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

Paul's First Holy Communion

The jury has been out about Paul. Is he incredibly sweet and innocent or mischievous and sneaky? Probably a little bit of both. But in any case, it was determined he has in fact reached the age of reason and has been allowed to now receive Jesus' Precious Body and Blood, a.k.a. Holy Communion, in church. The following are pictures to commemorate the special day as his first Holy Communion took place.

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.

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!

7 Quick Takes - end of summer

1) Zipporah climbed all the way up the stairs today.

She might only be crawling and cruising, but today she decided not only to try the stairs, but go from the basement all the way up to the kitchen.

2) I adapted the chains on the rings for Zipporah.

When I first showed her that the rings were now low enough for her to grab, she thought it was the coolest thing EVER - big smiles.  Then later I tried to help her get to them again (a bit of a challenge as she is still only cruising, not walking on her own) so I could have one of the kids take a picture, well she was not-quite-as-pleased or cooperative.  I will have to try for a better picture next time.  In any case, I can hardly wait until she is swinging on them with abandon.

3) My mom took most of my kiddos for an overnight.

I was able to get a lot of tasks completed for our upcoming school year (mostly cleaning/organizing/etc), but it seems like the more I do, the more there is to do!!  Oh well, school is starting, ready or not!  And a big thanks to my Mom for being so helpful!!  I seriously won the mom lottery with her.  

4) The official start date for our virtual school is next Wednesday, August 19th.

However, we got our books last week and noticed that our lesson lists (on the website) were active on Monday, so most of the kids did at least a few lessons and have basically "started" school already.

5) Paul is in Kindergarten this year.

Paul is VERY precocious.  Honestly he is so smart and articulate and SO READY for school.  I figured he is going to be so easy to teach!  However, after one day of school with him, I am now harboring a little fear for our school year.  ALL DAY LONG he was CONSTANTLY asking me, "Can I do school work now?"  And I was CONSTANTLY answering "You ARE doing school work!!"  or  "You just did three lessons, take a breath!!"  If he keeps this up he will be done with Kindergarten by October.

6) I have an excess of school material and it is stressing me out!

This is such a nerdy problem, but here it is.  Our online school orders new books for each kid each year and there is no way to just order the consumable parts.  So even though Jacob did Kindergarten last year and I have all of his hardback teacher-manuals on my shelf, along with his hardback literature book and all his other soft-cover books (kept in excellent condition), and all of his math manipulatives (of which they send A TON), they sent me all of those things AGAIN - BRAND NEW.  The waste just kills me.  I am trying to resale some of the manipulatives and some of the regular story books, but the teacher manuals. . . how many trees?  I would donate them, but to who?  I'm not even sure how much they are worth without the rest of the curriculum, which is online.  And the worst part is that this is likely going to happen AGAIN and AGAIN - practically every year as my children follow each other in grades.

7) Gordie fixed my camera, kind-of.

So I bought this camera second-hand on our local swap meet.  It was a great deal and it is a nice camera.  (And I was even planning to download the manual so I could figure out how to make it do what I want - go me, right?)  Anyhow, it worked fine for a while (maybe a month) - I took pictures, I uploaded them on my computer, I charged the battery and took more pictures, etc. and then one day, I charged the battery, put it in, and it would not turn on!  I was so distraught and felt terrible for wasting money on something second-hand.  I did not even want to ask Gordie to look at it because I was so ashamed for being taken advantage of (as I have often been in the past - there is QUITE the list of stories, let me tell you).  Anyhow, I happened to be standing by it while talking to Gordie the other day and I randomly picked it up and there was  lull in the conversation, so I sadly told him the story.  He looked at it, took the battery out, put it back in, then took it out and put it back in THE OTHER WAY (why would they make it so you could put the battery in either way?!?!) and turned it on.  My hero.

Happy Birthday Month Paul and Miriam!

I almost did not make it, but here it is 10pm on May 31st and I am going to get this post up before midnight so I do not miss Paul and Miriam's birthday month!!  (FYI I decided a while back NOT to blog on their exact birthday for security reasons - but I figured getting it done in the correct month would be a good as I do print this blog as my "scrapbook" each year.)  So without further ado I will dote on my two spunky children who happen to share a birthday, exactly two years apart.

