We Are Grateful

This past Saturday was severe weather day.  We had been warned it was going to be severe, so we kept track of the storms passing through Kansas all day.  There were reports of severe tornadoes in various areas.  Then a bad storm developed in Oklahoma and travelled northeast.  As it came closer, they were calling for it to hit Wichita if it stayed on its path.  Then the ominous news:  a large tornado had been sighted.  For a while they were trying to decide if it was 1/2 mile wide or a mile wide!   It was dark by this time, which made the thought of a tornado you may not be able to see even scarier. We began preparing things, taking important items, like flashlights, cell phones, wallets, and keys, down to the basement.  We moved the boys to the couches downstairs.  The girls were already down there.  Then the tornado touched down in the south part of Wichita and showed no signs of slowing down.  The path it was travelling changed a little and it looked to be making a direct line towards our area.  I prepared the basement bathroom with sleeping bags, pillows, our essentials, and then we moved the kids in there.  We started praying the Rosary and waited to see what would happen.  It had been storming and hailing all this time, but then after a while, it got quiet.  Dan's brother called and let us know that it had passed over.  We finished the last of our Rosary and then Dan went up to check things.  The storm had indeed passed, so we moved the kids back to their beds.  The next morning we found that not one thing outside had been damaged.  We have also found that the tornado dissipated about 6 miles SW of our house, after leaving a long trail of destruction.  If it had kept on its course, it would have passed very close to us.  What a scary night!  We are very blessed.

Holy Saturday Pizza Party

We may have started a new tradition!  For dinner on Holy Saturday, we decided to make some gourmet-style pizzas.   The homemade dough was rolled out and brushed with olive oil.  Each pizza had some combination of the following ingredients:  freshly-made pesto, artichoke hearts, kalamata olives, capers, prosciutto, fresh mozzarella, parmesan cheese, pecorino romano cheese, feta cheese, fresh oregano, thyme, rosemary, chives.  It was all delicious!

Dan was in charge of the pizza building and baking.

Looking good!

A little helper.

Yummy!

Pizza party in the garage!

Making Pies

After the egg-coloring extravaganza on Holy Saturday, we turned our attention to making pies for Easter dinner.  We made a cherry pie and a strawberry-rhubarb pie (rhubarb from our garden!).  Then, as I had some leftover pie dough, we decided to use Catherine's little pie pan to make a little apple pie.  So she got to work:

I make an oil crust, so you have to roll it out between sheets of waxed paper.

The girls were busily working while the boys watched for chances to snitch some dough.

At last, the pies were ready for the oven.

Then they all got to practice with the scraps of dough that were left. 

Catherine was very proud of her first pie!  Me too!

Two Funny Videos

I actually found two funny little videos of Anthony from when we colored Easter eggs last Saturday.  The one above shows Anthony making his famous "frowny face."   In the video below, Anthony is checking on his egg in the cup.  Watch Joseph's expression as well, it is funny.  Both videos are very short.

Easter Egg Fun

On Holy Saturday morning, the kids were ready to dye some Easter eggs.

Anne was very excited.

Joseph was very patient and got his eggs to just the right color.

Look at my pretty egg!

After the eggs dried, the kids decorated their eggs with some food-safe markers.

You just knew trouble would break out from this section of the table.  Right?  He made quite a mess. 

I have a funny video of Anthony, but could not get it to load on here.  I'll have to try again later.

Lots And Lots Of Rain

Last Wednesday evening, it started storming and raining very hard.  We got 2 inches in a little over an hour and this is what it looked like around our house:

A stream was flowing across our driveway.

The garden is a pond.

The backyard.

The pond has overflowed.

The pond is usually behind and well below the level of that line of trees.

So what can you do on a rainy, soggy day? 

You can always read a good book:

Or you could look for ghosts in the closet:

The ghost's creator:

New Glasses!

A week and a half ago, I took Catherine to the eye doctor and the verdict:  she is nearsighted and needs to wear glasses.  So she got to pick out some frames and last Thursday we went to pick them up.  Here she is in her new glasses:

She loves them!

Anthony's "Adventure"

I wanted to write about this, so I wouldn't forget.  So here's the story.

Last Friday morning before school, I was doing a few things in the kitchen, while the girls were reading in the living room and the three boys were playing in Anthony's room.  I finished what I was doing and as I walked into the living room to put something away, I heard a blood-curdling screaming and crying coming from Anthony.  Not the "somebody touched me cry," this one was real.  I rushed into his room to find Anthony sitting on the floor, crying and saying, "Nuh-Nuh." (That's his name for Dominic.)  I picked him up and he was not to be consoled.  I figured out his leg hurt, but it took me a while to get the story of what happened out of the boys. 

