Happy Birthday Paul & Miriam

It is that time of year again. That special day of two different years when both Paul and Miriam were born. Here are some photos from the celebrations, along with tidbits about each.

Ice cream cake from Papa and Nana was a spectacular hit.

Check out this nursing cat and kittens Miriam received from her Grandpa and Grandma. It's actually adorable. And the kittens attach by magnets. All the kids loved it. And the cats are super soft!

* Miriam is really into "kitties" right now. She asked for a giant stuffed cat, but she seems pleased as punch to have her momma cat and kittens.

* Miriam loves to ride her bike. This makes her grandma especially happy, as Grandma likes to ride bikes, too!

* She is just getting to the point that she can be helpful with chores like washing and drying dishes.

* One of Miriam's favorite things to do at our new home is walk the oil roads down to the pumps (but not go too near them, of course).

Paul, opening presents at Grandpa and Grandma's house.

* Paul loves to "be crazy." He gets this gleam in his eye and a crazy smile on his face and just lets loose. He's a riot.

* His favorite food is pizza. He would probably eat it every day if I let him.

* Paul can really get stuff done when he wants to. He finished up his schoolwork super quick this year, with very little help from anyone.

* He can really show compassion when he feels like it. Although he often runs a mile a minute thinking of no one but himself, there are some moments where I catch him doing something super sweet for someone else. He has a heart of gold under all that crazy hair after all. 😊

Rebekah hand-made this awesome little guitar for Paul. It was supposed to actually play, but doesn't -- maybe because she had tie the rubber bands since they were too short. In any case, Paul was not as impressed with this present as everyone else was.

Here are some headbands Rebekah made for Miriam. They were a hit! Unfortunately they break quickly, but fortunately Rebekah lives here, too and can repair or replace them for Miriam, almost as fast as she breaks them.

Dear God, thank you for the wonderful blessings of Paul and Miriam. They bring so much joy to our family. Please draw them ever closer to you as they journey through life. In Jesus' name, I pray.   -Amen

7 Quick Takes

1) Wondering why I  haven't blogged in about a year are you?

So my computer crashed a little over a year ago. Wha, wha, right? Anyhow, without being able to access my pictures blogging just did not appeal so much. And I figured I would just wait for my pictures to be retrieved from my hard drive before getting back into blogging. Unfortunately the hubby attempted to get to my pictures and documents from my hard drive one evening (many many moons ago), but things were being difficult so he had to stop for the night and has not had time to get back to it. But life marches on. Enough with the excuses. Time to pick up the ball and get moving.

2) We cut Peter's hair and it is STILL tripping me out a week later.

He looks so much like Paul did as a baby. But he acts so different!! Yet, he doesn't look like the Peter I know and love. It's like a new kid, seriously. And it doesn't help that he has suddenly starting talking -- and I don't mean just jabbering. He had been jabbering adorable for the past several months. But now he uses words. Not always correctly, but real words -- LOTS of them! It's crazy. Seriously, someone swapped out my baby for this little boy!!

3) I tried to crush my finger a few weeks ago.

It was the day before Gordie's cousin's wedding in Topeka (a 2.5 or so hour drive for us). I was cleaning out the car for the event. I had just taken the bikes off the bike rack (from our previous trip to Grandpa & Grandma's) so the top part of the rack was loose (normally it's locked tight). As I was pushing the rack to get into the back of the van, the top part wiggled and smashed my finger. I lost the last part of the nail now (as it caught while I was working) but it's almost all healed up!

3) We recently did new chore charts again. I think they are going well.

They each have two chores for every meal. We rotate once a day. Obviously this is just for the big kids. Rebekah, Samuel, Jacob, & Paul. The younger three can help with a few things, like setting the table or clearing their plate, but they are not very dependable. Rebekah did the artwork.

Rebekah washing the dishes tonight. She looks so grown up in this picture!!

4) I made checklists for the kids and so far I am liking these.

I've made a bazillion schedules and then we never stick to them. But these are more fluid. Plus I can look at them on Saturday and hold playing wii on Sunday (which is generally our tradition -- since they don't play during the week) over their heads to get anything caught up if needed. -- I've told them I don't mind if they play during the day. I don't mind if they take breaks. But they need to get their lessons done.

