Lord, Make Me a Saint: April 2011

Friday, April 29, 2011

7 Quick Takes Friday (Volume 10)

Joining in ever so late

-1-

Sunday is Divine Mercy Sunday!!

My favorite day of the year!!!
Oh, the graces are flowing.

Oh, Blood and water which gushed forth from the heart of Jesus,

like a fount of Mercy for us,

I trust in Thee.

Jesus, I trust in Thee.

-2-

Pope John Paul II will be beatified on Sunday, Divine Mercy Sunday!

One of my favorites.

I do keep getting emails from my SSPX dad and I guess they are not fans of this

holy man. I pray for them. It makes the day happy and sad for me.

Sad that my family can't take part in the joy of this blessed event.

-3-

Sunday is also our Catholic homeschool group's Easter party.

We filled, ummm, let me see, anyone want to take any guesses?

Maybe I'll have to think of something to give away....

This laundry basket ended up being filled to the top!

-4-
The Royal Wedding.
I did not get up early, or even watch it on TV for that matter.
I did look up what the dress looked like on
People.com

I also enjoyed looking at the funny (ridiculous) hats!
Kate's dress was beautiful.

-5-

Good old PAAS egg dyes.

This is taken out of my "Little White Book" Six minute reflections:

In 1880, a pharmacist named William Townley from Newark, NJ, introduced packets of egg dye which he sold for five cents. Townley's Easter Egg Dye initially offered dye tablets for five colors.

Acknowledging the roots of his German customers (whose ancestors had introduced the old-world custom of dyeing eggs to the United States), Townley later changed the company name to PAAS Dye Company.

PAAS is a derivative of the Pennsylvanian Dutch word which means EASTER!

-6-

Also taken from my Little White Book:

Friar Cappuccino

On April 27, 2003, Pope John Paul II beatified a 17th century friar, who is called the inspiration behind cappuccino coffee.

Born in 1631 in Italy, Marco d' Aviano was a Capuchin friar, well known for his preaching.

On the eve of the Battle of Vienna in 1683, the pope asked him to rally Catholics and Protestants together to hold back the advance of Turkish soldiers into Europe.

Legend says that upon their victory, the Christians found sacks of coffee left behind by the Ottoman military. They decided to taste it, but found it too strong.

They ended up adding cream and honey, which turned the drink a brown color similar to the brown habit worn by Marco d' Aviano.

It was the Viennese themselves who began to refer to the coffee drink as "Cappuccino".

Fr. d'Aviano had nothing to do with creating the drink.

-7-

We are almost done with school!!!

We have our last swimming lessons tomorrow!
May means Spring in Minnesota, Yahoo!!

Have a wonderful weekend everyone, filled with God's Graces and Mercy!

Cute Easter Chicks!

Spring brings Easter,

Celebrate!

Jesus Christ is Risen!

Celebrate!

Celebrate!
(sung to the tune of Freres Jacques)

Thursday, April 28, 2011

Thankful Thursday!

Thankful Jesus Christ has risen from the dead for me!! (well, for all of us)

Thankful that I was able to get my pictures off my chip from my water logged camera!

(Above) Here we are waiting for daddy to park the van, at the airport!

(it's about 20 some degrees)

The time is about 3:30am

We left our home at 2am

The only thing forgotten is Jedi's glasses.
He's not used to getting up and rushing off to the airport!
We figured it was better to forget them at home rather than in Mexico!

Can you feel how heavy these backpacks were?

We are all nervous, excited and cold!

Look, there's the pink camera case that didn't hold my camera in,

the one that lost my camera in the ocean!

My first picture when we got to the resort.

There were these birds flying above us all the time!

(hopefully you can click on these pictures to see them better)

See? Pool by the ocean. My preference.

The first blue is the pool, the 2nd blue is the ocean!

One pooped out, curly haired baby!

Not a great picture of my hubby, but this is our outside dinner!

I love eating outside, it was so warm and nice to be in the fresh air!

The Great Blue Heron that visited our back swamp every day!

Our swamp, where we saw the crocodile and many other beautiful birds!

Jedi, loving the views.

It was so nice and peaceful, we really didn't mind the swamp view.

These 2 pictures are a couple of my favorites...

Oh, I could just stare at these pictures all day....

Mary Hannah's first time in the great big ocean!

All we need is a puppy behind her!!

She was so cute on the beach....wish my camera didn't fall when it did....

I would have gotten so many more of her.

She only went to the ocean this one time, she hated the ocean.

It was too big and loud and scary for her!

She's a pool girl!

You can see Tom and the kiddos in the background.

(Tom is taking off his shirt!)

(might have to click on the picture)

Run! Run!

"I command you to stop, you waves, you!"

This picture must be shown,

because it is the last picture I took before my camera fell

into the ocean for the literally, 2 seconds it was in.

So very thankful I was able to retrieve these beautiful photos.

Both Ballerina Rosie and myself are constantly thinking up ways we could go back there....

Mary Hannah doesn't understand why we can't just move there!

Colette wants to work there when she grows up.

Such good memories and such a beautiful world God has made for us.

For other Mexico pictures if you are interested:

Click on Mexico

Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Wordless Wednesday

Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Tuesday Tea Talk

I'm starting this and hopefully it will get better as the weeks pass?

