Happy Birthday, Papa

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I apologize for the low quality of the picture, I took it on my phone. I wanted to share with you a bit of Joshua’s birthday party from last night. After dinner, we were clearing the table when Karol informed us that Papa’s cake needed candles and Papa needed a crown. I quickly went to work making a crown, but the cake already had candles in it.

Joshua was very insistent that I not take this picture and only let me if I promised not to post it on Face.Bo.ok. He never mentioned the blog. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.

Filed under: General Stuff

Midweek Updates

* Today is Joshua’s Birthday. He doesn’t make a big deal out of it, he doesn’t want gifts and cringes when I wish him Happy Birthday. Today we are having pork stir fry and Jell-o poke cake. The cakes are currently stuck in the pan. I am afraid of ruining the cake, so I am waiting for J to come home and help me out. Once they are out of the pan, I will ice them with whipped cream, yummmmmmm.

*Benedict is scooting all over the place. Yesterday he chased a toy car around for 20 minutes and moved from one end of the living room to the other. He gets up on all fours now and tries very hard to crawl.

*Margaret loves her little Benedict. The other day she got to stay up a bit late and we let her hold him and give him his bottle. She sang to him, patted his head and gave him loving. She told us that she wanted to grow up and have a baby of her own.

*Margaret threw a fit today because we could not go to space in a rocket.

*Karol is reading everything in sight right now and is doing a pretty good job of it! He is also learning about odd and even numbers as well as ordinal numbers!

*Caecilia is such a cute little girl. She likes to “suggle” now and brings her own pillow and blanket to do so. She also suggles with her stuffed animals at nap time and bed time. When she wakes up she comes to us and says “Moning”.

*Joshua installed a Boggle type game on our phones and we are able to play against each other, so yesterday and the day before, we were sitting in the same living room, playing against each other. I won most of the time. If I didn’t win, it was because I was distracted by a small child in the middle of a game.

*Last night I ran to the store to pick up a few things for today’s dessert and headed home. On my way home, I saw the temp gauge on “H”. Yikes. I pulled over and tried calling Joshua. He was taking care of Benedict and did not answer the phone. So I sat at the gas station for a bit, waiting for things to cool down, and played Boggle.

*While waiting in the van, with my doors locked and sitting in a well lit area, I was approached by a young man. I cracked the window and he asked me if we could give them a jump, their battery was dead. I said no, and explained why. The young man thanked me, but his friend, who did not hear the conversation gave me an attitude and said “What, you can’t help me, I got the cables”. Uh, no, and certainly not now.

*That reminds me, on our way to Mass two Sundays ago, we passed a woman who was on the side of the road. She looked like she was wearing a police jacket and held her hand up, indicating for us to stop. Now, since we have moved to GA, we have encountered three checkpoints, where the officers are just checking for drivers licenses. Since this woman seemed to be dressed like a police officer, I pulled over. J got out and she asked him if he could push her down the road, 1/4 mile to the nearest gas station. Joshua said he couldn’t as we were on our way to church. I felt bad, but she had a cell phone and the road was pretty busy, so someone else would probably stop and help her. And the road was pretty busy, I would hate to have my husband pushing her car down the road and get hurt….and he is just one guy. So, he got back in the van and we went on our way to Mass. Would you have helped? Part of me feels like we should have, but part of me says we did what we could…and wouldn’t have even stopped if she hadn’t waved us down like a made woman, wearing a police jacket.

*Back to the van, we think it has been leaking radiator fluid for a while and worse case scenario is that we have to replace the radiator. While it isn’t something I want to spend money on, I am willing to do so and thankful that it is something that is not too terribly expensive.

So, how is your midweek going?

Filed under: General Stuff

Monday Musings – 14 February

Right now…it is 1030 and the sun is shining, 56 degrees out side. Dinner is in the crock pot, making the house smell great.

This weekend…was full of stuff. On Saturday morning we watched the children of Joshua’s boss for a bit then I went to pick up grocery items. I had stops at the organic grocery, the produce market, the regular grocery store and the painful gas station. I was supposed to drop the vacuum off at Sears for repairs, but the traffic around the Mall was too crazy for me to deal with. When I got back from all of that, we put things away, divided and froze extra meat and sat down for a bit to relax before heading out to the K of C dinner.

