Online Daybook – January Days 2015: A Wedding, Awards & Thoughts about Paul Coakley

By bobbi
January 21, 2015
8 Comments

Moments of Gratitude…

Today I am especially thankful for

A last minute breakfast date this morning with Brian.
The beginning of longer days and warmer weather.
Family and friends, near and far.
My father-in-law for taking all four kids to his house for a couple hours on Friday. They love it and I enjoy the weekly down time.
A warm home, running water and food on the table.
Sweet hugs and precious kisses.

Beauty in the Ordinary…

I’ve been loving Blessed Is She’s photo challenge #projectblessed. Here is one of my favorite shots for the theme “morning glory.” This is what I saw that morning on my walk.

In the Kitchen…

It’s an off dinner week since Brian is working the late shift tonight and will miss dinner. On Thursday he is fasting for his medical tests and Friday he has to eat very light once his tests are over. So mostly clear broth for him and soup and sandwiches for us.

Praying…

For all those suffering from cancer and other illnesses.
For those who have lost loved ones, especially those that died suddenly.
For the depressed, lonely and mentally ill.
For all the pregnant mamas and those trying to get pregnant.
For all those who have asked for our prayers.
For the souls in purgatory.
For some special intentions.

On the homefront……

Jacob and Amanda

Life has slowed down just a tad now that the holidays are over. A couple weeks ago my younger brother Jacob was married to his sweet bride Amanda.

The wedding cake. Amanda used the wedding figures from her parents’ wedding. So sweet!

The trip to SoCal went surprisingly well and it was a JOY to be reunited with all my family members. I am the oldest of nine and we were all there. Even my sister in VA was able to fly in with her husband (and their youngest) to attend the wedding.

My beautiful sisters. It’s funny how Bridgett and Jacinta in the middle look alike while Elena and I on the ends look alike. 🙂

My handsome brothers.

Can you believe that I FORGOT my big camera?? Well, Matthew told me not to worry. He took shots with his Leapster camera. Aw, a boy after my own heart.

Luckily Amanda’s mom took this great shot of the boys at the wedding. (Thanks, Carol!)

Now that we are back home, it is back to school and I am busy with my room mom activities. (Wait, tell me again why I volunteered for this?) The rest is just life in general.

Brian Update…

Brian had to go into work later for an evening meeting so we decided to go out to breakfast.

I took extra time to get ready and look nice for Brian. Matthew saw me and explained, “Mama! You look so clean and shiny!” It was a nice compliment until I wondered, well, what the heck do I look like the other days?? 😉

Walking hand in hand downtown reminded me of our early years of marriage. I still sometime pinch myself to see if I am really dreaming. How did I deserve such a man.

Not the best picture because we both kept laughing that I was too short and had a hard time getting in the shot but I like it because it reminds me of how much fun we have together. 🙂

A couple of people have asked me how Brian is doing and if you don’t follow along on Facebook or Instagram, on Friday he goes for his big annual testing for cancer. (He also has bloodwork done quarterly.) In 2013 is when they first found the cancer. In 2014 is when the cancer came back. We are praying that in 2015 he is cancer free! We truly appreciate all your prayers and messages you leave us. Brian is amazed that so many people are asking and praying. I assure you he is on his knees every day praying for you too. (Me too! I just don’t stay on my knees as ling as I should!)

Pondering…

Praying for Brian and knowing that his test is coming up has me a little worried. Part of me is just leaving it all in the hands of God but the other part of me is still a little worried.

Photo Credit: Team Paul and Ann Coakley

It has especially been hard today (Tuesday, Jan 20) since Paul Coakley died this afternoon. If you don’t know him or haven’t been following along on Facebook, Paul was a young dad and Franciscan University alumni married to Ann. They have three young children and Ann is pregnant with their 4th. (They also have 4 babies in heaven.) It was just a month ago that they found out that Paul had cancer. It was already advanced and Paul fought valiantly but he was called home today.

Through it all Ann’s faith and trust in God has been amazing. In one of her posts she shared that at the end she told Paul, “If God was calling him home we both had to accept that. I would take care of our babies here and he could go play with our four angels in heaven.” That just breaks my heart. I pray I would never have to say that to Brian (or he to me) for many, many years to come. But if I did, then I pray that I can have the same grace of surrender. Please remember the Coakley family in your prayers. I can’t even imagine what they are going thought right now, especially Ann and the little ones wondering when their Daddy will come back home. (Now, excuse me while I go get a kleenex to wipe the makeup I just cried off.)

