kid’s stuff | Revolution of Love

Two Quick Notes:
First – I wasn’t able to do this week’s book discussion of Style, Sex and Substance. I should have the next post on Wednesday, 5/16.
Second – Today is your last day to enter the RoL Birthday Care Package Contest! The winner will be announce tomorrow. Good luck!
Okay, now we return to our regularly scheduled post…

~ Capturing the context of contentment in everyday life ~

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Today is Mother’s Day in Mexico so Bella’s Spanish class made cards for their madres. Here is the cover of Bella’s card to me. (She didn’t notice her “typo” until after I took the photo. 😉 Today was also the boys’ preschool moms’ party. Each made me a wooden flower frame with their photo in it. So cute!

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A quick pic from my iphone at Andrew’s party.

It was a little tricky to be at both parties at the same time (and also try to keep Matthew quiet in my arms), since they are in different class rooms, but I made it. 🙂

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The other day I invited my in-laws over for dinner. My mother-in-law brought over a cake she made for dessert. There was enough cake left over for Brian and I to share for dessert the following night after the kids went to sleep. Well, John Paul must have heard about our plan. The next day I was putting Matthew to sleep and after I put him in bed I went into the kitchen and found that JP dragged a chair over to the counter and helped himself to our dessert…

I told Brian that there were two large pieces of the cake left but this is all I found on the sink…

The guy didn’t even have a stomach ache! I can’t imagine what JP’s bottomless pit appetite is going to be like when he is a teenager!

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Speaking of Mother’s Day, in the animal world it is the harbor seals’ pupping season. Where I take my morning walk, they have part of coastline fenced off for the mama seals and their pups.

Looking for the seals against the large rocks feels like playing a game of “Where’s Waldo.”

But as you get closer you can see the seals resting on the rocks and frolicking in the water. (Although the frolicking seal went down in the water just as I snapped my photo.)

To celebrate the 9th Birthday of the RoL Blog, I am posting flashback posts from the first year of blogging. This was originally posted on June 6, 2003. I thought it was appropriate since we were discussing modesty on Tuesday’s Book Discussion of Style, Sex, and Substance. (I updated some of the clothes links.)

Modesty: How Do We Find A Balance?

I was browsing Two Sleepy Mommies blog and Pansy had an interesting commentary on Zoe Romanov’s blog about Modesty in dress. The topic of swimwear was discussed and how some kids aren’t allowed to swim at all because of lack of modest swimwear. I was thinking about this last week when I had to buy a bathing suit for Bella. I was disgusted. I went to the Kids r Us store and was offended by some of them that seemed more suitable for a Vegas showgirl. However I did find one that was decent looking that even came with a little bathing skirt to attach to it.

However, I think Pansy’s little girl was older and didn’t fit into her old modest suit. She was looking for non “Laura Ingalls” suits and posted a link for Wholesome Wear Suits and she said she liked the convenience of them (kids jumping in and out of the pool/lake/ocean) as well as the modesty of them.

Personally, I would not buy them but I found some modest swimwear (in my opinion) for girls at Land’s End. They usually sell a bathing suit for girls with a built in skirt that is not too low cut.

You could also pair swim shorts like these

with a tankini top like this

or a rash guard/ water shirt.

Or you can forgo the bathing suit all together and get a hip looking surfboard suit (although maybe that’s more normal here in California)

All this talk reminded me of growing up at both ends of the spectrum. When I was younger my parents were not practicing Catholics at the time so modesty was not much of an issue. After their conversion there was a period of “only skirts” type of thinking. Finally we found a happy medium of modesty without being too “extreme”.

I think a lot also has to do with attitude. I know a number of home schooling families and one in particular dressed their girls in prairie skirts/dresses but the girls were really flirtatious and boy crazy. They tried to act “hot” regardless of what they were wearing. On the other hand, I see my younger sister who was homeschooled and who’s a sweet, wholesome girl in college. She and her friends dress in today’s fashions but they always look modest and wholesome without standing out like a sore thumb. Even beyond their clothes you can see their wholesomeness in their demeanor and attitude. They demand respect because they respect themselves.

It reminds me a lot of the interview I did with chastity speaker Crystalina Padilla a couple months ago. She talked about woman respecting themselves before expecting a man to. Hey, on a side note, did you know that she married Jason Evert of Catholic Answers on Saturday!! What an awesome couple! But I digress. Anyway, those are just some thoughts I had about the topic.

Back in July of 2008 I wrote this post about Andrew and baby proofing the fireplace area.

Brian and I have been baby proofing our house for months, now that Andrew has mastered walking and climbing low objects. However, we were still struggling with what to do about our brick fireplace hearth.

We considered buying one of those specialty gates that go around it, but they are pricey. In the meantime, we simply blocked off the sitting area by the fireplace with our dining room chairs entwined like a puzzle. (Yeah, that was real attractive.) But our incredibly small Hercules always figured out a way to move the chairs or wiggle his way through them. Finally, I saw a perfect solution in one of those parent magazines sitting in the doctor’s office. A mom suggested using one of those an interlocking foam floor mat such as this one to cover the hearth. Brilliant. We tried it and I’m happy to say, it works! (At least until Andrew discovers how to disconnect it.)

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That was almost four years ago, when Andrew looked like this.

Two years later, the baby proofing was done for John-Paul.

Now it is Matthew’s turn.

We needed to replace the floor mat and I wanted to find something that looked a little less “day care center,” trying to keep at least one room in the house free of toy overload.

I found this one in wood tones, which works so much better for us. The color matches the room and they don’t have the letters that the boys can pop out. We are very pleased with the results. They no longer sell the one I bought but Amazon has this one and this one, which are similar.

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I first heard about Roma Downey’s (did you know she was Catholic?) new DVD Little Angels at CatholicMom.com. The site has background info and is also running a contest to win an autographed copy of the DVD. (I entered!)
Here is the introduction from LittleAngels.com.

Discover the joy of learning and friendship with a heavenly new collection! From Executive Producer Roma Downey (“Touched by an Angel”) and Writer Phil Lollar (“Adventures in Odyssey”) comes the much-anticipated faith-based educational series, LITTLE ANGELS, soaring onto DVD from Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment.
LITTLE ANGELS is an animated DVD series created exclusively for preschool-aged children to teach not only practical learning skills, like ABCs and 1,2,3s, but also to introduce them to the spiritual, moral and ethical principles of the Bible. Of course, we think it’s terrific! (We might be biased…) But don’t just take our word for it – for the first time in their organization’s history, MOPS (Mothers of Preschoolers) has awarded a Seal-of-Approval to LITTLE ANGELS.

And here is a sneak peek. 🙂 It looks cute and educational!

(Sorry for the late post. I was having trouble with the blog but better late than never.)

~ Capturing the context of contentment in everyday life ~

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My sister and my parents were visiting a few days ago and my sister took this photo of the ocean on her morning run. I am sure it was a nice break from the desert heat!

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School has started – Andrew is in his first year of preschool and Bella starts 4th grade. They are growing too fast!

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After a long first day of school Andrew wanted to unwind on the couch with my iphone. It cracked me up.

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With my family visiting, I had ready and eager babysitters for the kids. My sister took this shot of Andrew and JP. She was watching them while I was getting my hair cut.

Brian and I even got to go out on a breakfast date over the weekend. Loved it! Special thanks to my familia. xoxo