll be confirmed sometime in the spring and she'll also graduate from 8th grade.  Before her next birthday she will officially begin high school.   I'm sure there will be plenty more Madeline quotes along the way and many more stories to be told.  It's always an adventure!

So happy birthday Madeline!  I hope your first year as a teenager is a fun one!  Try not to drive me insane....at least not deliberately.

Four Kids Will Keep You Busy!

I can't believe that I've only blogged two or three times since Anthony was born on May 1st.  I feel like my blog has been set on the back burner for the longest time.  All I can say is the past eleven months have felt like some of the busiest months of my life.

Things are going well here and I'm continually amazed at how sweet this new little love of mine is.  I can't believe I spent so much time worried that I wouldn't adore this little man as much as I do my girls. I really didn't think I'd have any clue what to do with a little boy but I have to say having a boy baby isn't too different from having a girl other than the obvious differences and the overall absence of whining and crying.  How come nobody told me boys were so easy going?  Anthony is so laid back that I'd be prefectly content to have more just like him.

I have so much I want to blog about so I will hopefully be able to find some time in the next few weeks to fill you in on what we've been up to.  Here are are few highlights.

Madeline completed her first year of homeschooling and she managed to finish up the year a full three weeks before the kids in public school finished.

Ellie will be joining us for school this year.  When I re-enrolled Madeline for 8th grade we also enrolled Ellie for 4th grade.  Can I tell you how excited I am that we're done with the public school?  I know Ellie is excited about homeschooling, too.  She seems to be telling everyone about it.

I think Katie has adjusted to having a little brother for the most part.  She still has moments here and there where she seems jealous but overall she seems content to have a real baby in the house.

Anthony was baptized on the feast day of St. Anthony of Padua.  I couldn't resist having him baptized on the feast day of his patron saint.

VBS took place last week.  How I managed to pull off coordinating VBS this year while pregnant/having just had a baby will remain a mystery.  All I can say is I have some amazing friends and family members who all helped me out tremendously.  Last week was great and I enjoyed seeing all of the kids having a great time.

Anthony had his 2 month well visit last week.  He's growing so fast.  He's 12 lbs 11oz and 23 1/4 inches long.  He's already outgrown some of his 0-3 month outfits and is on the verge of outgrowing the rest.  It's crazy!  Between 6 and 8 weeks old he went from looking like a newborn to looking more like a three month old.

As if having a new baby and running VBS wasn't enough, we also had a birthday party to plan for yesterday.  Ellie turned nine yesterday and we celebrated with a Frozen pool party.  I can't believe she's nine already.  It's amazing how quickly time passes.  It doesn't seem like that long ago that we had just moved into this house and celebrated her second birthday and already she's nine years old.

So I think this wraps up my little highlight tour of what we've been up to this past month and a half.   I hope to be able to put together a post about Anthony's baptism and Ellie's Frozen party later this week.  I have a lot of pictures to share and I was so pleased with how well Ellie's party came together that I need to tell you how easily everything came together and why I'm convinced that I must get a die cut machine. (Hint: Look at the snowflake decorations in the background of each of the birthday pictures.)

Where has the last week gone?

I feel like it's been ages since I have even touched the blog.  We had a busy weekend followed up by a busy week and the next thing I know it's been over a week since I posted anything on the blog.  And in some ways we can even say this looks a bit like procrastination.

First, I have a bit of Jesse Tree Ornament Swap news.  For swap #2 I have no contact information for Wendy J. (ornament #5) and Erin (ornament #18).  If either one of you see this please email me so I can send you the email I sent everyone else on 10/12 that contains all of the swap details.  While I have contact info for everyone else, I still haven't heard from many of you.  Please send me and email so I know you got the email I have sent.  I'm not someone who adheres to the "no news is good news" line of thinking.  Instead I'm waking up in the middle of the night here and there wondering if some who signed up for the swap had second thoughts and haven't communicated it to me.

Last week Katie turned two.  She's two already!  I have the hardest time believing that she's two, but then she throws a little fit or something and I believe it.  She certainly acts like a two year old.  We had a party for her on the 13th and then cake on her birthday a few days later.  Katie loves cake!

Bryan was sick last week with a double ear infection and now I'm not feeling to well either.  The past few days my throat has been sore and I feel like one of my ears is filling with fluid.  Katie had a bit of a cough and cold last week with left her feeling a bit grouchy.