Paul

*He LOVES to talk!!  And he will talk to ANYONE.  I keep telling people he is going to be a politician or a lawyer.

*Along the same lines as above, he is so smart and social adept it is scary.  If he knows he is going to get into trouble for something he will come up with an often-times believable excuse and I'm thinking his conscience is missing most days.

*His favorite food is pizza - after cake, of course (just like his momma).

*Paul already knows how to read (I taught him over the past five months or so) and is very quick to learn.  His favorite book to read aloud is "Dad's Hat" (one of our little phonics readers from Christian Heritage Curriculum).

*He is always eager to try new things and will jump in with both feet at the slightest suggestion.

*Paul is so charismatic that all who know him remember him - and most love him sincerely!

*His favorite toy right now is legos.

Miriam

*Miriam enjoys her morning routine.  The minute she wakes up she wants to put her clothes on and have her breakfast!

*She always picks a blue bowl (actually it is a white bowl but it has a blue circle pattern around the rim - some of the bowls have a green circle, but she INSISTS on a blue one) for her cereal which is usually Kix or Corn Flakes (when we have them - which is not always).

*Miriam likes to talk but it is more important for her to be understood!  It is not enough for me to respond generically with phrases such as "oh really?" or "you did?!?"  No, I must repeat back what she is talking about, such as "yes, the bird does have a blue belly!"  And if I cannot understand what she is saying it is NOT acceptable to repeat the word as I hear her say it.  She will tell me "NO!" and say it again.  She may not say it as it sounds, but she will not let me get away with such shenanigans.  Thankfully she is getting easier to understand, but for a while it was kinda stressful as she would get more and more worked up until she was finally understood.

*She loves cats and baby dolls.

*Miriam enjoys running in the house (which is technically not allowed, but I think all the kids run from the dishwasher to the front door at around age 2 or 3).

*She is ALWAYS ready for you to read her a book (or six, or the whole bookshelf).

*Her favorite book right now is Monster Munchies, which she got from her Nana.

*Miriam's favorite food is pizza, but lasagna and spaghetti come in close second and third.

Dear God, thank you for the sweet and joyful children of Paul and Miriam.  May you walk with them all their days and draw them ever closer to yourself.  - Amen

Journal #24

Out My Window:

Sunny!!  It is January 17th, sunny, and about 50 degrees outside!!  It is a bit breezy, but I went for a walk with "the girls" (Rebekah, Miriam, and Zipporah) and we only needed jackets.

Clothing Myself In:

Yoga pants, a Franciscan Women's AA Basketball Champion T-shirt (let's get specific, ok?) and bare feet.  

Side Note: I realize Yoga pants are "from the devil" and all, but MAN are they comfortable!  Like sweat pants, but more comfy and they don't fall down over my bare feet, casing me to walk on the ends (like my sweats do).  So, yes I still wear them, but generally (except in extreme circumstances) only in the privacy of my own home.  (For the walk mentioned above I was wearing jeans.)

Around the House:

I am really enjoying our new living room set-up.  Moving the half-dresser away from the front window allows it to be used more as there is no window behind it to block now.  So I have started putting the kids school books for the day on it in piles.  We have slowly been moving our school studying from "the study" to the living room because (A) we have poor internet signal in that room - the one room in the house we need internet the most happens to be the furthest from the router, go figure and (B) I am tired of fighting the Legos and K'nex every morning for a space to walk and sit!!  Instead we have been doing school work at the kitchen table (or on the couches or on the floor) and that has been working well for us.

I bought some new Leap Frog videos for Paul and Miriam as I generally let them watch one or two a day when I need them to be "otherwise occupied" when I work with "the big kids."  And let me just say Leap Frog makes some GREAT products that I do not feel guilty giving the kids a little screen time to enjoy.