Turns out there wasn’t a dinner this month, so we ended up going out to eat, finding a new Mexican place that was pretty yummy and had 99 cent Margaritas! After we got home and put the kids to bed, Joshua “surprised” me with the movie “Arthur”. I have to say I haven’t laughed  like that in a long long time.

Sunday found us scurrying around for Mass. Joshua cantored this weekend, so we had to be there early, plus I had planned a surprise trip that we were leaving from right after Mass, so I needed to make sure we had all the things together. We did have it all together and arrived on time, praise God!. Caecilia was not good at Mass yesterday, at all. When Joshua got up to cantor the Psalm, Caecilia got all excited and pointed to him and watched him very closely. After the Psalm, Joshua sat down off the the side of the ambo, for the second reading. Caecilia decided that it would be a good time to go get him. She stood up, said, “Papa” and tried to run up to him. We sit in the second pew, so I had to act fast. I grabbed her and she started screaming. I had B in the sling and carried C to the vestibule, where we spent the rest of Mass. She was most certainly a bad baby. I had to laugh though, because what else could I do? Not to mention, our parish family loves children, loves them and are understanding about misbehaving children, so it makes it easier when our kids act up. There is nothing like having a misbehaving child who needs to be taken out and getting glares as you try to take care of the situation.

After Mass, we changed to casual clothes and went on our surprise trip. We drove south to the Gulf and went spent the afternoon at the St. Marks Wildlife Refuge. We had the best time. We didn’t take the camera, so there aren’t very many pictures, and the ones we did get are on Joshua’s phone. I snapped a few with mine, but no pictures of the kids. We walked along the shore line and found a crab for the kids to play with. They loved it. There were some people riding horseback and let the kids pet the horses, which the kids loved.  After dinner in Tallahassee we headed home for the night, it was a good day.
Some plans for this week: J’s birthday is this week, so I will make a cake. I have dinners planned out for the week, so I think we will just have a laid back week, catching up on schoolwork.

Some prayer intentions for the week: For our friends who are trying to sell their farm. They have someone who is interested in it and are asking for the intersession of St. Philomena. Also, we learned today that Karol’s Godfather, Brother Basil, will be ordained a Deacon in March, on the 19th, in Norcia. We are overjoyed with this news, and are praying fervently for our dear friend! We are also praying that we are able to somehow make the trip to Roma this fall for his priestly ordination. Also, the mother in law of Joshua’s boss passed away yesterday, her funeral is this week, Eternal Rest Grant Unto Her O Lord and May the Perpetual Light Shine Upon Her.

Something that makes me smile: One of the pictures from my phone from yesterday.

Filed under: Monday Musings

Benedict’s Personality

Picture it, a fight erupting among three siblings. The fourth is siting quietly on Mama’s lap, enjoying a bottle.

Fighting turns to screeching and crying and wailing. The sound of 1000 toes being cut off emanates through the living room.

Benedict takes his mouth off the bottle for a second, smiles at his Mama then goes back to eating. That”s Benedict.

Filed under: General Stuff

The Homeschool Mother’s Journal – II

In my life this week…Was nuts! We were here, there and everywhere. No, really, we had lots of things to do and seemed to be in the van quite a bit. Good things though!
In our homeschool this week…was more of a student lead program this week. This is what I love about homeschooling. When things get crazy and we aren’t able to sit down and do school work, we are still able to teach and my kids are still able to learn. Karol spent a lot of time out side this week, with Margaret at his side. He also has been reading on his own. I will often times find him sitting with a book sounding out words to himself.
Places we’re going and people we’re seeing…this week we will hopefully be calmer. I think I am going to schedule a field trip to the fire department. We may also do story time at the library if there is one available.
My favorite thing this week was… watching the two older kids putting their artistic skills to work by drawing all over the driveway.
What’s working/not working for us…working for us is afternoon/evening schooling. Wow, what a difference it makes when we work on things when Caecilia is down for a nap. She is a great kid but wants to be in the middle of everything, including schooling. We do a lot of make believe games in the morning, before lunch to engage her.
Homeschool questions/thoughts I have…none…just that I am so glad we homeschool and are able to do things when we are on the go!
A photo to share…I don’t have one this week, but I promise one for next week….er, next week.
For more Journals, check out Sue, The Homeschool Chick.
Filed under: Home Schooling

Firetrucks are cool!

