Running with Perseverance

Autumn

Autumn is hands-down my favorite season.  We are enjoying it to it's fullest - though I have to say it's sort of strange here where instead of a Autumn-Summer collision, there is a Autumn-Winter collision!  Yesterday and the day before we experienced a huge snowfall, in fact, we had about a foot and a half in the back yard!  How's snow sledding for a Fall activity?!  Well, we were doing it!

I was obviously unprepared though, we couldn't find our sleds and Felicity doesn't have snow boots yet!  Thankfully, I had just purchased thermals for all the girls on sale the previous week!

You would never have known that only a few days before, it was in the high 60's and beautiful out!  We went to the pumpkin patch and apparently had perfect timing!  It was a gorgeous day and we had so much fun picking out pumpkins, carving the big one, and eating pumpkin seeds.

 

Now we're getting ready for Halloween tomorrow, which is very exciting for the girls.  Halloween is one of those holidays where we try to carefully balance the appropriate secular traditions with the Christian ones, seeing as that the following day is All Saint's Day!
We steer clear of anything scary or sketchy and are just taking the girls to "Boo at the Zoo" to trick-or-treat.  They are dressing up as Saints, because in the evening we'll go to an All Saint's Party.  I feel like that is a good compromise on the fun of dressing up and getting candy and avoiding what can certainly be quite a diabolical "holiday."  All Saints/All Souls are actually two of my favorite days on the liturgical calendar.  They are so profound and bring to light our mortality and need for Christ, just in time for Advent and Christmas!

This evening we got our traditional "jack-o-lantern" pizza from Papa Murphy's.  We get these every year and the girls think they are such fun!

I've been making Saint costumes too, and am finally (at the last moment!) finished with them all, have them set out with all their accessories, thermals, shoes and socks, and trick-or-treat buckets for the morning when we leave for the zoo.

I can't wait to post pictures of St. Gianna, Blessed Kateri, and St. Elizabeth of Hungary!

Tonight I was planning on making "soul cakes."  They looked easy enough, but of course I ran out of time.  Here it is midnight, I just got the baby to lay down without me holding her, and Charlie's still at work.  It just didn't happen, so thank goodness I have apple pumpkin muffins stashed away in my freezer from the apple crop.  I just got those out and they'll be perfectly thawed and ready to go by morning for a quick breakfast!

Aren't the glitter pumpkins lovely!?  The girls and I enjoy watching Martha Stewart "On Demand" and saw the glitter pumpkin idea.  They got so excited about it that I decided that we had better try it out!  It was messy, and I had to order the glitter quite a while ago (I got mine on ebay for about 1/4 the price of the company Martha suggests), and of course the glitter is everywhere.  But, we had such a fun time and I think they turned out beautifully!  Hopefully the'll last through Thanksgiving!
 

Tomorrow should be a fun day, and we are looking forward to celebrating Serafina's baptism on All Saint's Day, followed by a visit to the cemetery and a Eucharistic Procession on All Soul's Day!  I hope everyone enjoys their day tomorrow as well!

Gift Giving Rant

Well...Gabrielle's birthday is coming up and I'm having a very difficult time thinking of what we should get her!  She'll be 4 this year, and it seems like a 4 year old, easy to please girl would be super easy to buy a gift for. 
My problem is myself!  I'm very particular.  I don't want to waste money on junk toys, I try my very hardest to buy the highest quality toys for the best deal possible.  I don't want to buy her clothes or other things she "needs."  Children are only little for so long, and toys are what they want (birthdays and Christmas are the only time they get new toys)!  I don't like noisy toys.  I like toys that encourage imagination.  I like to be thoughtful in my gift giving.
She doesn't know what she wants.  I ask her and she looks around and whatever she sees, she want's a pretend version.  A pretend fan.  A pretend hose that sprays real water.  A pretend computer.  A pretend couch.  Not helpful!

I did find one thing that I thought she would really enjoy, and that I would like for her to have.  But, of course it's about $40 MORE than I want to spend!  So, I must keep looking. 

Gift giving is one of my favorite activities!  It's also my #2 "love language."  I try really hard when it comes to gifts, I spend a lot of time thinking about them and deciding on them and wrapping them.  In fact, I start Christmas shopping in August/September not only because it spreads out the cost, but also because I get so excited about picking them out!  (I'm already 1/3 of the way done shopping - for now!  In about an hour, I'll be over half way done!)

I find it so stressful when I can't think of something that someone would like!  I'm particularly struggling with Gabrielle's birthday and my 9 year old sister for Christmas.  And Charlie, of course.  He's SO hard to shop for!