Okay, I’ve composed myself and am back at the keyboard. I struggle with situations like these. I can’t help but think, why bother praying for a person’s recovery if God is going to take them away anyway. What use is our prayers? Deep in my heart I know our prayers are valuable and that Paul and the family received much grace – grace of a peaceful death and strength to endure the cross they are bearing. I know that I cannot see all that God sees and the countless lives and souls that Paul’s death has touched. Even now, as I sit hear crying to God, God has taken this opportunity to draw me closer to Him. To remind me that this life is fragile and that we are not our own, but children of God. He knows the bigger picture and the blessings that this particular cross will bring.

Paul sparked that. A man I didn’t know existed a week ago and yet he has touched the lives of all of us in the family as we prayed for him. God knows exactly what miracles that will take place because of Paul’s life and fight at the end. So while, I still struggle with it, I do accept that our prayers are efficacious, but only God knows exactly how. I can only imagine how many more lives Paul will help now that he is united with God. (Okay, I need another kleenex. I should just keep a darn box on my desk.)

UPDATE: Just as I was about to publish this, I saw this beautiful post from Paul’s’ close friend Mary – Did God Answer Our Prayers…

Around the house…

Ugh, there are many problem areas! I just finished putting away the last of the Christmas decor last week. Now I have the spring cleaning bug. (In Cali spring arrives in January.) As I mentioned in my 2015 goal list, I signed up for A Bowl Full of Lemon’s Home Organization 101: 14 Week Challenge. This week I am working on the pantry. (I think my record so far has been finding a food item that expired 5 years ago.)

UPDATE: I’m actually switching my cleaning challenge. I’ll complete the more intense ABFOL challenge later in spring but for now I am doing the 31 Day to Clean: Having A Martha House the Mary Way hosted by Christian blogger and author Sarah Mae. God has been putting Mary and Martha into my life left and right! I’ve already started and I must say, it is just what I needed! I’ll blog more about it soon. 🙂

Reading…

I know I said that I wasn’t going to buy any more books until I finished the huge stack of books I started last year, but I had to get one more to help me with my Theme of 2015. I lot of people have said it was good but I just started. I’ll post about it as I go along.

Having a Mary Heart in a Martha World: Finding Intimacy With God in the Busyness of Life

Listening to…

Silence. (This can’t be good. I better check on the kids.)

Watching…

Well, you already know I am watching Downton Abbey and commenting on the episodes here but Brian and I just started two new shows.

The first is Grantchester. We only say the first episode but Brian and I both liked it. We are big mystery fans and it reminded us of the Fr. Brown Mysteries only with a cuter clergyman. It stars James Norton (who was also on Death Comes to Pemberley) as Sydney Chambers, a young clergy man who doesn’t seem like your typical man of the cloth. He enjoys jazz music, drinking whiskey and spending time with a female best friend (whom he secretly loves but she doesn’t return the feelings.) Yet, he also seems introspective, spiritual, has a heart for helping people and is fighting some PTSD from the war. The first episode has the usual violence with a murder (nothing graphic) and a flashback of a couple having an affair but again, nothing too graphic as long as no kids are in the room. Anyway, if you already saw it, what did you think?

The other show we started watching was one of the Marvel “comic book shows” Agent Carter. I was pleasantly surprised at how much I liked it. I love the 40’s setting and the clothes and hairstyles and ruby red lips and the butt-kicking lady in a skirt and heels was a nice touch too. It was a fun diversion. 🙂

On the blog…

In the past two week I posted:

Pinterest Party & Link-up (vol 34): Epiphany Party Add your post. It is open until the end of January!

TV Talk: Downton Abbey, Season 5, Episode 2 Recap

Theme of 2015: Be Still

Goals for 2015 & Mini-Goals for January & February

Downton Abbey, Season 5: Episode 3 Recap

In the blogosphere…

It’s that time of year again! Time for Bonnie’s 2015 Sheenazing Awards. Yours truly was nominated for “Best Under Appreciated Blog.” (I have mixed emotions about that title. 😉 )

If you want to make me feel like a school kid picked first on the soft ball team, go give me a vote! 😉 You can read the full post here or just go straight to the voting page here. (You can skip any categories you are unfamiliar with.)

