Hey guys, I’m trying to keep myself busy until Brian has his surgery in 2 weeks so you’ll probably see more posts from me as blogging tends to calm me. (Also on that note, join me in prayer tonight as Brian attends a healing Mass at a local Marian conference. We are praying for his physical, emotional and spiritual healing and for strength to endure the weeks ahead.)
I originally posted it in July of 2008 and then updated the post in March of 2012. It was so sweet to see photos in the post of the boys from years back. They recalled sweet memories. Andrew’s was taken on our deck when my brother Rob and his (then) new bride visited us from So Cal. The photo of John-Paul was taken at the house of the boys’ speech therapist. Lastly, the photo of Matthew was taken at the Pebble Beach resort where Brian and I had a lovely over night stay. Sigh. Who would have thought a simple instructional post would evoke such memories. 🙂 See the post and photos here.
Have a great weekend. (And thanks for the continued prayers.)
Brian just left for work after a week long vacation. I was spoiled having him at home and now I am slightly depressed that he is back at work. Sigh. So to get my mind off of it I am linking up with Jen for 7 Quick Takes while the kids are playing outside. (They don’t return to school until Monday.)
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After two years of waiting and saving I finally got my new camera! So far I had been using my iphone or my old point and shoot camera but I wanted a big girl camera. With the help of my bro Rob (he’s the one that took my main blog banner photo of the bee and red flowers), I finally narrowed down my choices and picked the Nikon 5100. As soon as I got it out of the box (and charged the battery) I started snapping photos of kids in their pajamas and random things around the house. Of course Brian and the kids thought I was crazy but they’ve learned to live with it by now. Here are the first shots I took using the basic autofocus.
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Because I am such a newbie and have so much to learn, I seriously need to read up on some of the basics of photography. (I only recently found out that raw has nothing to do with how to cook a steak.) I know I can go online and read stuff (I’ve been viewing a few You Tube tutorials) but I want a physical book that I can mark with notes and dog ear pages. Any suggestions? Remember the key word is NEWBIE. I’m thinking a “Photography for Dummies” kind of book.
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Speaking of the You Tube, right now the boys are obsessed with Star Wars and particularly Star Wars Legos videos. These two are their current favorites.
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In the evenings Brian and the boys turn off all the lights in the house and take out their glow in the dark light sabers for grand battles. It is hilarious. Meanwhile, Bella and I have our own bonding time after we put the Jedis to bed. She stays up for an extra ½ hour and we watch a movie together while I straighten her hair or fold clothes etc. I recently introduced her to Anne of Green Gables and she was reluctant to watch something so old but she agreed since it was at least in color. (And not the dreaded black and white, or worse, a British period drama like Downton Abbey. Ah, the folly of youth. ;-)) Well, long story short. She fell in love with Anne of Green Gables and dusted off the book set I gave her last Christmas. We’ve gone through Anne of Green Gables: The Sequel and last night we started the old TV show Road to Avonlea. (Was anyone else in love with Gus?)
I know they are also remaking Anne of Green Gables into a 13 part TV series by Breakthrough Entertainment and it was slated to be made in the summer of 2013 but I haven’t heard any other news since last year.
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Speaking of movies, for Easter Brian requested a copy of the movie Milagro De Marcelino Pan Y Vino (2010). It is a remake of the movie the 1955 Miracle of Marcelino. He really loved that 1955 movie, and in fact, when we were trying to decide on a boy’s name while I was pregnant with Andrew, Marcelino was one of the top names on the list. It didn’t make it as a first name but it made it as a second middle name. (All the kids have two middle names.) So our first son’s full name is Andrew Joseph Marcelino. 🙂 Anyway, back to the movie. Here is the synopsis from Amazon:
Friars of a poor war-ravaged monastery find an infant abandoned on their doorstep. Having nowhere to turn in the wake of the war they decide to raise him in the monastery. The child grows into a rambunctious boy fond of playing jokes on the friars with his best friend Eleuterio. Marcelino yearns for a mother as he observes the deep bond Eleuterio shares with his mother. Marcelino’s curiosity leads him to the attic of the monastery: the one place he was warned never go to. While there he is drawn to a statue with a face so full of love that he is compelled to visit it often. Marcelino is too young to realize that it is a statue of Jesus. Thinking the statue looks hungry he sneaks bread and wine into the attic and offers it to the statue. Because of the faith of the child an unexpected miracle occurs.
