Too Sad to Post

I just heard that a woman, I know, Shirley, died this morning, driving home from Mass with 2 of her 8 daughters. Not sure of the injuries with her daughters, but please pray for her soul and her husband and family. She was a wonderful woman, full of faith and love. Truly beautiful inside and out.

I can't help but think of her and smile, she was that good. (through my tears, that is)


I am going to a women's conference tomorrow and she was one of the women who put together the whole thing every year for the last 6 years. Her daughters helped every year too. Her husband sat in Adoration every year during the conference.


Give your kids extra hugs today. That's what I keep thinking. Cherish every moment, we do not know when our last will be. Always be ready. Always be ready. Our souls must always be ready, for it is not here that we were made for.


***UPDATE**** her 2 youngest were with her, they are 7 and 10, they are fine. Shirley slid on ice through a stop sign, onto a highway and was hit by another car (the driver of that car is ok). Shirley was expecting her first grandaughter this month.

Eternal rest grant unto Shirley, O Lord,
and let perpetual light shine upon her
May her soul and the souls of the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace.
Amen.

New to Me Blog!

Lacy, at Catholic Icing has a super blog! Check her blog out, here. She has done all the work of finding ideas for every Catholic feast day and put it all together to share with us!

I've put her link on my sidebar, so go, check her out!

Thank you Lacy!

Wordless Wednesday (almost)

I wish I were Octopus Mom.

I feel like Octopus Mom.

Making A List

I am joining JMJ and making a list. I could comment on every movie I've listed, but will try not to comment on every one. They are in no particular order. I do wish I could just have listed Mel Gibson and Danzel Washington and you'd know I love pretty much all their movies.

List the Movies that are really worth the time to watch:

1. The Sound of Music
2. You've Got Mail
3. The Princess Bride
4. Star Wars (any of them, for a couple reasons. 1. my son and husband love them and 2. they are a good example of the forces of good and evil...pun intended.
5. Shrek
6. The Truman Show
7. X-Men (any of them)
8. 16 Candles
9. The Breakfast Club
10. Pretty In Pink
11. Some Kind of Wonderful
12. My Cousin Vinney
13. The Butterfly Effect
14. Ferris Bueller's Day Off
15. The Parent Trap (Old one and newer one)
16. Sabrina (the newer one with Harrison Ford)
17. Selena
18. Joseph King of Dreams (the children's movie, it explained a lot as did the next one)
19. Prince of Egypt
20. The Pelican Brief (and a few other John Grisham movies)
21. One Fine Day
22. The Patriot
23. The Passion of Christ
24. Braveheart
25. The Gladiator
26. Bella
27. 13 Going on 30
28. While You Were Sleeping
29. Dan in Real Life
30. Jesus of Nazareth
31. Titanic (but not for the love story part, for the huge-ness of it, the movie really made it seem more real, as it was hard to imagine it before that)
32. Pride and Predjudice (what the heck is BBC? I've only seen the version with Donald Sutherland....about 10 times--didn't know there was another version, that explains all the pictures on other people's blogs...pictures of the characters from the book that I've never seen.....)
33. A Few Good Men "You can't handle the truth!" come on, can you actually think of or say that movie outloud without quoting Jack Nicholson? Name me a husband who has not said those words! (many times)
34. Indiana Jones movies
35. The Prize Winner of Defiance Ohio

Wow, that was fun....could think of a ton more. This actually made me think about all those hours. All those hours spent watching, really nothing. It made me think of all those hours watching movies not listed. It made me think about how God knows. He knows how much we've watched. He knows what we've watched. Will He, at the end of my life show me all those wasted hours? Don't you sometimes wish you lived in a time before all our modern conveniences and well, just stuff? Really makes a person think. Gosh, why am I such a thinker like that? It really was fun to list these and I've added some new ones from other lists that I'd like to see. Like "Millions" and "Simon Birch" and "3 Weddings and a Funeral". Will they be worth 2 hours of my time?

