Benedict turned seven months on Thursday! Seven months, where does the time go? I wanted to get pictures of him on Thursday, but he moves too quickly for pictures now. Today he finally slowed down just a bit and we were able to get a few pictures of our mover.

His brother and sisters love to play with him. They find everything he does to be fascinating.

Caecilia gave him his nickname, Bencky-Benck, in the tradition of many nicknames, because she cannot say Benedict.

Lately, they have been taking to calling him “Bencky-Benck”. I do not think they remember his real name.

He does not seem to mind though, as he is just so laid back and easy going, as long as you keep his tummy full and his diaper changed.

I have been wearing my babies since Karol was first born. I have two NoJo BabySlings, which are  great when the babies are small, but as they get bigger, my shoulders and back really take a beating, so I was looking for something that distributed the weight a bit more. While searching, I found out that Sarah had a sling making gig. I liked what I saw, so after a few emails, I ordered a wrap and I love it.

First let me tell you about the ordering process. Sarah has options for you  to choose from or you can tell her the fabric that you would like. I finalized my order on a Friday and had it in my hands by the next Wednesday! Now that’s fast service. Sarah also includes a DVD with instructions on how to wear your baby.

So, without further ado, I offer pictures of the awesome wrap:

You can share 10 things about you and your wonderful better half, by joining the party here.

1.

I met my husband while he was in seminary. No, we did not “get together” at that time, he was a seminiarian! I had no thoughts of that at all.

2.

We never dated. We saw each other again (after he discerned that he was not called to the priesthood) and knew that we were supposed to be married.

3.

The only time we argue is when I start it. Even then, it is usually one sided, with me doing all the talking. He is usually right, most of the time.

4.

We were married on October 2, 2004 in Lafayette, Indiana at the beautiful St. Boniface Church surrounded by our beautiful family and friends.

5.

Since our wedding day, we have had seven different addresses in four different states. We move an average of every 18 months. Usually while I am pregnant or nursing a wee one.  The last move was the biggest move, from Ohio to South Georgia and I was eight months pregnant.

6.

Joshua has no problem with coming home from work and making dinner. He doesn’t have to do this often, as I make dinner most nights. It helps out though on those few days I am too lazy/busy to make something.

7.

We are working our way through the Star Trek Series. We have watched all of Enterprise, The Original Series and  The Next Generation. We are almost done with Deep Space 9 and half way through Voyager. Yes, we are dorks.

8.

Joshua has “caught” each of our babies, at home.With Caecilia, he did it all on his own, as our midwife had not arrived when Caecilia decided she was not hanging on any longer.

9.

Joshua has no problems with helping me fold laundry, change diapers, wash dishes or vacuuming.

10.

Joshua is the best helpmate I could have ever asked for and he is doing his best to drag me to heaven.

Turns out a tornado did not pay a visit to Lowndes County this morning. We did have some serious wind though:

From the Weather Channel.

**I have been working on this post since Sunday Night. One of the goals I have for myself now is to be in bed by 10 pm, sans computer, so this cuts in to my blogging time. **

I had the best time this weekend. The homeschooling retreat was all I was expecting and more. I received so much encouragement and advice for my vocation! I took plenty of notes and plan on sharing them with you all over the next week or so.

In addition to enjoying a great conference, I enjoyed spending a bit of time by myself, a sort of mini retreat. I drove up early on Friday morning, made it through Atlanta traffic and arrived at the church in time for Mass. The first day of the conference was a temperament workshop, very very very informative. I will be doing further research in to my sanguine temperament.

After the workshop, we had a talk, then I was off to the hotel, checked in and hung out for a bit. I had a whole evening to myself, what was I going to do? Well, in planning my trip, I found an FSSP parish in Atlanta that had confession, stations and Mass, that evening. so I headed out. Twenty five miles away…one and a half hours on the road, but it was well worth it. Thankfully I left with plenty of time to get there, so I arrived with time for confession. I stayed for Stations and Mass (EF) then went back to my hotel.

Well, first I stopped to pick up a toothbrush and some toothpaste, and to pick up something to eat, as I hadn’t had anything since lunch at that point. I saw a Kroger store so I stopped, ran in and picked up what I needed. I also picked up some flour, as I knew we were out back home. (A buck fifty five. Flour here, is 2.50 and good luck finding unbleached. Heck, good luck finding anything that isn’t self rising.)

Oh and the ride back to the hotel? Twenty five minutes.