Today, the kids were playing in the backyard and I was putzing around the house, when I heard a truck outside. I peeked out the window, wondering if I was the delivery I am expecting, and saw a firetruck. The firemen got out and started walking toward the house, so I peaked out the back window at the kids, still there, still drawing with chalk so back to the firemen. They stopped at the hydrant on the corner and opened it. At that point I called the kids in to watch and they were thrilled.

The best part though was when the firemen went back to the truck, saw the two kids standing in the window, and waved. The kids waved back, then the firemen put on the lights (no sound, just lights) and the kids thought it was great!

Thanks, City of Valdosta Fire Department, you guys are awesome!

Filed under: General Stuff

Monday Musings – Last Day of January

Right now…it is 11:45, overcast and 62 degrees out side. Inside it is loud and crazy and the oldest boy is being mean to his siblings and has been sent to his room 4 times this morning.

This weekend was…lonely. Joshua was at the FOCUS Conference in Nashville and I was all alone. Well, I had the kids, so I wasn’t all alone, but I certainly missed my helpmate. Joshua left on Friday and came back late last night. He got to have a Catholic Family Reunion with members of the Fathers of Mercy,  Sister Lois from the Sisters of St. Francis of Perpetual Adoration, some guys from Seminary, and Joanie Watson. In addition to that, he got to stay at the Opryland Hotel.

I, on the other hand, spent time chasing the kids around and learning about new cartoons on Hulu. The kids spent a lot of time outside, a lot of time, which was nice. Normally if Joshua is out of town, dinner via a drive-thru is a given, but not this weekend, I made all of our meals, which was actually pretty nice. I started a new mystery novel this weekend and am about 1/3 of the way through it. I looked up some homeschooling conferences and am trying to decide which ones I want to attend. Tampa? Atlanta? Jacksonville? Decisions! I think for some of them, I will have to wait for the schedule to come out and see who the speakers are.

I also looked up the Spring Training schedule for the Detroit Tigers. Since Lakeland is only 4 hours away, I hope to go. The Wings are playing in the area soon and I would love to go to a game, maybe next year.

We had made plans to go to Mass here in town and sit with the wife of Joshua’s boss, but I needed to go out to Moultrie to pick up ground beef for our parish spaghetti dinner this week. (We are one of the families making the sauce) So we went to Mass by ourselves and the kids were great! I mean, okay, well…. We got to Mass on time, with enough time to participate in the rosary before Mass. We sat in the back pew, in the event that I needed to make a hasty exit. That hasty exit happened after Communion, when C thought it would be fun to lay in the center aisle. We went to the cry room for the rest of Mass then headed home.

After Mass the kids played outside until lunch was ready, then Michele (Sam’s wife) dropped of her son so I could watch him while she went to their daughter’s ballet recital. He sat on my lap for a long time, then sat on the couch next to me, holding my hand, until he discovered the trains.

After they left, I was planning on ordering Chinese, had the order ready then saw that they place was closed on Sunday. The other delivery place in town doesn’t have an menu on line, so we scratched that idea and had hot dogs, carrots and potato chips.

I let the kids stay up late, so they were up when Joshua came home and I think he really liked that. I really liked that. I love how much these kids love their Papa! He is such a good Papa (and husband).
Some plans for this week: School, Parish Fundraiser and that is about it.

If I have some time to myself, I want to…read more of the novel and avoid the laptop. (This is getting easier and easier, oddly enough)

Prayer intentions for this week: For patience, acceptance of God’s Will and for Mothers.

Something that makes me smile: Joshua stopping at the Lodge Cast Iron Outlet to pick up a 2 qt serving pot for me to bake bread it!

For more musings, check here!

Filed under: Monday Musings