A Beautiful Afternoon

Our beautiful day turned into a beautiful afternoon in the great outdoors. We did many things...

Sliding
Bike riding

Pondered a question or two..."I don't know."

Kite flying

Buddy time

Wagon rides

"I still don't know."

Sandbox fun

Butterfly chasing

Tree climbing

"Anything you can do, I can do better."

Blog reading (picture taken by Stephen)

Walking with Mom

We had lots of fun and burned lots of energy. We heard an owl, saw 2 eagles flying overhead and marvelled at the moon. It was a beautiful afternoon. From the sound of the kids running and screaming - we didn't burn enough energy!!! Time to settle in for a beautiful night full of prayers, hugs and kisses, sweet good nights and "God bless you" on the forehead. Its a beautiful life...

Its a beautiful day

Rex and I have this special thing we do in the mornings. I say "Its a beautiful day." and then he says it to me. My dad started this by saying it to us last time we were at their house. My dad says it everyday to just about everyone. So far just Rex and I say it here at our house. A new tradition.

I stumbled across a perfect song for Rex and I called Beautiful Life by Fisher (thanks to Elizabeth Foss for sharing that song on her blog). It truly is a beautiful life on this beautiful day.

What is a beautiful day??

Its playing in our pajamas first thing in the morning.
Its dancing to fun music and being goofy.
Its prayers for family and friends.
Its eating Cookie Crisp and Trix cereal in a cup while watching a movie.
Its building towers and buildings out of Lego's.
Its the sun shining, the birds singing, the grass growing.
Its just being us...doing our thing...together.

Up close and personal

This morning Darren found a female yellow-bellied sapsucker on the concrete in front of the garage. She appeared to be hurt, maybe she hit the garage door? We aren't sure what happened, but decided to take some pictures. She had flown to a nearby tree when I finally found the camera. I probably could have caught her as close as she was. As I tried to take a picture of her, she kept creeping around the tree. I must have been a sight to see chasing a bird around a tree trying to take its picture. I finally caught up and got this close up.

Happily Hidden

Have you ever thought it might be nice to be an expert at something? Maybe you know how to sew or garden or homeschool well enough, but imagine taking it to the next level. Could you handle it? I'm talking about the pressure of everyone seeing YOU, everyone listening to YOU, everyone modeling themselves after YOU. I have been thinking about that lately. I read lots of blogs and listen to lots of talks from people I consider my experts. They are everyday people who have done the extraordinary with what God has given them. I can tell that most, if not all, are humble and do not look upon themselves as extraordinary in any way.

There was a time when I thought I could handle being an "expert". I think that was 3 kids ago and not so many years of learning under my belt. I am finding that I enjoy being happily hidden in the world. Some of you may know I am writing a book for mothers with young children. Its a lives of the saints geared for very little kids (say preschool). It takes one aspect of the saint's life and applies it to an everyday grace or work of mercy. It isn't anything fancy, trust me. I don't intend for it to be a "New York Best Seller" type of work. If all goes as planned some people will know my name because of the book. I am not sure I could handle that. Maybe its the fact that I have normal kids who aren't saints (do I have a right to write a book that is suppose to help model our children after the saints??). Maybe its the fact that I am not a saint. I feel that God is calling me to write this book or something like it. What I'm not sure is if it is for my own family or for the general public.

My goal: write a book; stay happily hidden. Pondering the possibilities....

Beautiful sight

Isn't this a wonderful sight?? They are the first loads of laundry on the line for the year. I love the smell of clothes after they've been on the line. Darren modified our tennis court into a clothesline for me last year. I love it!!

This morning when I hung the first load out there was not a cloud in the sky. I even posted on Facebook that it probably would rain and it did. I was pleased that 4 of the 5 loads were dried before the rain came so I only had one load to toss in the dryer. I almost wished I had more laundry do to until I spent a few minutes just smelling the rain. I can't decide what smells better - fresh laundry or clean rain?

Its Christmas...

I received a copy of Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day in the mail yesterday. It feels like Christmas for me. Instead of "What do I play with first?" its more like "What do I make today!!???" AHhhh!!! I'm so excited about trying some of these new recipes. I'll try to remember to take pictures and post my successful loaves (and maybe a few failures).

Supper menu tonight includes Sweet and Tangy Cabbage Rolls that have to be slow cooked for 7 hours. I'm already hungry for them. I don't have enough cabbage leaves, so we will have leftover meat to use another time. I hope it lasts in the freezer.