Joseph and Anthony were under Anthony's bed, pushing the mattress up with their feet through the slats.  Then Dominic thought it would be fun to jump on the bed and make the mattress go back down, and so he did.  Joseph was fine, but poor little Anthony's leg got hurt by the slats from what I could tell.  All the rest of the day, he would not walk and any time he tried to put weight on his leg, he cried.  When this continued Saturday morning, I took him to an urgent care center to make sure he didn't have a fracture.  Anthony did really well there and even laid still for the x-rays, though he didn't like it.  The x-ray did not show an obvious fracture, but there were a couple of areas of possible concern, so we went home and waited for a call after the radiologist looked at it.  Finally by the late afternoon, I called and found out it was all negative.  Hooray!

Poor Anthony, though, has been hobbling around the last few days, and you can tell his leg hurts him. He tries to run, and falls over.  Yesterday he tried to jump off the couch and that hurt!  It is gradually getting better, however.  It is strange, though, to see a little two year old limping around.   He's been cranky and we've had to carry him around a lot, but we are very happy his leg wasn't broken!  I'm sure he will soon be back to his normal running, jumping little self.

The Mini-Greenhouse

A couple of years ago, some strong straight-line winds damaged this storm door so that we could not use it as a door anymore.  I did not even know that Dan had saved it until he came up with this neat contraption.

It is a little greenhouse!  Dan was able to plant a few things in here quite early, when it was still cold.  The sun heated it up quite nicely (you can see a round thermometer in there). 

He attached a chain to the door handle and you can hook it onto the fence, if you want to leave the door raised.  It is quite clever and another great example of recycling.  Of course, it is also very thrifty!  Our ancestors who were farmers did this sort of thing all the time.  Waste not, want not.

Pictured above are the new baby crops of Kale, Swiss Chard, Cabbage, and Roma Tomatoes.  

Recycling Out In The Country

Dan's brother gave him an old combine tire, and he partially buried it in the ground so it would stand upright.

It sits near the clubhouse out in the big field and the kids love to play in and on it.

Recycling doesn't always have to be unexciting.  We gave an old tire new life!

Going horizontal.

Book Reviews: Left To Tell and Led By Faith

If you haven't yet read Left To Tell, by Immaculee Ilibagiza, you really should.  It is her true story of survival through the Rwandan genocide in 1994.  She survived by hiding with 7 or 8 other women in a 3 foot by 4 foot bathroom for several months.  Her entire family was brutally massacred, except for one brother who was out of the country at the time.  As riveting as her story of survival is, the more compelling part of the book is her story of forging a strong bond with God during her time in the bathroom.  For me, the biggest message of the book was one of hope and trust in God, even in the midst of horror.  It was a fascinating and meaningful read. 


I also recently read the sequel to Left To Tell, called Led By Faith.  This was another fascinating and compelling book, about Immaculee's life after the Rwandan massacre, and her complete trust and faith in God.  It was amazing to read of her multiple narrow escapes from death, and all the details of how she got from Rwanda to the USA were very interesting.  There were many "God-incidences."

Disclosure:  If you click on one of the book images and purchase something from Amazon, I will receive a small commission.

Book Review: Animals Marco Polo Saw

Catherine has been studying Asia the past couple of weeks, and this was one of the books she read:  Animals Marco Polo Saw: An Adventure On The Silk Road, by Sandra Markle.  It is a book from the Explorer Series.  I was impressed with it, and will look for more of this series.  There was a lot of information, but it was told as a story, so it was interesting, and there were extra tips on the side.  There are a lot of wonderful illustrations, generally on every other page, so the amount of print was not overwhelming.  There was also a map of Marco Polo's travels at the end, as well as a small glossary.

Disclosure:  If you click on the image of the book and follow the link to Amazon, making a purchase, I will receive a small commission.

Two Years Ago Yesterday

Two years ago yesterday, it looked like this outside:

We barely made it to the church for this:

But our little Anthony Joseph became a child of God on that snowy, icy day two years ago yesterday!

Anthony's Birthday

Since Anthony's birthday fell on a Friday in Lent, we decided to do most of the celebrating on Saturday.  However, on the morning of his birthday, Anthony got to open a gift:

A three-wheeled scooter!

I think he liked it.

We met Daddy during his lunch break to do the outdoor Stations of the Cross.

It was a beautiful day.

Anthony got in some Daddy time.

On Saturday, which was also St. Patrick's Day, we had corned beef and cabbage for lunch, followed by Anthony's football cake:

He loved his cake, and yes, it was easy to make!

Grinning for the camera.

He ate off all the white frosting first.

New toys for the sandbox.

Anthony had a very interested audience.

Anthony got to play with his new golf set.  Or as he says it, "Gof."

Nothing like new sandbox toys to get all the kids into the sandbox!