Katie, Ellie and I had a bit of a pumpkin picking hay ride fail last Monday.  Clearly choosing a day when everyone was off from school to do a hay ride was not the brightest idea.  We ended up buying pumpkins from the market area and ditching our plans for the hay ride.

I'm really surprised that Madeline is only a week or two away from wrapping up all of her classes for the first quarter.  Some days haven't been the easiest, but we're getting there.  There are some changes I'd like to make for the remainder of the year so I'm going to have to take a little time to sit down and see what I can do.  We're using Seton for our homeschool because 1. I was able to get her enrolled and have books delivered quickly when we made an 11th hour decision to pull her out of the public school system days before the school year was set to begin.  2. It's an accredited program which makes my husband feel a lot more comfortable with our decision to homeschool.  3. I know people who use the program who have all had good things to say about it.  Now there are plenty of aspects about Seton that I like, but there are some things that I'm not necessarily thrilled about.  I don't particularly like their science and history books so I need to find ways to tweak, supplement  and substitute while still preparing her to take their tests.  And then, there's the dilemma of my child not being very fond of memorization which is a huge part of the religion course.  Right now we're having Ellie work with her on the memorization.  Ellie is a pro when it comes to memorization so I'm hoping her method of quizzing her older sister will work.  So far it's getting her somewhat better results.  I think it has an additional benefit of Ellie learning the material, too.

I got an email from Ellie's teacher yesterday asking me to organize the class party for Halloween.  I can't believe how quickly the end of the month is coming up on us.  I'm a little surprised at how few parents volunteered to help out with supplying treats for the class parties.  Of course, with all of the restrictions the school now has on sweets, there isn't much on the list of approved food items.  The school even changed it's policy on how many parent volunteers are allowed to help with the parties.  Just two parents per class.  Years ago we were allowed to have five or six.  This new way of doing things very closely resembles the way things are done at our local parish school.  I really disliked the way they sucked the fun out of classroom parties and it looks like the public schools are now doing the same.  Another reason to prefer homeschooling to a traditional school.  I'm just fine with having some goodies and fun to celebrate a holiday or feast day.

When I get a little more time I'll update the blog with some pictures of the birthday girl and some of the other happenings of last week.  I just don't have the energy at the moment to sort through photos, edit and water mark them and everything else that is associated with me adding them to this post.

{Pretty, Happy, Funny, Real}

Capturing the context of contentment in everyday life...

{pretty}

The birthday girl decides that she's not going to hazard a crawl under the limbo pole.  She was happy to sit back and watch the big kids battle for the limbo champion title.

{happy}

 80% of us look happy and 60% of us are looking at the camera so I'll take it!

Katie was one happy girl once she got her hands on her giant Hello Kitty cupcake.

{funny}

I guess Katie wasn't feeling the birthday hat.  Her godmother made the hat for her.  

{real}

Someone was real tired by the time her party was over.  She was all set to snuggle with godmother.

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

Katie is One!

It's incredibly hard for me to believe that an entire year has passed between Katie's arrival and today.  I can tell you it honestly doesn't feel like it has been a year, but at the same time it feels like Katie has been with us forever.

I think the birthday girl had a pretty good day today.  She spent a lot of time playing and working on her newly minted walking skill.  She was so excited about her big day that she decided that afternoon naps were for the birds.  Poor exhausted mommy was not thrilled about that little development.

Katie and I did a little bit of shopping in the morning for party supplies for the party we're having for her this Saturday.  We decided to go with Hello Kitty as her party theme because it was big sister approved and seemed quite fitting for the cute little one who we call Kitty Katkins.

This afternoon Katie and I visited the parish office so she could say hello to her birthday buddies.  We brought some cupcakes with pink icing to commemorate the big day.

Right around the time Katie decided that napping wasn't on her birthday to-do list, my mom and dad arrived.  My parents came up and had dinner with me and the girls and we had a little party with cake and a few presents before it was time to shuttle Madeline off to soccer practice.

Katie indulged in her fist ever slice of pizza.  She kept grabbing at my slice so I decided to dice up half a piece and see if she would eat it.  She gobbled it up!  She's clearly her mother's daughter!

Katie dug right into her cake.  She happily grabbed at the icing on the cake.  I had to pull her away from it after a bit because I was afraid she was going to give herself a belly ache from eating too much of the very sweet buttercream.

She wasn't very interested in opening presents but she loved playing with the envelopes for the cards.  She has a thing for paper these days--particularly the one dollar bills her MomMom and PopPop like to give her.