Brian started watching it and said it was good so far. This weekend, we’ll watch it together after the kids go to sleep (it’s in Spanish with English subtitles so we have to be able to read in peace. 😉 I’ll let you know what I think. In the meantime, here’s the trailer.
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Don’t forget that next week on Tuesday (4/9/13) is the first RoL Pinterest Party Link-Up. You can share a post where you take one of your Pinterest pins and actually make/ create/ cook/ bake it. Not on Pinterest? No problem! Link up your original idea so we can pin it to our boards. It can be a recipe, a craft, a home school project, a themed party etc. Don’t have time to write a post by Tuesday? Feel free to link up an older post of something you’ve already done. It will be a great way to share some of your old posts that haven’t gotten much traffic lately. I hope to see you there!
Oh, and by the way, on Wednesday I shared the two logos I made.
Logo 1
Logo 2
So far the second one has received the most votes. Leave a comment if you want to let me know which you prefer. 🙂
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The kids are coming inside so I better wrap things up. I’ll leave you with one last photo.
Welcome to Making It Count Tuesday (formally Pinning It Down), which is every 2nd and 4th Tuesday of the month. Originally hosted by Sarah and Pam, it’s new home in now here at Revolution of Love.
If you are new to Making it Count, you simply start with any one of those fabulous ideas you’ve found online or on Pinterest. Then, do it. Make it. Cook it. Create it. Take it from the screen, give it life and let it bless your world. When you’re done, snap a photo, write about it and share it with us.
For the last few days I’ve been looking at Pinterest for Valentine’s Day ideas. Some of the local Catholic moms are getting their kids together for a St. Valentine’s Day party so I was looking for some Catholic valentine inspiration. Also, since Valentine’s Day is during Lent we didn’t want to give the usual candy with our cards so instead we bought bubbles, Play-Doh and fishy cracker packets. Here are the results.
Instead of gluing St. Valentine to the heart, I taped him to the container of Play Dough. I can either use the blank part of the heart to write each child’s name or just shrink down the heart. (It could also be used as a name tag/table setting for each child.)
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Matthew is giving small bottles of bubbles so I went online and found a photo of Snoopy (a favorite of the kids) and added the words “God’s love blows me away. Happy St. Valentine’s Day!”
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Lastly, Andrew is giving small packs of fishy crackers so I downloaded an image of a little boy fishing and made this valentine. (Note: I purchased the image for $1.25.)
We were pleased with the way they came out and hope the kids enjoy them on Thursday. 🙂
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Now it’s your turn.
1. Choose a tutorial, recipe, or idea that has inspired you. Do it and blog a little about it. It doesn’t have to be elaborate — we just want to see what you’ve been up to!
2. In your post, rather than linking to your Pinterest pin, link back the original idea/blogger. We want to be sure that cool idea credit is given to the proper person. 🙂
3. Link back here so others can play along.
4. Link up below. Make sure you’re sending us to your actual post, and not to your general blog address. And please use your own original photo (not someone else’s!) as your thumbnail image. Copyright issues, you know. 😉
You have a week to post your link, so if you can’t get things done by Tuesday, no worries, put it up when you can. We’ll be here. Have fun!
PS – This post is linked over at CatholicInspired.com. (Jennifer has some great ideas!)
A couple months ago we ordered the MagnifiKid, the weekly missal published by the makers of Magnificat. We have really been enjoying it and believe it was worth the cost.
Each month we get a packet of Missals for every Sunday and major feast days.
Each Missal includes:
— All the readings and the prayers of the Sunday Mass with explanations of the difficult words and the meaning of the rituals;
— A daily prayer adapted from the Liturgy of the Hours;
— Many suggestions on how to live the entire week with the Lord ;
— Various games, a comic, and activities to help children learn about Christian life and culture;
— A page intended for the parents with suggestions for family prayers.
Lice Patrol – It has been a crazy, busy week here and a certain event made it even crazier. That is why I haven’t posted anything for days. I was going to skip today as well but I seriously need a little break to just relax and write. The first item of news is that we’ve been bitten by the lice bug. Just typing that is grossing me out and making my head itch.