New plants

I started some marigolds today and transplanted the sunflowers. I accidentally left them out in the rain for WAY too long (like overnight) and they were soaked. I am hoping the new dry soil will help them survive my mistake. The tomatoes are doing great, but the broccoli needs some help. The kids are excited about their cactus plants. I need to get pictures of them. They are still very tiny so I have time.

I have made some decisions on my flower gardens and now have to actually do the work. Darren needs till some areas for me and install a border around two of the plots. I want to plant yellow roses, but Darren claims if I do that we will have to move. It never fails that if I plant flowers, we end up moving before we can really enjoy them.

Darren tilled our garden a couple times last weekend. He also prepared the ground to plant grass. Its still too cold to plant grass. I can't wait for it to warm up and STAYED warm. Overall I think we are ready for the planting season to begin. I can already taste the tomatoes and fresh peas.

CRAZY MAN HAIR

This is the sight I woke to yesterday morning. Ain't he a cutie?? His hair looks MUCH better today. I just love his hair when its like this. When he runs it flops up and down and is so adorable. He runs like a power walker with his arms and hips going opposite directions. Gotta love him!!

Bicycle Excitement

Easter Sunday was full of bicycle firsts around here. The first ummmm...first was Stephen learning to ride his bike without his training wheels. He has a bit of trouble with turning and braking, but overall is doing great. Here he is showing off his "moves" to the camera. He did run into the van a little bit after this, but it was a good joke on me. Since I had already damaged the goods I couldn't rightly get after him for hitting it. He sure thought that was funny to hit the van and point out that my dent was bigger.
Here he is being all cool about learning a new trick.

Then, not too much later, Darren took Cormac's training wheels off. He was REALLY good right away. He also has trouble with braking, but has NO FEAR to compensate for that. I am sure he will be the one to try out any new jumps before his brothers.

Yes, that is the look of confidence and mischief in the cutest Cormac Michael face ever!

Our last big first for the day was Blase's new trick of riding without hands. It took a few pictures to get a good one, but he was a willing trickster. I must admit I was a bit concerned to be on the other end of the camera with him coming towards me, but it worked out just fine.

I am certain the next pictures will be of them jumping bikes and doing other typical kid stunts. Stephen was showing off how he can ride with his handle bars backwards. I remember those wonderful days of my childhood. I must say they are missing out on the whole banana seat era though. My brothers and I would play Dukes of Hazzard with our neighbor Bob. Of course you can guess who I was. I have good memories of riding bikes as a child and think back to them every so often. I can only wish my boys are keeping these memories close so they too can treasure them.

Happy Easter everyone, one day late. We had a great day although it started far too early. Darren woke the boys and I up at 5:15 AM. I was barely functioning and Darren had already been up and ready for Mass. The boys took after me yesterday morning. I did bribe them with their Easter baskets, which I put together after 11 the night before. They didn't want to get up until I threatened to eat all the candy myself. They were up and down the stairs in no time. I may just use that as bribery if we ever have to get up early for Mass again.

Rex found his basket right away. He was super excited about it and forgot that it still dark.
I hid Stephen's basket on his chair at the table. It was pushed in so he had a bit of trouble locating it. The fact that his chair was pushed in should have been a hint because he NEVER pushes his chair in. :)

Blase only took a few minutes to figure out that I hid his in a hard place. There is only one hard place in the whole living room. I had purposely left a blanket out so that I could tell him to pick up the blanket if he needed a hint.

Poor Cormac! Do you see the look on his face?? Well, there is a funny story behind this picture. He walked and ran around the living room, but couldn't find his basket. He finally turned to me and was going to cry. I told him to just keep looking. He said he hated Easter and ran upstairs. I followed him upstairs and showed him the picture I had taken. I asked him what he saw. He said a sad, grumpy boy. I finally had to point out what was behind him. He got excited, ran back downstairs and still couldn't find it. Poor guy...it took him another few moments to locate the basket, but it was ALL worth it.

SEE I FOUND IT!!!

Brech, on the other hand, was NOT PLEASED to be woke up. He didn't want anything to with Easter baskets or breakfast. He has a hard time finding the right side of the bed to wake up on.

Here we are ready to head to church. It was 6:30 in the morning and all were in good spirits at this point. It was neat to be able to leave for church at dawn. We talked about Jesus resurrecting at dawn and they could see the sun coming up over the horizon. Precious memories!

We had our first outdoor Easter egg hunt. I was the "Easter bunny" and hid all three dozen (minus 2 eggs). Here are a few pictures of the boys making memories.