5) I put up two nativity scenes this year.

Since there were two in the box, I decided to put both up. One went on the piano, like usual. The other I decided to put in the kitchen because that's where I spend a lot of time. I felt silly, though, as I don't have a lot of space in my kitchen so as I tucked Jesus on top of the spice rack, I apologized to him. Rebekah said, "I think it's fitting. He is the salt of the earth." -- Well-played, daughter, well-played. :)

6) I was on the radio again this week for our local Catholic stations Care-a-thon.

I spoke on covenants and how each Sacrament is a covenant. And how God relates to us with covenants and Jesus; his life, death, and resurrection, is the final covenant that fulfills all the others. It was pretty deep. I had to like look stuff up and really read my catechism for this talk. It was good.

7) A while back we cut Miriam's hair . . . and I still need to find it.

She had this beautiful long hair, but she was just not fond of keeping it brushed. So we had it bobbed at our local beauty school.  There was enough hair cut off to donate. We brought it home from the salon with the best of intentions, and I have yet to find it again to send it in. Mom of the year here. I imagine will turn up eventually?

Happy Birthday Paul & Miriam!

We are really blessed to have two of our children (whom are not twins) share a birthday exactly two years apart!

Paul asked for a turtle on his cake.  Miriam wanted cupcakes with "kitties" on them.

Now, I have gone through some "adjustment" as to what is allowed for a birthday.  I used to be pretty "crunchy" and in my attempt to be healthy, I would make my kids this"nutri-cake" which is actually pretty healthy (has no sugar, uses whole-wheat flour, contains fresh fruit, etc.) and my children and I think it tastes ok, too.  But after enough looks of discomfort from guests at their birthday parties, I finally cracked and started making "typical" cakes, aka chocolate - or I even branched out and tried a recipe for a pumpkin cake (not healthy at all, but super yummy - no left-overs on that one!!) and similarly a blueberry cake.  Although I still try to feed my kids real food and not many sweets, I have thrown in the towel on birthdays -but my one stipulation was that I had to make it.  Then I still felt like I was giving them something worthwhile -my time and effort.  Well, this time, I decided that even that silly bit of pride is going out the window.  I was going to buy the baked goodies because I am still recovering from having Peter (just a month ago).  Unfortunately, even though I was planning to buy the treats, I did not feel like ordering them ahead of time - too much work!!  I figured I would just show up and have them write on one of the cakes they already had made.  This would have been fine, but Paul wanted a turtle. . . and apparently the cake decorator for Dillons only works at night?!?!  And when I asked for a turtle at Wal-mart, I was first told that it could not be done.  But then then she surprised me by giving it her best shot.  Fortunately all the kids loved it.

Although the turtle graphic ended up being well-received, I was concerned it would not do, so I had picked up a toy turtle as "plan b."  I went ahead and put it on the cake as well.





Now, Miriam's cupcakes. . . well, since it was the weekend for Fort Hays State University's graduation, all the pre-made cupcakes were graduation themed.  Then I had an inspiration.  I could bake cupcakes, from a box, frost them, and then put kitty fruit snacks on top!!!  So I purchased the items I needed and headed home.  Once I got home I had another inspiration.  Rebekah and Samuel could do this job!!  Yes, with a little minor supervision they were able to bake the cupcakes and frost them. They could have put the fruit snacks on top, too, but I chose to do that in order to be sure we had enough for the cupcakes (as I anticipated a little filching to take place while decorating).

For the record, although they may not look like much, they tasted wonderful.  The kids did a great job.

In order to compensate all my failing to be "healthy" at this party I decided to offer some other snacks as well:

summer sausage, cheese, pepperoni, carrots, hummus, and fruit salad.



The party went well.  

Paul, 6-years-old

*Paul catches on to things very quickly - all things, from Math and Reading to sports and social situations.  He is just all-around awesome.

*He has an adorable grin that already wins him many requests and will surely do so far into the future.

*Paul has no guile when it comes to begging for food.  He rates his friends by what kind of food they give him.  (Nana is very high in his book because she ALWAYS has dessert for him.)