On Wednesday evening we got an email from our school saying that we may have been exposed to someone with lice, so check our kids. I checked Bella and she had some white flakes in her hair and I thought perhaps it was just a bit of dandruff or dried hair product. I told her to take her shower and wash her hair then I’ll recheck. Meanwhile, I go online and look up more info on exactly what lice and nits look like. Then I hear Bella call me from the bathroom. She said her hair was itching and when she scratched she found this thing in her hair. There it was. The tiny, sesame seed sized lice. Nooooo!!!!! I then check the boys. Andrew and John-Paul are infected too. An even bigger Noooooooooooooo!!!!
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I Can Do This – I sigh. Then I freak out. Then I calmly told myself, “Okay, I can handle this. It’s not the end of the world.” I texted Brian, who was at a late meeting, and asked him to stop at the store and buy some lice treatment when he was done. In the meantime, I thought about how I needed to wash all the sheets and bedding. As God’s providence may have it, the night before we had one kid with a bloody nose that soiled the sheets and two kids with potty accidents (including in my bed) so I had already stripped everyone’s beds and washed all the sheets and blankets, including my own. (I was never so happy someone peed in my bed!)
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The Battle Begins – Finally, Brian came back from his meeting by 7:30 PM with the stuff I needed. I started with the boys. By 11:00 PM I had them treated, bathed and put to bed. Bella said she was still wide awake and it wasn’t too late to start her treatment. Brian went to bed and at 11:30 PM Bella and I started the countdown. Four stinkin hours later, we were finally done. (I think we watched the whole second season of Good Luck, Charlie.) I dragged myself to bed at 4:00 AM and was able to sleep 2 hours and 50 minutes until the Matthew was jumping on my head, ready for breakfast. Yep, it was going to be a loooooong day.
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I’ve Still Got the Heebie-Jeebies – Two days later, things are looking much better. I am still washing the last of random throw pillows and stuffed animals and checking the kids’ heads obsessively but it seems like we are nearing the end. Although, all this lice stuff has me paranoid. If I see the kids scratching, I run over to check their heads. I ask Brian over and over to look through my hair and make sure nothing is there because I could swear I feel little critters running around my scalp. He checks and finds nothing. It doesn’t help that I’m a bit of a hypochondriac and I think it is rubbing off on the kids because they’ll run over to me saying, “My head itches here, Mama!” I inspect and double check until I find a bit of dry scalp. We then cheer and do a happy dance in honor of finding a speck of dandruff and not a bug.
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Good bye, Dear Francis – All this lice drama overshadowed another sad event that took place earlier this week. We lost Bella’s pet fish Francis. I knew his end was near because his coloring was changing and he wasn’t eating well. After I told Bella and she had her cry, she told me that a weird thing happened. When she had her first fish Blueberry, she had a dream that she died. The next day, she did die. Earlier this week, she had a dream that Francis died. The next day, he did die. Creepy. I told her that if she has a dream that I die, do not tell me. On second thought, do tell me so I can say my goodbyes.
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Putting Life in Perspective – This morning I was thinking about the crazy week we had and the inconveniences we were going through. The Holy Spirit kept whispering that word in my heart. “Inconveniences.” That’s all this really is. In the grand scheme of things, at worse it is a bit of a hassle. At best it is a funny blog post and a lesson learned. Then I couldn’t stop thinking about a local mom that used to have her daughter in the kids’ preschool. Her daughter is now 8 and she has a baby boy who is 1 ½. This mom was just diagnosed with extremely advanced colon cancer and only given a couple weeks to live, perhaps longer with treatment. I couldn’t believe it. My heart breaks for her and her family. All my little trials are nothing… nothing… compared to the cross this mom is carrying.
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Join in Prayer – So join me and the next time you are about to lose it or complain about something, stop and thank God that you have such a little cross to carry in comparison to others. And please say a prayer for Kimberly and her family. Although I haven’t met this mom personally (my friends know her) I feel like I need to do something for her. I’ll see if I can cook a meal for the family or something but I know I can at least pray. I thought I could send her a spiritual bouquet of prayers. If you’d like to add your prayers for this fellow mom, just leave a comment or email me at rol@revolutionoflove.com by May 31and I’ll make up a card for her and send it.
That’s it for today. Have a wonderful weekend!!