That's the end of my rant.  It's not eloquently written or insightful or anything, but I do feel better after just writing it!  And I am certainly hoping for some suggestions...;-)

Who Lives Here

Teddy bear.
Tea cup.
Kitty Cat.
Purses.
Flashy sunglasses.
Ballet flats.
Blankie.
Play silks.
Tulle.
Glittery things.
Princess costumes.

Girls live here. 

On another note...

...school has officially started this week.  I may post highlights here, but mostly I'm going to blog about it HERE at Adventures in Education with Mom slash Teacher.

I just started the site, so it doesn't look so hot, but I'll update soon with what we are doing, tour of the "learning room," and pictures of our first week.  I may even scan in some art work!

My Path to Heaven

Have I been a blogging slacker or what?!  At least I have an excuse right?  This whole having a new baby thing has sort of been consuming my life!  It's been great!

Serafina is getting so big already!  She's almost 3 weeks old now, which is funny because that's not very long, but I feel like she's always been here.  Adjusting to life with 4 little ones has been a mostly good, but sometimes stressful transition.  The transition hasn't been hard because of the baby though, it's mostly my 2 year old's often challenging personality.  I anticipated this and it's gone about how I expected. 

Here's a funny story on my new life with four!  Yesterday I embarked on my first series of errands alone with all 4 of them.  I've been mostly running places with Charlie, or waiting until he gets home and just taking baby, or not going at all (in the case of the grocery store...::sigh:: I need to get better about that).  We had 4 stops, and the fourth stop was the library.  I had a whole slew of books on hold for our first two months of school that I needed to pick up and I told the girls that we could go in and pick out books/play in the children's section for a while if they had good behavior while we were doing our shopping.  They did have great behavior and all the shopping stops went like a dream.  In fact, we had a great time at the library too!  All heck broke loose at the very end of the trip though.
Our library requires you to check your own books, so I was going through the huge stack of books scanning them one at a time.  Well, all my books that I had on hold weren't scanning.  Meanwhile, Serafina decided it was lunch time and was inconsolably screaming in the Moby.  Colette latched on to my leg and started wailing and throwing a fit (she yells REALLY LOUD!) because she wanted to hold *all* the books and I wouldn't let her because they were too heavy and I needed to check them out.  No amount of sweetness or threats from me made her quiet.  We were in the main foyer of the library and I could feel that everyone was watching us.  I just kept thinking...ok...humility...this will help me grow in virtue.  Then the impossible happened.  Felicity started dancing around and panicking.  She had to go to the bathroom.  She's 5, so I told her that she could wait until we were done and got home.  We live across the street after all.  Well, apparently I was wrong because she started crying and then let loose.  Luckily nothing got on the floor, just all over her dress.  So, I'm standing there with 2 wailing children and one who just wet herself.  And my books wouldn't check out.
I really realized the power of prayer once we finally made it back to the car.  Yesterday morning I prayed for a gentle spirit and patience.  Typically, a situation like that would have made me livid, but I managed to get through as gracefully as possible without getting mad at the children.  That is only by the grace of God. I could feel His peace wash over me in that moment.

I've been trying to keep in mind recently that my work, including difficult situations with children, is my path to Heaven.  

Mostly, things with the family have been going well.  Yesterday was a rare situation, thankfully!  We have enjoyed peaceful days full of plenty of outdoor play, puzzle making, and enjoying time with friends and students.  The house hasn't been falling apart, and I think that may only be because I have been keeping the purpose of my work in mind.  We are happy to have some extra time with Charlie again now that Fall Outreach is slowing down and the whole family is excited about an upcoming camping trip we are going to take with the students and missionaries to Yellowstone!  I am feeling great postpartum; I really feel completely normal.  99% of my clothes fit again and my wedding ring is back on (sometimes this has taken months after having a baby for me!)!

Well, my little one is fussing and I must go rescue her from her pacifier-shoving 2 year old sister!

Babymoon

Our "babymoon" is going great here!  Serafina is such a sweet, easy going baby!  I feel so blessed!  She's been sleeping well, and only wakes me as much as I was awake at the end of my pregnancy.  lol  She went to Mass for the first time on Sunday and had the best behavior out of the whole bunch of girls!

When we left the hospital, they had some concerns about jaundice (which they actually failed to mention to me...) and about Group B strep, but after an appointment Saturday, a blood test, and an appointment today, it is confirmed that is in tip top health and doing great!  As is typical, she lost some weight after birth, but is now only 3 oz away from her birthweight.  The doctor today told me that he thinks she'll probably gain that back by tomorrow at the rate she is nursing! 