Brech's first egg he found. He has this habit of picking up eggs and throwing them at the egg carton. Quite a few good eggs were broken thanks to him.

I FOUND ONE!! HA - I FOUND TWO!!!

MOM I FOUND MY EGG!!!!!

Blase was our chief egg finder. We could not locate one of the eggs for two complete rounds around the house. I had forgotten where I had hid it, but Blase finally found it for us.

Is there an egg in here? MOM I can't find the egg! Mom, where is the egg? MOM!!!!
He was quite proud of himself when he finally found the egg.

The last egg of the hunt. I had hid Darren's special all-the-dyes egg where only he would be able to find it. It took him 5 minutes to find it and then Brech had the glory of taking it down. I really thought he would have caught on when I said he couldn't open the garage doors. The boys were quite excited about the egg I hid under our concrete goose. The goose that laid the multi-color pastel egg. It doesn't quite roll off the tongue like the golden egg does.

Traditional Bestgen Kipping - Two people pick their eggs. The first person (we did youngest) hits his pointed end to the other person's pointed end. One or both ends will break. Turn eggs over and the second person gets to "kip" their egg to the first person's. If a pointed end is broken on one end and the rounded end on the other person's egg then they kip the unbroken ends together to determine the winner. The winner then moves on to the another competitor. The winner of the day is the person whose survives all the rounds. It takes only one unbroken end to win. Above was Brech verses Rex - winner BRECH

Next contest - Cormac Michael egg verses Brech's egg - winner BRECH

Third kipping contest Stephen verses Brecher the Wrecker. Winner - BRECH THE UNDEFEATED

Brech won this contest too, although somewhere in here one of his ends did break. Brech's egg also survived my egg and Darren's egg as well. He was the overall winner for the night.

And what do you do with the winning egg??? THROW IT AT THE EGG CARTON! So much for the winning egg. It takes a wrecker to bring down an egg as strong as that!

After our mini-contest, the boys took the rest of the eggs and kipping all the ends. They had fun and now I don't have to crack them to make devilled eggs. Speaking of that - I had already made a dozen into devilled eggs earlier in the day. YUMMY!!!!

Easter eggs

Today is traditionally the day my family would decorate Easter eggs. I have kept that tradition alive with my boys. Sometimes I wonder exactly why when fingers "accidentally" get colored and eggs get dropped left and right. Today was actually an uneventful, pleasant experience. In fact, the only broken egg was my fault. In my defense...it was only a pink one and we all know how much I "love" pink. One cute incident was Rex putting his finger in the yellow dye. He licked off his finger then I told him it would make him sick. He dropped to the floor and began some over reactive dying act and just about licked the floor trying to get the yellow dye water out of his mouth. Then he hopped up like nothing was wrong. Always an adventure here.

Here the boys are getting ready to color eggs.
We tried a new type of coloring this year on some of the eggs. Here the boys are making those eggs. Stephen was quite proud of his goofy face for the camera. Gotta love him.

Here are two of the three dozen eggs we created. The blackish one on the side is Darren's famous "dump all the dye colors together, let egg sit in water/dye for long time, then ohh and ahhh at the awesome color" egg. I wrote HA HA on it this year.

Close up of Darren's egg. We are easy to entertain around here.

Updated daily prayers

I have updated our daily prayers at the bottom of the page. We are praying for humility this month. We continue to pray for priests everyday and our own intentions. Daily morning prayers have been such a blessing for the boys and I. I only wish I had thought to start them when the older boys were younger.

When the Holy Ghost comes calling

I never expected to receive two phone calls from the Holy Ghost, but I did. Ok, so actually it was a phone call from my brother Dirk and a phone call from my mother...but honestly - they both said the same things to me.

Many times in my teenage life I have experienced situations that I know were inspired by the Holy Ghost. My dad would be talking about some random religious topic on a Saturday night or Sunday on the way to church and then SURE ENOUGH, the priest would give basically the same talk during the sermon at Mass.

Since Mark has died I have been "helped" by the Lord in many ways. Just the other day I was having a sad moment and picked up a magazine to help take my mind off missing Mark. I randomly picked an article to read. The article turned out to be just what I needed to read at that moment to help me not feel so sad. That happens often!!

Yesterday was no different. What Dirk my mother said to me were the same, but different. It was just what I needed to hear and it helped me a lot. I am so grateful for the moments when the Holy Ghost works through us to help someone. I am usually the someone who is being helped.

We truly have a loving God!!