This and That Around the House

It has been a while since I posted last. I often start a post then realize it is the most boring thing, so I don’t publish it. So here I try again!

Today is the Feast of St. Charles Borromeo and as Pope John Paul II was named Karol Jozef in honor of St. Charles Borromeo, we celebrate this day as one of Karol’s feast days. I am roasting a chicken in the crock pot and we will have chocolate cake with butter cream frosting for dessert. (Or maybe pumpkin pie, I haven’t decided yet.) This morning, after mass, I made the kids oatmeal with chocolate chips sprinkled on top, that went over like a lead balloon. 🙁

Yesterday we celebrated the Feast of St. Martin de Porres by making cupcakes to take to our friend, Martin. Karol also colored a picture for him. Martin in turn shared his Halloween candy with Karol and Margaret.

The kids are getting big, as is expected. Caecilia has been trying to take steps here and there. She loves to stand up in her high chair and do gravity defying stunts while sitting on it. I normally keep her on her Baby Bjorn Potty Chair and put the tray on, then she sits and eats no problem! Today she is 11 months old. One more month until she is One! What happened to the year?

Karol is doing well at home schooling. When I am lazy about it, he asks to do school work. He sits with books often and pretends to read to himself. Yesterday he was reading a dinosaur book that had a picture of a volcano island. There was smoke, fire, water and the sky. He was pointing out words and saying: “Look, Mumma, it says ‘Smoke on the water. Fire in the sky”. (Thanks, ADL)
Margaret has been amazing us with her smarts lately. She has been such a free spirit and doesn’t seem interesting in learning anything but lately she has shown us that she does know how to count to 10 and her colors! Right now she is laying in her bed, reading a book to herself. She will often try to come to the dinner table with books to read and gets upset when we don’t let her read at the table.

We have been doing more home improvements. I have made some curtains for the kitchen and I finally finished the one for the front door. Now I have to do the ones for the dining room.  I have a bit of time as we are getting new windows throughout the whole house (well, save for the addition). This will be a nice update as the windows are original and pretty darn drafty. We have three windows that certainly need to be replaced but figured with the tax credit, that it would make sense to do all of them now. We plan on insulating the attic this winter too. We hope to someday finish the attic and the insulation is one of  the most expensive parts of that project. Next spring we will need to put in a new furnace, then our house will be almost all Energy Star rated.

In January, we are going to split the kids up. C is in her own room right now and K and M share. We are going to put K in his own room and the girls will share. I don’t know how this will work out, but we will have to do it some day and this seems like the time to do it.

So that is what is new from Ohio! What’s new in your neck of the woods?