5 Months! (Already)

Sweetie pie, 5 months old and full of slobber!
I could not have showed you better than this! She accidentally showed me her teeth!
(and I got a picture!)
5 months and going bald(er)! She has kind of this mohawk thing going right now, it's quite funny! Any closer a shot though, you can see all her new hair coming in, cute, soft, fuzz!

Why does baby time go so fast? I can't believe she's already 5 months old!

This was her first day in the walker and she loved it!

(so did the other kiddos, not sure what Jedi is doing there?)

Some More Winter Crafts

We used paper plate circles (leftover from Christmas Wreaths), paint, hats, noses and buttons!

Trace mittens, snowmen or snowflakes and color!
Have any extra wrapping paper? Save it and make collages or winter scenes!

January 22, Anniversary of Roe V. Wade

I had planned on posting something kind of fun to talk about, but realized what a sad day this actually is and couldn't. (I'll save it for another day)

If we take away all the arguments of pro life or pro choice or pro abortion, all the political stuff and just look at the issue. The baby. That's the issue. Abortion is murder. Period. It is the ending of a life. A life with a soul. A soul given by God. No matter what the circumstance, the baby is from God. How can we put ourselves above God and say that a baby is not meant to live?
That we know better what is best for us or the baby?

Fetus: Latin-Little One

Wordless Wednesday!

Bows, Milk, Frost & Snowflakes, and Missing Pieces

There! I'll just put the labels in the post title!

Bows! I've got to be honest, I've never liked those head band bows on babies. Until this baby! She looks so darned cute and she is my first baby girl with hardly any hair. SO, now I get it, these band bows are for balder babies! My other babes could wear barrettes. (in the first month) Maybe it's because of a couple other babies who wear bows and look so darned cute too!
I cried over spilled milk. Yes, this is spilled milk, in our garage, mixed with mud and melted snow. I set the extra milk that wouldn't fit in the fridge on top and forgot and opened the freezer when putting away groceries. A whole gallon of milk spilled. Anyone have a kitty you could send over to clean our garage floor? Not sure how to clean it up, my mop wouldn't clean it up (for anyone who helped me when I broke my leg, I still have the old bad mop) I don't have any extra towels because I'm always trying to declutter (so, that's why I always kept those old towels) and it's not freezing overnight in the garage, so there it sits. Can't wait for it to start smelling!
Hey! Is that an angel in the milk?

Milk bowls. We have lots of them every day. My girls like to eat cereal but not all of it. Anyone out there have milk bowls?

Frost. We have lots of it. We've had days of it. It's beautiful, especially when it's sunny out. It is just breathtakingly beautiful, like God painted the world white.

I've got a theme here with the white. White snowflakes. The girls love cutting these. In fact, we are going to be cutting some more in a few minutes!

Christine mentioned missing pieces today in her post. We have missing game balls for our Caribou game. It's such a fun game for 3 year olds! We only have 3 balls and I think we need 6. Without the balls, it doesn't work! (that's not my hand, I google imaged it)

January Crafts, Snacks and Hats!

Snowman cake, recipe found here easy and yummy!
Easy paper plate snowmen and women, again, we use Q-tips for painting!

Black and white snowman again this year (with a little added color compliments of

Mary Hannah)

Beautiful hats from beautiful Mathilda

Babycakes did not get one (because mama didn't think she wanted one) so her heart was broken when her big sisters had hats and she did not.

Mary Hannah felt sorry for her and gave hers to her.
(which melted mama's heart)

Babycakes (happy as can be and growing up, we'll order in 3's from now on)

It's 28 degrees here in MN and feels like 70! I kid you not. I saw several people outside today with only a sweatshirt on, I even went out without zipping up my zipper! (to my coat, that is)

Have a wonderful weekend everyone, God bless!

January Craft

Easy, pretty craft! The white was painted with Q-tips, but fingers could easily be used!

Not So Wordless Wednesday

Babycakes, praying is just the sweetest, cutest thing!

The Brown Scapular

"Whosoever dies wearing this scapular shall not suffer eternal fire."