At the hotel, I ate my dinner then ordered room service for breakfast. I got ready for bed and laid there watching tv for two hours. First, did you know that there are young people on Law and Order? Did you know that guy from “Clueless”, the one who liked Cher, but Cher was clueless about it, is (was) on the show? And the guy from “Romeo Must Die”, who called Jet Li “Dim sum” is on it too?

Yes, it has been a long time since I have watched that show, a long time. The last time I watched it regularly, Lenny and Mike were the main officers. I remember watching it when I was in junior high. I cannot believe that it was still on the air up until last year!

I watched some bad (read: lame) reality tv, then went to bed. I slept across the king size bed, because I could. When my alarm went off the next morning, I could have slept for a few more hours, but knew that lovely room service was coming soon, so I got up and showered.

I headed back to the church where the conference was being held and went to Mass, then over to the conference. I promise to share with you all what I learned and tips I received, in another post or three.

After the conference was over, I headed out to Trader Joe’s to scope things out. Let me just say, TJ would be my grocery store of choice if there were one near us. I picked up Quinoa, couscous, bananas and butter. After checking out, I scooted over to Chipotle. I had planned on having it on Friday night, but I really wanted to share my Chipotle experience with Joshua, so I got two Bowls, some chips and guac and headed home. Yes, I transported butter,produce, flour and Chipotle from Atlanta to The Valley of Augustus’ City.

Joshua had bought for me, a year ago, a cd of a talk by Joseph Pearce to listen to, so I popped that in for the ride home. I learned a lot about Middle  Earth, a lot.

I left Atlanta, with a very positive image of the city. It is beautiful to drive through and the people there are so very friendly. No, really, I have never met such friendly people.

Like I said at the beginning, I plan to share lots of things from the conference, so keep your eyes out for future posts!

I woke up shortly after 4 this morning to a raging thunderstorm. I said a quick prayer of thanksgiving because they were supposed to start around 2, so I got to sleep a bit more.

Anyway, I looked at the weather on my phone and saw TORNADO WARNING for our county. I woke J up and ran to get the girls (k had migrated to our bed at some point) and headed for the hallway. Joshua grabbed some blankets and the toddler matresses for us to sit/lay on and put the kids on them.

I grabbed Benedict and headed for the hallway to sit while checking my phone again. The tornado was north of town, about 15 miles from us, and heading away, but the storm was really heavy here.

When things started quieting down, I ended up taking B back to our room and laid down in my bed, soon to be joined by the other kids, leaving J to sleep in the hallway.

Thankfully we were not affected by the storm and the power is still on :).

The kids want to know all about tornados now. I wanted to show them a video but the internet is down :(.

I have been trying and failing to wake up before the kids and Joshua, so that I am able to have some quiet time before facing the day. However, I am very bad at obeying an alarm clock, unless I have to be somewhere. So, the other day, I put a new alarm clock app on my phone, as the other one seemed to never go off, of if it did, I would turn it off and fall right back to sleep. I started looking for an alarm with more gentle tones, to slowly wake me up,  like my old phone did. I found an app that did all that and more.

The alarm can be set up to move the snooze time back by a set time each time you hit snooze, so, at first you set the snooze time, then you set how many minutes to take off with each hit of the snooze, so I set it to take off two minutes each time. It can also be set so that in order to snooze, you have to do math problems. This is the best feature by far, oh yes. I set it so that I would have to do five easy math problems before it would shut off.

With my alarm all set, for a 630 wake up call, I got in to bed, and played with other apps on my phone. (Honestly, I read the World Fact Book App, to help relax, ask me about the GDP of any country, I got it.) I was going to tell Joshua about my new app, but fell asleep before he got in to bed. I fell asleep with the phone in my hand, so he took it and placed it on his side of the bed.

You see where this is going, right?

The alarm went off, and kept going off, I rolled over to Joshua and saw him, half sitting up and asked why he just didn’t turn it off.

“I want to, but it is asking me fifty math questions.”

Was the response I received. Really, it was only five. He finally them done, laid down and went back to sleep. I was wide awake though, so I thought it worked nicely!

That night, Joshua made sure I had my phone on my side of the bed, and when the alarm went off the next morning, I got to do the math problems. I can assure you, there were only five problems. They were supposed to be easy, but when you are half asleep and without your glasses, it is hard to decipher the difference between ” * ” and  ” + “. Also problems that look like this: 18 + 24, are not easy either.

It did, though, wake me up. I extracted myself from the toddler laying next to me, and managed a shower and put an oven baked pancake in the oven before anyone was up!