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!!

Dentist record maintained

First off I'd like to point out that I am posting from my NEW LAPTOP!!! I love it! I am excited to get wireless soon as sitting here next to the other computer is hard. I try to use the other computer's mouse and keyboard...old habits die hard I suppose. :)

Ok, next...

Four boys, four dentist appointments and NOT ONE CAVITY!!! My boys have yet to get a cavity. I know the time is coming, but until then I am thankful we have gotten this far without a cavity.

MIA

I have been "missing in action" in the blogging world. Let me tell you - I have had TONS of blog posts "happen" since my last post that I haven't had the time to post. Every time I sit down to post, something else happens. I will get through this one because only 2 of the 5 boys are awake at the moment.

So since I have posted last here's a brief list of what we have done....

• Brech had another tooth come in.
• That same week, he had roseola - we didn't sleep those 3 days.
• Spring cleaning the kitchen
• St. Patrick's Day party with guests (10 adults, 9 kids) complete with corned beef & cabbage and Irish Cream Chocolate Cheesecake.
• Violin lessons - its still going...ok
• a grouse tried to take out our front window, blood and guts still on the window (yuck, I know)
• a trip to Houghton, MI to Michigan Tech for a Latin Mass information meeting, I answered a couple questions
• school - we are on track to finish before Mauri's wedding
• another mean migraine headache, man do I dislike those!!!
• Darren bought a new gun, I bought a new laptop - its coming TODAY!!!
• Cormac and Rex finished their school for the year.
• new haircut (I had some trimmed off the last new haircut)
• wrote some new entries for my book
• still maintaining a fruitful Lent, looking forward to Easter
• Playing Michigan Branch Office secretary for my parents as they can't get on the internet. That means I have been checking their email every day.
• Planted some seeds for the garden. We have some beautiful Sunflower plants growing. I plan on posting pictures soon.
• created a dump book for myself - thanks Cindy Rushton for that great idea
• decided we are staying for 3 weeks in South Dakota after Mauri's wedding

Ok, so that is just a few of the things we have done. Its been a busy few weeks. I am hoping that with the laptop I can post more often as I won't have to wait for Blase to get off the computer. He's been doing two or three lessons in Math a day. He has only 19 lessons left for the year. He's so excited! He has been doing a great job, but takes up my computer time. Oh well, a small price to pay to finish the school year.

I hope you haven't missed me too much. I know my posts aren't worth much in the blogging world, but hey you're the one who is reading it so it must mean something to you. I'm sure if I took a head count it would officially number....2 readers. Ha ha

March prayers

I updated our March daily prayers at the bottom of the page.

Lent

We are well into the Lenten season here at our house. We have done things a bit different this year. Usually we give up one or two things for the WHOLE Lenten season, but we found that everyone gets a bit burnt out. Little kids are not wired for such long sacrifices. Well, at least my children are not. More power to you with saints for children.

This year we are focusing on one sacrifice a week. Some examples are no TV, practicing patience, being diligent in our work, making small hidden sacrifices for others, kneeling down for all prayers and charity outside of our home. I think doing one a week has worked very well this year. I am able to remind the boys to do just that one thing and they don't get overwhelmed by the list of "must do's".

.

Another thing we are doing is keeping track of our sacrifices and prayers on a crown of thorns. We are hoping to turn it into a crown of flowers by Easter. I drew a crown of thorns on a poster board and have used flower stamps to keep track. The red flowers are prayers said during the rosary. The other colors are morning, evening and misc. prayers said during the day. The big hearts are activities we do as a family. Examples would be attending Mass, saying the Stations of the Cross and attending the Lenten mission at our church. For the boys' sacrifices I used a stamp with three hearts. We can then see how one sacrifice will one please God, two help someone else and three strengthen your soul. The pictures below were taken last week , so we have filled up all the thorns and most of the middle already.

This is our Lenten wall. I borrowed the mantle letter idea from Elizabeth Foss's website though I am not using it on a mantle. The picture about the letters is of Our Lady holding Jesus after He has been taken down from the cross. Above the picture are the words " O all ye who pass by the way attend and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow!"

A crown of thorns slowly becoming a crown of flowers.

This year I invested in a crown of thorns from the Holy Land and three replica Roman nails. They have been a powerful visual aid for all of us. The boys have each held the nails and felt the thorns. I am certain it will be a tradition in our family to display them every Lent.