7 Quick Takes--CALIFORNIA!

It's Friday. We're home from California. And I'm going to try to stick to 7 Quick Pics from our trip. Maybe it'll be more than 7, but it's my blog, right?

~~1~~
Beautiful beaches. This was La Jolla, with pretty cliffs, beaching seals, and lots of walking!


~~2~~
This is the whole fam at Coronado beach. We got to go to the part that's on the Navy base, so it was somewhat secluded. It was a cloudy, cool day but we still had fun in the sand!


~~3~~
On Sunday we visited the San Juan Capistrano Mission on our way to Anaheim. It was beautiful! With lots of great Catholic history.


~~4~~
The highlight for everyone was definitely DISNEYLAND! We got to meet Mickey, Minnie, Tinkerbell, and 3 princesses...go on lots of fun rides...and watch a parade, light show, and firework show. Fantastic!


~~5~~
Seaport Village. A beautiful shopping village with some yummy greek food and an amazing balloon artist (what they're watching in this photo). He made cartoon characters out of balloons!


~~6~~
wii.
Our family's first experience with the wii. Lots of fun!


~~7~~
San Diego Zoo. Beautiful zoo, amazing grounds, fun shows, and lots of flamingos!


and for safe keeping...a few shots from our last day...
Stevie with Addison in their Mickey Ears!


and the girls with their princess dolls on the plane!


I've got over 400 photos so count on many more to come!
For now, I'm off to the OB's office for my next shot.
Have a great weekend!

Our Museum

A couple weeks ago, the kids decided to create some "statues" out of blocks and taped some "masterpieces" by the bookshelf! We had our own museum in the living room! I thought it was a pretty creative idea! Now when to get my crew back to that art museum...

Bedrooms

Just a couple shots to show our bedrooms when they're clean :)
And to show the girls' "new" twin beds and headboards. We still need to put them on the frame and footboard (and find some curtains!), but for now we're just loving the fact that they can go to bed in their own beds together each night. With another baby making its way into our life, our king size needs to keep its numbers down!

And for those who might want information about co-sleeping or might be worried about its safety, I received a link to this blog posting which has over 30 articles linked at the bottom. I didn't read them all but did find it interesting that co-sleeping might be twice as safe as cribs and may decrease the risk of SIDS. Guess we'll keep doing what works for us!
(But please note that I do not I think co-sleeping is the right option for everyone. It's definitely not. Just like homeschooling. But it just fits our family best. For now, we do what works. Tomorrow things may be different!)

Bookstore

The girls had a bookstore set up in the living room one day. It must have been after the housekeeper was there because our floor is rarely that clean!

The kids all got their summer reading rewards last week; a bag with a bunch of food gift certificates and even some free Astros tickets! Hope we'll continue on this reading streak. I just need to get my nerve up to try the library again. We have such a hard time behaving at the library and then finding our books, I'm afraid I don't go as often as I'd like. But at least once a month we're usually at the library or bookstore so I guess that's good for now.

I read the other day about a study showing that there is a correlation between the number of books in a home and the educational success of a child. We've definitely got a lot of books! I love our used book store in the front of the library, amazing prices for amazing books! I've also found great deals at thrift stores. One day I'll have to count our children's book collection; I imagine it's over 500, and nearly all bought used :)

Mary Clare with Short Hair

The girls both got their hair cut short last week! I didn't get a picture of Ellie (hers is a bit longer than MC's), but they both look just as sweet as ever! They have been waiting until after the ballet recital to cut their hair, and we got coupons to a kids' salon from one of the parade floats last weekend. I love long hair and braids on little girls, but I also want to let them be who they want to be and not place too much importance on hair. It will always grow back :) It's nice not to have such a fight about hair-brushing each day, especially with the amount of swimming we do in the summer. And especially on a day like today when we should be at DISNEYLAND right now, I'm sure they're happy with this summer hairstyle!

Jesus Our Healer

We were able to attend a happy celebration of the life of Mary Clare's dear friend H last week (in the pink dress in the middle). She was the one we were praying for last year during her treatments for kidney cancer. She has been cancer-free for over 6 months now, praise God! We are still praying that she continues to heal and that she has no remission in the coming years. My eyes filled with tears when they were singing Happy Birthday to her...we are so thankful that she is still here with us, a shining little light showing God's goodness and always emitting joy. What a gift she is!

