First Holy Communion

A few weeks ago, Dan and I were happy to be present for our godson's First Holy Communion.  What a glorious day!  Congratulations, Michael!

Joseph's 4th Birthday

Here is one excited little boy getting to open a birthday present before breakfast.

Then after breakfast we mixed and baked the cake.  Anthony "helped."

After I decorated the cake, Joseph got to play with the decorator bag.  Black frosting, of course.

Time for some outside fun.  Funny face and all!

After Daddy brought home some hamburgers and we ate dinner, it was time for birthday cake!

The Batman cake, cake pan courtesy of our local library.

Ripping into some more presents.  Did you notice somebody got a hold of one of them?  Anthony had a fit when I took it away.

Joseph is enthralled with his new cap gun.

Cowboy Joe is all ready to go.

"Say your prayers!"

Joseph had a great day.  He got to open presents, have a cool Batman cake, and choose what he wanted for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.  Well, except for when he said he wanted cake for dinner.  And he got to play all day.  And not pick up any toys!  What more could a little boy ask for?

Happy Birthday, Joseph!

Our Joseph is now 4 years old!  If you want to read about when he was born, go here.

Joseph is getting to be such a big boy.  He still loves tractors and being outside, especially helping Daddy in the garden.

Riding his bike.  Notice anything funny about it?  Yeah, one day Mommy backed over his bike and made it unrideable.  So last weekend Daddy took some parts from Anne's old bike and now he can ride his bike again. 

This is classic Joseph.  He is always making funny faces and doing little funny dances.  Never fails to get us laughing.

And now I'm off to decorate a Batman cake!

Prayer Request

I was very shocked and saddened to find out yesterday that Jen, one of my Benedictine College suitemates, died on Wednesday.  She was only 39, and leaves behind a husband and two children, ages 10 and 2.  Please pray for her and her family.

May her soul, and all the souls of the faithful departed, rest in peace. Amen.

14 Months Old And A First Haircut

Anthony is 14 months old  now and as you can see he loves to pester the cat.

Usually the cat doesn't seem to care.  Occasionally if Anthony gets too rough, the cat will run away, but it never scratches or bites him.

Anthony is always curious.  What is he doing here?

He is drinking some water from a leak in the hose.

Funny tee shirt #1:  My Dad is the man!

Funny tee shirt #2 (my mother's day present from Anthony): Mommy says I'm in charge.

Yes, I now have another "helper" in the kitchen.  Does this picture frighten you? (You should have seen the floor when we were finished!)  And yes, he climbs up on chairs, as well as the kitchen table.  He has also figured out that he can scoot a chair over to get things that are out of his reach.  Yikes!  I am running out of places high enough to keep things away from him.

On Saturday, Anthony got his first haircut.

I was getting tired of the crustiness in his hair after every meal, so I got out the razor and off it went!  For the record, he did not cry getting his haircut.

Afterwards, I thought, ack what did I do?  I like it, though.  Daddy was very pleased with it as well. 

Funny thing, though, all the red was cut out of his hair, so now he really looks blond.

Going for a ride in the trusty green wagon.

And time to pester the cat again. 

Anthony sures keeps us busy these days.  I have to be very vigilant with him around.  Not long ago he came through the living room opening and shutting a pair of scissors, about gave me a heart attack.  He loves to get a hold of markers, pencils, and crayons and it is difficult keeping those away from him during school time.  One time the master remote went missing and I finally found it in the trash can. 

He has 10 teeth now, including the bottom first year molars (which gave us a very rough few weeks).  On the hooray side of things is that he will now go to sleep in his crib, both for naps and at night.  Is he sleeping all night?  Not yet, but we are working on it. 

He says Mama and Dada, and a lot of other things, which we sometimes can understand and sometimes not.  Other people would probably have no idea.  At the dinner table, if one of us asks, "Who wants some more rice (or whatever)? " Anthony always raises his hand and says, "Aaahh du!"  Then he grins.

Anthony is our funny, loving, sometimes screaming, nonstop action boy.

Sunday Funny

Today at Mass they were honoring the parish's high school graduates, who processed in wearing their graduation garb.  As the graduates filed into their pews, which were not that far in front of us, Anne whispered in my ear:

"Mommy, I see some people wearing envelopes on their heads!"

The Hatmaker's Sign: A Story By Benjamin Franklin

This picture book was funny and kept the attention of the kids, so would be a worthy check out at the library.  The setting is when Thomas Jefferson had just written the Declaration of Independence and the Continental Congress is tearing his words to shreds.  Upset, as he thought he had written it perfectly, he is consoled by Benjamin Franklin, who tells him a story about a hatmaker who is trying to come up with the perfect sign for his new hat shop.  Each new person he meets tells him if he only did "this" or "that," his sign would be perfect, and each time he goes back and changes his sign.  In the back of the book is some information about Ben Franklin's storytelling and also about the writing of the Declaration of Independence, so this would be a good addition to a history lesson on this topic.