-The Blessed Virgin Mary to St Simon Stock July 16th, 1251
This is the scapular I wear. (minus the medals because they wear down the cords)
Katy's comment the other day
I do wear a scapular, as does my husband and the children, once they are old enough to explain it and understand it.
I simply wear it because my Mother said so. (the Blessed Mother) Period.
I do not think of it as a "magic" trinket or ticket to Heaven.
I think of it as a means to remind me of Jesus and His Heavenly Mother.
It reminds me to remain faithful and to keep trying always.
It reminds me a million times a day when it bugs me, itches me, gets in the way of wider necked fashions & when it gets stuck in my bra and pulls.
I do not like wearing one, I do so because I offer it up. I do so because every morning when I put it on (I sweat too much at night and take it off to sleep), I kiss it and think of Jesus.
If you'd like information about the Brown Scapular, go here.
They have free scapulars and lots of information about them.
If you are interested in starting to wear a scapular, I'd suggest you NOT use the free ones, though, as they are flimsy and break very easily. They do have scapulars you can order.
Once enrolled, (by a priest) each scapular you wear after that is considered a sacramental, it is you, the wearer that is blessed. SO no need to bless every scapular you get after the first enrollment.

A Round Tuit!

I found this in my drawer, attached to it was:

Congratulations! You are now the proud owner of "A Round Tuit"!

As you know, Tuits are very rare, especially round ones. For years, I've heard people say, "I'll do this just as soon as I get a Round Tuit." Now that you have one, many things that you've wanted to do will get done.

Wouldn't that be nice if it were that easy?

Cleaning Out

Or at least trying to. Hey, it's cold here in MN, very, very cold! These prayer cards are from one little drawer in my dresser. My dresser that has 8 drawers and only 2 actually have clothes, (socks and underwear). I have pictures, from when we were not digital, picture frames, and 2 drawers of odds and ends, including prayer cards and old scapulars.
Mary Hannah, (who loves to have "stuff") couldn't wait for me to go through my drawers, she knew she'd get treasures. Here's a pile of my novenas, I got right after my conversion. I prayed in overload in those days, I think I prayed all these novenas each day. (way before children) She picked the St Therese one for her treasure and we started the novena today.
I like can't get rid of all the prayer cards I have. I keep getting more, I get them at church, retreats, talks, etc.... I love them and I just can't ever decide which ones to keep and which ones to get rid of, so back in the drawer they go.

Old scapulars. Pieces of old palms. Broken rosaries. All the medals from the scapulars. (we take them off because they wear the scapulars out too soon) I know I need to bury these, but it's hard to do. There's never a holy enough place, in the dirt. So back in the drawer they go. (not that there is any dirt anywhere in MN right now, it's like 18 below wind chills here!)

Epiphany

This is a trail of pine needles leading from tree to the school room, then up the stairs and to the girls' room all the way to the garbage! When I asked Babycakes what she was doing with the Christmas tree needles, she replied "I was throwin' dem in da garbage."

The stairs needed vacuuming anyway...
Here's our Epiphany cake, not as pretty as Barbara's, but Kings can wear brown crowns, right? (we made pudding frosting, although, this cake, I thought tasted better without frosting) I always figure it doesn't have to be perfect or even pretty necessarily, but just doing something special, like lighting 3 candles for the 3 kings and singing "We Three Kings" will make it memorable. I hope.
The kids wanted to know why it was called a "pound cake". I explained because you gain a pound when you eat it.
The kiddos were excited about that...the mama, not so much.

A Great Movie!

I watched this movie last week and loved it so much, I let Ballerina Rosie watch it again with me! It's a real life Beauty and the Beast story. Total chic flick.

Wordless Wednesday

(This one is for Therese)

A Year of Thanksgiving 2009

January Snow-covered mailboxes
February lots of red painting

March my old broken leg

April pretty Easter dresses

May potty training for Babycakes

June warm days on the porch and lots of flowers!

July a big mama feeling very ready for baby!

August big welcome for Sweetie Pie!

September lots of helping hands

and trampolines, one of our best purchases ever!

October Fall mailboxes

November busy, crazy, wonderful home-life

December We are so very blessed!