"Me a Baseball Boy"

We may be enjoying California right now,
but this little guy is a Houston Astros fan through and through.

And we're off!

When this posts tomorrow morning, we should be up in the air on our way to California! We are so excited! I still have some packing to do and rest to get...but I'm going to try to schedule a simple post for each morning while we're gone. Please pray for safe travels, healthy travelers, and if you could squeeze in a prayer for a working camera, that would be great! My new Nikon is having electrical problems but I didn't want to risk sending it for repairs and not having it for our big trip (it usually behaves after a half-hour break or so).

So for today...my rock climbers!!! I was so proud of the girls for trying this at the YMCA the other night. How brave!

Two Hearts Tea Party

We had been wanting to have a "Two Hearts" Tea Party all month, to honor the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary, with feast days on June 11/12th. I found some wonderful ideas on the Catholic Icing blog, and mentioned them to the girls, but things just never quite fell into place. Until the last day of June, that is!

We'd gone to Mass to celebrate some anniversaries of friends who have passed away, and then I hit Michael's while my friend C bought the snacks and we met back at my house for the tea!

It wasn't quite what I'd envisioned in terms of beauty, but we had fun nonetheless!

We started with coloring the beautiful images of the Sacred Heart and St. Margaret Mary, which the previous blog found here. Then we had a healthy lunch of PBJs, fresh fruit, juice, and veggies.


Finally, we headed outside to tie-dye some heart t-shirts! The kids had never done tie-dye so we had quite a fun, albeit messy time!


Tried to keep the shirts contained in a plastic bin!


We let the kids wear gloves and pour the dye on themselves.


Guess who missed naptime on this day?


For the blue background, we did the old-style dunk and squeeze tie-dye!


Here are the final products after washing and drying. We made the boys' shirts with a deeper blue, but probably should have gone even darker with the girls' since it faded so much. Oh well!


Then we attempted to make heart cake pops! If you've never seen cake pops, just check out Bakerella. Ours didn't even come close, but we had fun! What you do is bake a cake, crush it up and mix with icing, then roll into balls and freeze. Then you can shape and freeze again. Finally, you dip them in candy bark.



The next day I tried some little cake bites, which turned out a little better than the pops.


All in all, I'm glad we attempted the party, although we could have done a little more research and plans to learn about the Sacred and Immaculate Hearts. And I probably should've scheduled a naptime in there. The snacks, tie-dying, and cake pops kept us busy all afternoon and our friends were here until it was almost bedtime! A long but great day!

4th of July Weekend!

On the morning of the 3rd, we were pleasantly surprised that the rain was staying away from our area (forecast included rain all weekend after Hurricane Alex had hit in northern Mexico). So we woke up, dressed in our red/white/blue, and decorated bikes for the neighborhood parade later that morning.

But first we were off to our town parade which we attend every year.


We arrived to find a family we've gotten to know at swim team. Their girls are similar ages to ours and they enjoyed watching the parade together. Here was a laundromat float with bubbles!


A colorful rainbow float (my favorite...you all know I love rainbows, right?)


And of course a Texas flag!


A high school band marches by as Steven Joseph retreats to the curb. He was worn out and preferred sitting and eating his candy!


A Wizard of Oz float. This was a favorite of the little girls!


Unfortunately we missed our neighborhood bike parade. We just couldn't make it back in time and it was only a 2-block parade so we just missed it! We opted to go home instead of play at the hot park. We went to lunch with NeNe, PaPa, and Aunt Kathy, and then took a nice long afternoon siesta! Then we went to the Vigil Mass and picked up Toy Story 2 to watch at home.

Sunday morning we were up super-early with Steven Joseph crying in pain with a belly ache. We nearly took him to the ER it was so bad, but things slowly resolved and my prediction was right later that day when we realized he was just very "stopped up!" Poor guy! We dropped Daddy off for the annual family golf tournament and then went to play with some aunts and cousins!

First it was over to Aunt Jill's for some crafts and card-house building fun!