*He LOVES computer games - playing them or watching his brothers play them.

*He is into Pokemon right now and will play the card game with his big brother, Samuel, or request episodes of the animated cartoon on netflix.

*Paul finished all his schoolwork by the end of February.  Apparently he can be quite studious.

Miriam, 4-years-old

*Miriam is very observant.  She pays attention to details and likes things to be precise.

*She loves to play dress up and have tea parties with her little sister, Zipporah.

*She is into princesses right now and loves reading books about ballerinas as well.

*Miriam is becoming a bit of a dainty eater but she still puts away her favorite meals - meatballs and spaghetti, as well as desserts.

*Kitties are also among her favorite things.

She has an odd love of the grocery store (which sounds more like "drocery store" when she says it) and gets OVERJOYED when I take her along for our regular grocery shopping.

*On of Miriam's favorite pastimes is coloring.

Thank you, dear God, for the blessings of Paul and Miriam.  May you ever draw them closer to yourself.  - Amen.

7 Quick Takes - catching up

1) We took a family hike at the local lake a while back on a nice day.

We have every intention of being a "naturey" family - we want to be a rough and tumble, play outside, hike around, survive in the wild-kind-of-family.  But as much as we try to live and encourage that, it is a tough "way" to learn, especially for littles (and perhaps we do not "teach" as well or as often as we could/should).  Thus, when we chose a three-mile-hike for our "family adventure" we did not expect it to be quite so grueling.  I mean, seriously, we live in Kansas.  If the land slopes at all we consider it a hill and we have NO CONCEPT of serious climbing or underbrush or anything that makes a "trail" really a challenge.  How hard can a little three-mile-trek be?  Well, the older kids (Rebekah, Samuel, Jacob, and Paul) did totally fine - carried their packs, kept up, enjoyed the "nature," and generally were helpful and pleasant.  Other than wanting to stop for water and snacks all too often (but in their defense we did not eat lunch - just brought hefty snacks - and we began our hike at about 1pm).  Even Miriam hiked pretty-much the whole thing (Gordie only carried her in a pack for a few minutes in the beginning) and had no trouble.  

Zipporah on the other hand managed to make everyone's lives a bit "less fun."  In her defense, it was naptime, and it was windy - not cold, but rather windy.  I had Rebekah carrying her in a soft backpack carrier to begin with because being in my third-trimester of this pregnancy I was not sure how I would do carrying both babies.  Gordie was wearing Miriam in the framed backpack carrier at this time.  Soon Zipporah grew tired of Rebekah and after trying her on Gordie, I tried to wear her.  She continued to fuss in every possible combination - hard carrier, soft carrier, mom or dad, etc.  Finally I figured I would just carry her in my arms if that would make her stop crying!!  But alas, even in my arms, she was frustrated and I had forgotten a blanket, so the wind kept stirring her and keeping her from dozing off.  We ended up skipping a bit of trail and cutting over to make it a touch shorter.  Zipporah cried for at least half of the hike and refused to be satiated.  Then, as we were SURE she would just crash out in the car, she showed us by staying awake the whole fifty-minute drive home!

Miriam and Paul trucking right along.  ---Yes, this is what "hiking" looks like in Kansas - not quite as fun as those areas in other states with trees, rivers, hills, mountains, etc., but it is our home and we do the best we can.

What an adventure.  But we did have fun and maybe when we try it again, not during "naptime" we will have more pleasant results.

2) Rebekah made a special gift for Grandma's birthday.

Whenever the kids visit Grandma (Gordie's mom), she has a few "rules" that go something like: "No whining, no crying, no shouting, no pouting."  She is often repeating those while the kids are there.  So Rebekah decided to make some signs for Grandma with those rules.

"No Shouting, No Pouting Zone.  Proceed with CAUTION."  I helped her outline the letters so you could see them better, but she did all the painting, including the background, by herself.

"No whining, no crying zone."  This one was done, in entirety, by Rebekah.

3) Paul "officially" finished all of his school work on Tuesday.