*Disclosure:  I received nothing for this review, we just liked the book.  If you follow the link and buy something, I receive a small commission.

Johnny Kaw: The Pioneer Spirit Of Kansas

If you like to read tall tales to your children, this one is right up there with Paul Bunyan and Pecos Bill.  In fact both of those well known tall tale heroes have a small part in this book.  If you live in Kansas, then you must read this.  Go find it at your library.  It "explains" all kinds of things about Kansas, like how some of the Kansas landscape and pioneer trails were formed, how sunflowers got started, where the jayhawk and wildcat came from, as well as their rivalry, and how catfish came to be.  I wish we could deal with tornadoes like Johnny Kaw did!

In the back of the book is an explanation of the writing of the book.  The original book was written for adults, then this picture book for children.  There is even a statue of Johnny Kaw in Manhattan, KS.  The illustrations in this book are in black and white, and are very humorous.  I'm glad I happened upon this book at our library.

*Disclaimer:  I did not receive anything for this unsolicited review, we just enjoyed this book (I think I did even more than the kids!) and wanted to share.  If you click on the link and buy anything at Amazon, I will receive a small commission.

The Pit

One day the kids found The Pit.

It is close to the pond, and when it is hasn't rained much there is no water in it.  The kids think it a rather lovely place to play.

It even has a built in dirt slide.  I can't say it helps my laundry pile, though.

Joseph had to rest after playing in The Pit.  See Anthony back there?  He stayed safe and sound, buckled into the wagon.  No playing in The Pit for him, not yet anyway.

Spring Harvest

Rhubarb
So far I've frozen some of it.  Since rhubarb freezes so well, I wanted to stash some away for strawberry rhubarb jam.  I've also made rhubarb crisp, yum. 

Asparagus
We've been eating steamed asparagus once or twice a week.  The kids all like it (except Anthony) and will ask for more the whole time we are eating our meal.

The other day the boys and I went out and picked a bunch of radishes.  Then the girls sat in the yard and pulled all of the tops off.

Look, Mom!

The bucket, half full of radishes.

Then the girls washed some of them for lunch.  So far, we've mostly just eaten them raw, both whole and then sliced up into salads.  I did slice some up and put them into a stir-fry.  Delicious!  Anytime you cook radishes, they lose their heat.  I think I am going to try putting them into a pasta sauce next.  Last year I steamed them as a side dish, and I also made pickled radishes, which were good, but stinky in the fridge, so I haven't decided if I'll do those again. 

Spinach!

The kids hard at work in their garden.  They had a lot of weeds to tackle.

Dominic working on his gardening skills.

It's 95 Degrees And Climbing...

...and our air conditioner is not working properly.  I would load up the kids and go somewhere cool, but there is a small chance the repairman will come today, so I dare not leave.  Can we say, movies in the basement today?

Standing In Line and A Review

For those of you who are worried homeschooled children will not learn how to stand in line, you can rest easy.

This was the scene in our house for at least a half an hour the other day.  Granted, they weren't happy the whole time.

But Anne even let Joseph cut in line in front of her.

Where he proceeded to entertain himself (and me).

What were they waiting in line for?  The chance to use this electric pencil sharpener, my new favorite thing in the house.  No longer do we have a thousand unsharpened pencils lying around the house.  No longer do the kids say, Mom I can't find a pencil.  Now they go looking for pencils that need sharpening.  It is one made by X-Acto ( X-Acto School Pro Heavy-Duty Electric Sharpener (1670) )  and I must say it sharpens wonderfully, even those silly holiday-type pencils that the manual sharpeners would never sharpen.  It won't over sharpen, either, which is good and has a large shavings holder, which the kids like because it is clear and they can watch the pencil shavings fall down.

*Note: If you follow the link to Amazon and buy anything, I get a small commission, but I did not receive anything for gushing over this pencil sharpener.  It's just another tool that has made my life much easier and I had to share!

Way To Go, Anne!

Here's our sweet little Anne with one of her many dolls.  Last fall, when Dominic learned how to ride his bike without training wheels, Anne was a little timid to really try. 

Well, in the last week or so, she really started to try to ride her bike, actually Catherine's bike.  I was so proud of her getting all gutsy with it.  She wanted Mommy to help her at first, so I would get her started and off she'd go.   Soon she was able to go quite a ways across the yard. 

Here she is riding around the yard.  I have no doubt that pretty soon she'll be zipping around like Catherine and Dominic!