The Baby:

She is adorable as ever.  She is still not sitting up or really rolling much.  She is doing better with tummy time, but is still not a huge fan.  She will often tolerate it for a little while but then rolls onto her back in short order.  She still sucks her thumb, but not ALL THE TIME - just when she is tired usually.  She is finally starting to get some big smiles and even giggle a little.  Her favorite "zones" are her play mat where she can reach her hanging toys and her bumbo.  She seems to wave her arms more than the other children did as babies - or maybe she just has really long arms.  She is very long (although she has not had her six-month-check yet because the doc rescheduled it) in my humble opinion.

The Kids:

The kids have been draining their kid-sized glass cups at dinner time and begging for more, so I finally bought a small pitcher they can pour additional drinks from to cut down on time I spend going back and forth from the kitchen to supply more drinks.  The kids LOVE it.  They love it so much I often fill the pitcher once and let them fill their own cups and then fill it again so they can fill their own seconds, too.  Why did I not think of this sooner?

In other news, after some tough deliberation, I have decided to cut Swim Team this semester.  The baby has shown me she prefers to go to bed at about 6:30pm, which is not too much of a problem as Swim Team starts at 7pm, but my dear husband has Boy Scouts on Mondays, Aikido on Tuesdays, and darts on Thursdays.  I teach religion class on Wednesdays and they do not have swim team on Fridays.  So. . . in other words, if I cannot take all the kids, I guess it is not going to work right now.  And you know what?  I think I'm ok with that.  We will do swim lessons in the summer and then, when the baby is older, perhaps we will jump back into Swim Team in the Fall.

The one perk of cutting an activity is that we have some more free time one evening to spend as a family and I am looking forward to this.  I know I spend ALL DAY with my kids, but I spend it guiding, directing (often begging and pleading) them to do their school work.  In the evenings, we get to do some serious, no-strings-attached playing.

In the Kitchen:

All the "brilliant" kitchen-savvy-money-saving-types say I should have a monthly menu and STICK TO IT!!  And I have TRIED to do such.  But the following are my reasons for not doing this:

#1) I do not know that many recipes!!

#2) My family often does not take well to new recipes so I am not eager to learn more!

#3) I have difficulty deciding how soon is too soon to have a certain meal again.

#4) I do not like feeling "trapped" in what to cook for dinner.

#5) I often look at my menu for the evening and think "I really do not want to eat and/or prepare this meal this evening!!"

Despite these struggles I have TRIED to do a plan of some sort - and mostly failed horribly at it.  In any case, I think I have FINALLY FOUND SOMETHING I CAN SORT-OF HANDLE!!  Instead of shooting for the whole month, I aim for a week.  And I look at the meal plan as "suggestions," not "requirements," so they are not so intimidating.  This coupled with the fact that I have resigned myself to heading to the grocery store weekly in order to have fresh produce on hand appears to be a winning combination here.

This week we are having roast tomorrow, crockpot pork on Monday, homemade pizza on Tuesday, grilled cheese on Wednesday, hamburger pockets on Thursday, and potato soup on Friday.

I should also note that I have started browning up a bunch of hamburger at a time and then freezing it in meal-sized chunks for future use.  It makes meals like spaghetti super-quick and meals like lasagna much more manageable.  I also make a giant batch of taco meat (read: mostly beans, tomatoes, and spices, but a little meat, too) and freeze it in meal-sized portions to make burritos and tacos into "easy" and quick meals.  I am all about doing more work ahead of time to make it easier around mealtimes. 

Bringing Me Joy:

*My husband.  Tonight he fixed my van door!!!  And he works so hard to keep me happy.

*My children - especially Paul.  I feel like Paul has gotten a bit of a bad wrap because he is so high-spirited, but really Paul is a wonderful son.  He is so smart and funny and a great addition to our family.

*Feeling better.  I know it takes a while to recover from a baby - not just the "getting it out" part, but all the other things that stack up, such as getting my body back to workable condition, getting rest, avoiding sickness, etc, but I ALWAYS FORGET that it takes a while and have very little patience with myself!!  Anyhow, I am finally feeling more up to exercising more intensely (which should help my clothes fit better soon!) and adding more movement to my day (as Katy Says).

Pictures To Share:

Rebekah loves her little sister, Zipporah!

Daddy loves his baby girl.

My sweet, happy, extremely talkative and energetic Paul with his Lego creation.