Later in the evening Katie got to FaceTime with her daddy.  Unfortunately Bryan had to travel to San Antonio this week.  We're looking forward to having him home with us late tomorrow.

Happy Birthday Kitty Katkins!  We love you so much!

{pretty, happy, funny, real} Happy Birthday Madeline!

Capturing the context of contentment in everyday life...

This past Wednesday Madeline turned eleven.  The passage of time truly amazes me.  I still vividly remember the day she was born and the days surrounding her birthday.  Maybe I remember those days so well because she was born less than seventeen hours after the chaos of the September 11th attacks.  Eleven years later and it's still very hard for me to separate her birthday from the day before.  In fact, chances are if you ask me her birthday I'll tell you 9/11 and then have to quickly correct myself.  

{pretty}

The birthday girl just before heading out to catch the bus.

Our snazzy 11 year old posing with her cake and gifts.

Three pretty girls all looking at the camera at the same time!

 {happy}

This has to be one of the better whole family pictures we've managed to get of us recently and that makes me happy.

Madeline was so very happy when she opened the dress she has been wanting for over two months.  My mom and dad were certainly very happy to see how thrilled she was with their gift.

{funny}

Madeline is always asking us to bake with her, and she does the same anytime she spends the night at my parents' house.  So my dad thought it would be a good gag gift to buy her a box of snicker doodle cookie mix.  Madeline LOVED it!  How many eleven year olds get that excited about a box of cookie mix?

{real}

I am so proud of this giant giant cupcake cake.Over the years I have had little to no success at baking cakes for Madeline's birthday.  Something ALWAYS goes wrong and has ever since her very first birthday.  This year, everything came together beautifully.  Sure Bryan had to run out to the store and get me more eggs, and I had to run to Target twice for cake mix (forgot to buy two boxes first time around) and I had to make a last minute run to Wal-Mart for sprinkles, but the baking and decorating went incredibly well.  Best of all, Madeline loved her cake.  Oh, and it was pretty tasty, too!

Happy 11th Birthday Madeline!  We can't wait to see what this next year brings!

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

A Birthday Girl!

I'm over a week late in writing this, but Ellie is now seven.  Her birthday and the last day of VBS had the misfortune of falling on the same day which made for a very busy long day for me and not as much time celebrating our birthday girl as I would have liked.  We made up for it by celebrating her birthday that afternoon, the following day and a week later when she finally had her Lego/pool birthday party.

My parents took Madeline and Ellie to Chick-Fil-A while Bryan and I stayed at the school getting things back to the way we found them the week before.  It was cow appreciation day, so my parents and the girls dressed up as cows and had a free chicken birthday lunch.  I'll have to post a picture of them dressed as cows later.

Once we came home from the school we celebrated her birthday with ice cream cone shaped cupcakes that my mom made.  Ellie then got to open her presents.  On opening the cards from us, my parents and my brother we discovered that we all brought the exact same card!  Once in a while she'll get a few doubles but this was the first time she got three of the same card in a row!  My parents noted that she hit the jackpot and told me that we needed to line them up and take the picture you see above.

She was thrilled with her girly Lego housethat her Uncle Mark had sent up for her.  She and Madeline got to work building it the very next day.

She later discovered that she really likes the Zita the Spacegirlbook that we gave her.  She's been reading it ever since.  I think she likes that it's a graphic novel.  She was excited when I told her there's a new Zita bookcoming out soon.  Maybe she'll find it in her stocking on Christmas morning.

Pictures of her Lego/pool party will be coming soon, I hope!  Life has been moving so fast these days that sometimes weeks get away from me before I can blog the things I want to share.

Our Ellie is Seven!

I'm about a week an a half late, but two Fridays ago our Ellie celebrated her seventh birthday.  Seven just seems like such a big number for such a little girl.

I'm just amazed that Ellie is seven years old already.  Honestly, where did the past seven years go?  I think she left me in the dust about five or six years ago.  

It seems like yesterday that Ellie was this tiny little not even ten hours old newborn in my arms.  

 I scarcely blinked and the was suddenly one.

And then, out of nowhere she was two!

She quickly turned three while my back was turned for just a moment.

She was four for barely an hour I'm sure!

How she came to be five is beyond me, but I have the hardest time believing it was two years ago.

She turned six so quick that even the cupcakes stayed the same!

And now, somehow she is seven.  Seven adventure filled years have quickly slipped by.