The girls are all adjusting pretty well.  It's going to be tough, I think, for the next few weeks though.  Especially with Gabrielle and Colette.  Charlie's work schedule just increased drastically (as of today) due to "Fall Outreach."  So, for the girls it's less time with Daddy, and more of me paying attention to the baby.  I'm sure they'll adjust soon, but I do hope that it's not real bad with the 2 year old.

I'm feeling so normal, it's bizarre.  I feel great - couldn't ask for an easier recovery!

Kindergarten will start for Felicity on September 1.  I still have a lot to do to get prepared, but I think I have enough time to get it done. 

Well, I just wanted to give a short update, but mostly I wanted to post pictures, because she's so darn cute!

Gab and her little look alike!

Ready for her first Mass!

In her Moby! LOVE it!

The biggest sister and littlest sister!

The first picture of all the girls of my dreams. lol So much for posing!  This is all very typical...F is distracted, G is pouting, and C is being uncooperative.  I actulally love this picture in all its reality!

Happy Day!

Today is Colette's 2nd birthday!  It's hard for me to believe that we've had her for two years already, it feels like we just got her!  However, she has made quite the delightful 2 year old today and it has been such a blessing to watch her develop into her own person recently.  She is defiantly the most introverted child I've got so far, she's easily embarrassed, she's sensitive, but she's insanely affectionate, independent, and thinks she's funny (just like her dad!).  She's got a great laugh, a beautiful smile, and a feisty attitude!  She loves her baby dolls and crayons.  In fact, she's my first child who has taken a crayon to tables, walls, and other random places - like my stomach. 

We had a very fun day celebrating her birthday!  We started out with lunch at Buffalo Wild Wings (yay for "kids night" all day - $.99/kid is doable!).  She had mac & cheese. 


Here we are together (I look tired...but oh well):
 

After lunch, we headed to a really fun park in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains.  The playground is huge and they have a water fountain play area.  We brought along bathing suits and the girls had such a great time playing in the water!  Colette is pretty wary of water spraying at her, so she preferred low flowing areas that were more like rivers.  Felicity and Gabrielle are fearless of course, especially Gab.  Check out the background in some of these pictures!  The park is so fun and the setting is stunning!

(Gab had too much fun, got cold, and snuggled up with her Daddy.)

Following the park, our last plan for the afternoon was to go get ice cream at a local ice cream shop that is very fun.  However, on the drive there, Colette fell asleep!  We thought she would wake up when we got her out but as Charlie said, the "birthday princess" had had too much fun and was totally crashed!

Undeterred, the girls and I still had celebratory ice cream.  Charlie was still too full from the kazillion buffalo wings he had eaten earlier...  Gab had a chocolate chocolate chip cone, Felicity had (her favorite) a mint chocolate chip cone, and I had vanilla frozen yogurt with strawberries.  I really wanted butter pecan with toffee and hot carmel sauce - but that is neither here nor there...
 

We made our way home and had a pretty typical afternoon.  I did chores (TONS of laundry from the weekend in the mountains), Charlie went for a run, and the girls played outside.  The sun is starting to set earlier, which is sad, but it brought us all back together for dinner sooner.  We just grilled for dinner and I made sure to include two of the birthday girl's favorite side dishes - baked beans and cantaloupe.  After dinner, we ended the evening with cake, a round of "Happy Birthday," and a gift. 

Something about the heat of the summer makes an iced cake feel really heavy, so I made a simple yellow cake with light whipped cream as a "frosting" and added strawberries.  It was just right!
 

As often as she sings "...happy day, to youuuu!" I thought that she would be prepared for us to sing to her.  However, she got sort of embarrassed, sat down, and covered her mouth, half giggling, half embarrassed.  It was adorable!  She blew out her candles perfectly! (After I warned Gabrielle not to do it for her!)

Lastly, we gave her a gift (I was lucky to think of even one...I have a hard time coming up with gift ideas for my kids when I feel that they have enough!). 


Charlie helped her figure out how to use her new toy while her sisters hovered around waiting for a turn with it.  Unfortunately, I busted their bubble by telling them they actually don't get a turn for today.  Bummer.

I think it was indeed a "happy day" for my sweet Colette!  We all enjoyed celebrating this littlest member of our family (for now!) and thanking God for her presence in our lives!