Then we went to Aunt Paige's where Steven Joseph enjoyed himself with his triplet cousins! Here he and Cooper are playing with toy fishing rods while SJ is also clutching the Leapster for dear life!


Hanging out in Caleb's room with the boys...Candyland, trains, and books...lots of fun!


They all helped make a banner for Bop-Bop's birthday. (Steven's dad celebrates his birthday on July 4th even though it's really right after Christmas!)


Finally we arrived for the party at Grampatti and Bop-Bop's house. The girls got to work on a dance routine.


The men reclined as usual. (See the banner on the wall?)


SJ enjoying the AquaDoodle. He got an Astros cap this weekend and will hardly take it off!


The girls dressed up for their performance! "Tonight's Gonna Be a Good Night!"


The boys joined in for "In the Jungle"


Love this one of Bop-Bop telling something important to Caleb!


Treats outside!


Crafts inside!


Guess who got a nap in at this party? I was a tired mama :)


We capped off the night with our town's firework display. Ellie slept in the car through the whole thing and SJ woke up for the last few minutes. It was a full and fun weekend! And we even got to have Daddy home an extra day! I'll add some Monday photos next!

7 Quick Takes Friday--Toddler Theology

~~1~~
We tell Steven Joseph about Jesus, who he mostly associates as being on the Cross at church. He is rather disturbed that Jesus is hanging on a Cross and was asking about the nails. He doesn't like this at all. So one day at Mass I was telling him it was Jesus coming at the consecration and when the priest elevated the Host I said, "Jesus loves you." He started yelling, "Me no yike Jesus! No yike him!"

~~2~~
During prayer time he pretty much always prays for the "boy at Astros game, ball hit his head." He is still very concerned about this baseball player who was hit in the head with a ball at the game he attended 2 months ago. But then sometimes he says, "Me yike go Astros game again. See 'nother boy, ball hit his head." I'm trying to help him understand we don't want that to happen again!

~~3~~
He is proud about making the Sign of the Cross. He touches his head and shoulders. But then he touches some other part of his body like his back or his leg, and just as we're all starting to pray he yells out, "Me do it on back!" or "Me do it on yeg!" while he's laughing hysterically.

~~4~~
This week we went to Daily Mass on Wednesday in remembrance of the birthday of my friend Kelly (who passed away in October after a long battle with breast cancer), as well as little toddler Gus and teen Hayden (children in our homeschool group who both passed away in drowning accidents) who also had anniversaries/birthdays this week. We stuck it out in the cry room, as his behavior is quite poor at Mass these days. I recall the girls improving their Mass behavior around 2 1/2, but don't think we're quite there with SJ yet. As we were walking up in the Communion line, I showed him how to cross his arms on his chest to get a blessing from the priest. After I received Communion, we rounded the corner and he yelled out in horror, "Mommy, I no get one!" and started crying. He thought he would be able to receive the Eucharist. After Mass the girls explained that he's going to have to wait awhile, and just how many years each of them had until their First Communion :)

~~5~~
Last week the girls were talking about Heaven while we were driving to my parents' house. Steven Joseph was not too keen on the idea of dying to be with Jesus (the man nailed to the Cross, in his mind), even when they told him that it was the most wonderful place we could imagine. So Ellie told him that Spiderman would be in Heaven. "Yay, 'Piderman! Me go see 'Piderman!" So now he'd like to die and go to Heaven to see Spiderman. Great.

~~6~~
He loves singing "Alleluia" during Mass. He loves singing it at the times when no one else is singing, or when only the cantor is singing. Everyone around us grins and dotes over him. He will sing and play with the hymnal for about 15 minutes before things go awry.

~~7~~
Last week his accomplishment during Mass was eating the songsheet. We're usually at the 11am Mass, which thankfully is the last one of the weekend to use the songsheets, so I don't mind too much if he plays with them or crumples them up. I assume they'll just be recycled. Last Sunday he decided to just take a bite out of it and start eating. What's a mom to do?

Anyone else have some funny toddler church/prayer stories?
Find more Quick Takes at Jen's Conversion Diary!
Have a great Independence Day weekend! We're just hoping the rain dies down enough to celebrate around here!