I thought it would be a fun way to get to know eachother.

I prefer ice tea over hot tea, so this is the picture I've picked,

but I am the kind of person to offer you both!
So, come tea talk with me on Tuesdays!

I will use a random 4 or 5 questions.

1. What is something you wish you were better at?

Definitely sewing.

I wish I could sew my girls beautiful dresses.

I'd sew quilts and cute aprons.

I can sew straight lines and mend buttons.

2. Why do you like the music you do?

I listen to Christian music and I've grown to like it.

When I walk I listen to really upbeat dance stuff--dare I say it?

I listen to Lady Gaga.

There. I said it.

I also have Prince's Little Red Corvette on my husband's iPod.

Another favorite is Rick Springfield's Jesse's Girl.

I never even heard any of Lady Gaga's songs until my hubby taped some for me

on his iPod, they have great beats to walk to.

But

Those songs are not very wholesome.

I used to love Country music and have to admit, still am a Country girl at heart.

I can't listen to Country music though without it taking me back to a bad time in my life.

so I don't listen to it.

Music, it puts us in different places doesn't it?

I also love to listen to Classical music, it's just relaxing and I love to watch my girls twirl and dance to it every time I put it on.

3. New York or California?

California.

I have family out there. (my mom's family)

And I just don't understand why famous stars, who can choose, would choose New york.

It's cold there.

California has a certain smell in the air, maybe it's the salty air from the ocean.

(maybe it's the smog, I don't know)

I love the smell of California.

4. Ocean or Pool?

Both.

I love both, so if I'd have to pick, I'd pick...

a pool by the ocean!

No, if I had to choose, I'd choose the ocean!

I love to sit by it and just marvel in God's Goodness.

I love to wade in it, search for shells (and washed up sunglasses)

and feel it's soft soft sand on my toesies.

5. Favorite Year so far?

I'd have to say the year my first child was born.

My life's questions were finally answered.

Not that you have to have a child to get those answers.

But I felt so happy and felt God's grace so much in my life.

From that point on, everything was so different, the world was different.

The world was better.

If you want to talk tea with me, post it on your blog or leave me your comments.

I will try to answer things in the comments.

Is that the best way to correspond?

The Judging Begins

I am now a judge.

A judge to all these questions:

Can I have a piece of candy?

Can I have 2 pieces?

Can I have 3 pieces?

How many pieces can I have?

How many pieces can I have if they are little, like jelly beans?

How many pieces can I have if they are little like M&M's?

Can I have one big one like this malted milk egg and 2 little ones?

How many big pieces and how many little pieces?

Can I have a piece of candy?

Can I have a piece of candy?

Can I have a piece of candy?

He had a bigger piece than me!

Mom! She had a bigger piece than me!

Mom! She's eating her candy already.

Can I have a piece of candy?

The questions have begun and we haven't even eaten breakfast!

What do you do?

Monday, April 25, 2011

Help!

I can't get my title on my header picture!!
Well, I can get it on, but then the picture gets huge and you can only see the corner of the picture.

That's what I get for trying to change something!

Happy Easter!

I have so much to share, it's hard to draw line and only share one or two pictures.

So, indulge me, I'm sharing a lot.

I should do what Margaret did.

Wish I could, but, I just can't.

I try to be simple, really, I do.

Instead of showing each individual food from our Lenten teas,

I'm going to show the picture of our table before we started.

Above is our Holy Thursday Lenten Tea

And here is our Good Friday Lenten Tea

The food was so good, it hardly felt like good Friday!

Here are our Lenten Pretzels,

we made to have with bean soup on Good Friday.
You'll get the idea of who my helpers by the end of this post!

Those same 2 little girls are the only ones who colored their days during Lent!
Cry with me, my kiddos are growing up.

Those same little girls made these beautiful eggs for our windows!
(we got the idea from the Crafty Crow)

After trying a new way to dye eggs and it failing, and returning it to Wal-Mart,
we just did the cheapest, easiest and best way to do it, (in my opinion)
good old fashioned Paas dye and crayons.

(Oops, this picture is out of order)
We made these Empty Tomb rolls this morning,
yesterday morning was just too busy before Church.

Here's my little helpers again, busy making bird nests!

Our beans have been replaced with abundant jelly beans!

Our Resurrection Eggs have been read and looked at several times!

My husband bought me a beautiful Easter Lily

Here we are Easter Morning.....

Yep. You guessed it. We do the Easter Bunny.

We also do Jesus.
We know what Easter is about.
It's about Jesus Rising from the dead.
My kids know that.
But, seriously, folks, the candy is about the bunny.

I'll tell you a secret.
The Easter bunny is not a lie.
I am the Easter bunny in our home.
Just like I am mama, wife, tooth fairy, Santa, nurse, cook....
well...you get the picture.
I have a "to each his own" attitude about the Easter bunny and all that stuff.
Really, this is what we do.
You do what you do.

Here are us girls

I am actually wearing a dress for the first time in a long, long time.
I am trying to wean baby from breastfeeding.
She is nursing now only in the morning and at bedtime.
Cry with me now?

When your kiddos take the pictures,