Summer Safari Adventure

As I mentioned in my last post, we have made the trek to Denver every day this week for "Summer Safari" zoo camp for Felicity.  While it is a sacrifice to drive all the way there for 5 days in a row, she enjoys it so much and it is nice to get some good mileage out of our zoo membership.  Zoo camp requires quite a bit of planning ahead, as I have to get her signed up in the winter since we have applied for scholarships (and received very generous ones, thankfully!). 
We spent 3 out of our 5 days at the zoo and since we were there right at opening time, we were able to see all sorts of exciting animal displays!  The penguins were playful and swimming, the sea lions were barking, the hippo was swimming about and making all sorts of noise, and the cape buffaloes were wallowing in the mud.  We had close encounters with the loose animals too.  We had little finches approach us due to spilled popcorn, a chipmunk scampering near as we stopped for a drink, and Gabrielle had a gorgeous male peacock honk at her, about 5 inches from her face.  It was so funny!  My personal favorite zoo moment was when we were in the Feline display and we witnessed a stare down across the building between a jaguar and a very large, very intimidating male tiger.  It was an intense moment, and really exciting! 
It was such a blessing to spend some time as a family and to linger at our favorite displays.  Gabrielle (my little animal/nature lover) could spend 10 minutes at a time at a display just watching.  She seemed to especially enjoy the aquarium this time, giggling over and over about the unicorn fish and sting rays.
What a wonderful week we had.  Now, back to real life this week!  Hopefully I'll be able to blog more regularly again soon!

My little zoo camper!  Her teacher today told me she was the smartest kid in the class.  How flattering.  :-)

As big as an emperor penguin!

Taking a popcorn break and watching the elephants!  This is one of my favorite resting spots in the zoo.

Spending time with Daddy! (Isn't he good looking?! Lucky me!)

This Week's Failed Attempt

We got up and out early yesterday morning to take a 3 day camping trip in the Rocky Mountains.  All the campsites in the national park were reserved, so we left early hoping to get one of the "no reservation" sites.  Thankfully, we got one, and had a great start to the trip!  The girls colored and ate Rocky Mountain Carmel Corn while Charlie and I set up.

I took a nap in my camp chair while Charlie read a bit (he says it was a 45 min. nap, but I don't think I believe him!).  I've been awfully tired lately.  It must be all the gestating I've been doing.  ;-)

Then nightfall came upon us.  Dinner was a little rough around the edges, but I assumed it was because everyone was tired and didn't have naps.  Charlie cooked some delicious burgers for us and then we had s'mores.  We sat around the camp fire for a bit and enjoyed each other's company until it started raining.  At that point, Charlie was astonished that I didn't bring any beer (oops) and so we devised a plan to put the girls into their PJ's, drive to Estes Park, pick up beer, and return slowly so that everyone would fall asleep.

Our plan worked perfectly, and we even got a stunning view of a lightening storm over the mountains.  It was so beautiful. 

We got everyone back, started transferring people (and a puppy) into their beds, and then all heck broke loose.

While we were in Texas, I learned that Colette can't get over-tired or she freaks out.  For hours.  In the middle of the night.

Well, that happened last night too!  Charlie and I got probably 3 hours of sleep, and by the time we got up in the morning, we decided to just go ahead and pack up and go home.  There was no use in sticking around for another night of misery.

We've had a lovely and restful day at home.  The girls played in their little pool, ran around the back yard, and now we are planning to grill up the hot dogs that were meant for the campfire tonight.  I'm hoping for an early bed time for them, and then maybe a great movie for us.

All this to say, life isn't always sunshine and roses.  I know that some people don't like to blog their "bad" days, and I don't want mine to be a little stop on the internet where people can encounter Negative Nancy.  I'm hoping, however, that sometime in the future I'll come back to read this entry and laugh about our incomplete camping trip.  Hopefully, by that "sometime" my almost-two-year-old will be out of this stage!  Until then, I think we'll stick with day trips.  :-)

Small Successes May 28

Here are my 3 small successes for this week:

1. I have fed multiple college men over a series of evenings (thanks to the Denver Nuggets), managing to prepare enough food, supply desserts on the fly, and have the kitchen cleaned up before the kids went to bed.

(Last night was chicken salad sandwiches, green salad with feta and strawberries, and whole wheat pasta with pesto.  The night before, we fed them much more "manly" fare: beer brats, baked beans, potato salad, chips, etc.)

2. Lots of time has been spent outside for the whole family.  We got a new (free!) Rainbow play set, planted herbs and flowers, cleaned the screened in porch, and even played with and learned all about earthworms.

(My 3 year old loved bugs.  These earthworms are her friends.)

(My wonderful husband and some college guys setting up the play set.)
3. Somehow, I have been able to keep up with my housework enough to merit a multitude of compliments from my wonderful husband last night.  Laundry is kept up, meals are planned and executed (this is huge for me...I'm not great at this), kitchen and bathroom are clean, beds are made, etc.  I blame it on nesting.  I am 7 months pregnant after all.

(Nothing like a made bed...  Mine needs some toss pillows, don't you think?)

Check out Faith & Family Live for other small successes this week!