I should note, he finished everything but a few science lessons (which I have to read to him) about three weeks ago.  But now, he has every possible lesson and activity complete - and he was not even required to do it all - 95% in his major courses and 85% in his Science would be considered "mastery" (as they simply do more of a pass-fail-thing for our virtual school = either you master it our you do it again until you do).  Anyhow, as much as you might think "way to go Paul!!" I am not really celebrating and actually asked his teacher if she could find some more work for him!  This is because a bored Paul is a distracting Paul and one that begs for computer games all day.  While the games are educational, they can still be distracting to his siblings, plus all that screen time.  It is a battle now with him.  Although I have more "busy work" worksheets, handwriting, etc - Paul is smart and can get into his "lessons" on the school website, so he KNOWS he does not have any left and anything I tell him to do is not "official" - thus he does not have to.  Who ever thought something like finishing school early would have any detriment?  Only with Paul. . . 

3) The other kids are doing pretty-well on school work.

Not to make you think Paul is the only one working around here.  Jacob should be done with his lessons in about two weeks (just before the baby comes if we can stay on track) and Rebekah had her spelling and vocabulary for the year done by Christmas.  Samuel wrapped up his vocabulary a couple days ago and spelling is close behind.  I still anticipate doing some work into the summer, but mostly that is because I am going to be giving the kiddos a hefty break after the baby comes.  In any case, I feel like we have a much better handle on things this year, as compared to last year, and I don't think the kids will mind finishing up a few things.  Especially classes like German are really fun as they incorporate a ton of games and such, so having them open over the summer will probably be a bonus.

4) We finally renewed our museum membership.

'We are really blessed to have an AMAZING museum here in town and the cost of membership is really affordable.  Seriously, two visits and I have gotten my money's worth from our yearly family cost.  It is great.

Miriam is on the far right, pictured with some friends here.

Zipporah checking out the spider.

Jacob and Samuel having some spider fun.

5) This might sound bad, but Zipporah has been reminding me of a puppy lately.

Seriously, she has to weasel in around my legs - especially in the kitchen, and get herself into whatever I am doing.  It is kinda cute when I'm sitting on the floor and she comes over to sit by me (well, ON me if at all possible, but with my growing belly, she has to settle for beside these days).  In the mornings she will often follow me from room to room, close on my heels to be sure I do not disappear into an alternate universe.  But. . . she is also growing up by leaps and bounds and will even play outside (in our fenced-in yard) by herself sometimes!!  So I'm sure I will miss being the center of her attention soon, but goodness right now she often wears me out by the end of the day!

6) Miriam is turning from her sweet sweet self to "a child with a bit more spunk."

I think that is the best way to put it.  In other words, she is beginning to get quite an attitude about things!  And my rough-and-tumble girl is suddenly coming to me with tears over every little thing.  I realize this is simply part of growing up, but I am already looking forward to the conclusion of this "stage" of development!

Random picture of Rebekah pulling Miriam and Zipporah in the wagon - to the corner and back.  This has become one of the girls' favorite activities!

7) We are in the process of remodeling the downstairs bathroom.

Our bathrooms are both in need of serious updating, the downstairs is going first because Daddy wanted to pull out the shower and add a tub/shower combo. . . a tub especially for tall people to enjoy.  We got one that is six-feet-long and super-deep.  It is SO NICE already!!  The only thing is that since the tub is already in "use-able" condition (aka you can fill it and the drain works), someone seems to have lost his motivation to get on with finished the rest of the bathroom!  But I'm sure he will eventually get it done - no need to keep reminding him about it every six months or anything - haha :)

And if you made it this far, enjoy another random picture. . . 

Starting the School Year 2015-2016

Here the kids are after daily Mass this morning, ready to get into the school routine.

(And the kids were actually really well-behaved at church today!  Praise God!!  :)

Without further ado, here is our line-up for this year.

Miriam refused to leave Rebekah's side.  We had to bribe her out of the picture for the next shot.

Silly Miriam again!  She wanted to be in ALL the pictures :)

Pfew, getting these pictures was tough!  Big thanks to Rebekah for helping find the blocks we needed and wrangling the little ones.  Here is to a great school year of loving and learning and learning to love and loving to learn.  God bless us all!