I am privileged to be nominated. (Thank you, whoever you guys are!) I know I am just a small blog with a small audience of friends but it’s still nice knowing that others appreciate the work I put into the blog. Ultimately I do it for fun and to connect with other Catholic women and to share my love of Our Lord. There are so many other small bloggers who are touching lives but aren’t as well known. Erica over at Saint Affairs had a great idea to do a link-up cerebrating our favorite lesser-known blogs. She says:

But what about all of the amazing Catholic blogs that didn’t make it onto those lists? Surely you know a few because I know I do. I would love to support all of them, let them know that their words are being read, that they are making a positive difference in the blogosphere, so let’s do a link-up.

Let’s do this!

Blogs That You May Not Be Reading, But You Should Be link-up

Visit Erica’s post here for more details!

Pinned…

I’ve been wanting to organize my books so I can lend them out (after I finally finish reading them.) When I do, I am going to use these Free Printable Library Cards.

Photo credit: clemen tinecreative.co.za

My sister just posted this on Facebook this morning. It seems very appropriate considering the thoughts that have been going through my head lately.

Plans for the Week…

Brian’s test, paying, attending a friend’s’ baptism and party, doc, ortho and dentist appts, and numerous school activities, especial during Catholic Schools Week.

And looking ahead, I am making plans to attend the Catholic Women Blogging Network California Conference in April! I am so excited that there is something I can attend on the west coast since I couldn’t make it to Edel this year. Will you be joining me???

Captured…

The prompt for the #projectblessed photo challenge was Childhood. I love the signs of childhood around our house. (The toys and Legos on the floor I can do without, but this was cute.) In the scene Darth Vader and Kanan are battling it out for the last remnants of banana bread. 😉

Have a blessed week!! 🙂

PS – You can follow RoL on Bloglovin, Feedly or another news feed. If you are a social media fan like me, we can stay in touch through Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, GoodReads, Letterboxd or Instagram. 😉

PPS – This post may contain affiliate links.

Pinterest Party & Link-up (vol 34): Epiphany Party

By bobbi
January 8, 2015
No Comments

(Sorry for the delay. This was supposed to be posted Tuesday!)

Welcome to the RoL Pinterest Party. Join me as we link up and share how we made, cooked, baked, crafted, planned, organized, followed or created one of the pins on our Pinterest boards OR share something original that others can pin onto their boards.

Not on Pinterest? No problem. Link-up your own creation to inspire us so we can pin in to our own boards. It can be a recipe, sewing project, Catholic craft, homeschool project, organizing/ homemaking tip, themed birthday party, whatever you’d like.

Don’t have a post ready? The link-up will be open for a month so there’s still time. Plus, feel free to link up a new post or an older post that hasn’t had much traffic lately. 🙂

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Since we celebrated the Epiphany this week, I thought it would be appropriate to do this month’s Pinterest Party about the Epiphany party we hosted last year.

We invited a number of local Catholic families so we had Packer football for the guys. (Brian stipulated that I could have a party only if he could still watch his game. 😉 ) We had a simple craft for the kids and the moms didn’t need direction since they know how to fill the hours with conversation and laughter without any help. 🙂

We started out the day with a blessing of our house. There is a long blessing that you can find at Catholic Culture.org –Catholic Prayer: Blessing of the Home on Epiphany. With a big crowd we kept it simple and just said the last part of the blessing:

Leader: Let us pray. Bless, O Lord God almighty, this home, that in it there may be health, purity, the strength of victory, humility, goodness and mercy, the fulfillment of Thy law, the thanksgiving to God the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit. And may this blessing remain upon this home and upon all who dwell herein. Through Christ our Lord.

All: Amen.

We then marked our door.

Epiphany Blessing of the House // Revolution of Love Blog

Laci and Catholic Icing explains the meaning of the markings. (She also has some great Epiphany crafts here.)

Here’s what the chalked markings on the door mean: The “20″ is for the first 2 numbers of the year, the 3 letters are the first Initial of each of the kings (Caspar, Melchior, and Balthasar) and the last 2 numbers are the last half of the year. The “C, M, B also stands for the Latin blessing Christius Mansionem Benedicat which means “May Christ Bless this House”.

The writing for 2015 would look like this:

20 + C + M + B + 15

As a small gift to each family, we placed in a ziploc bag a copy of the blessing prayer and a stick of chalk to bless their own house.

Once the prayers and blessings were said, the party could start. To keep the food simple, I set up a table with a taco salad bar with the basics – tortilla chips, ground turkey meat, homemade – healthier refried beans, lettuce, cheese, tomatoes, guac, salsa and sour cream. I also had the tortilla grill ready to make quesadillas for any of the littles who preferred that.

I forgot to take a photo of the table before all the food was devoured but I did get a snap of someone’s taco salad.

For the dessert table, we had fruit, Mexican sweet bread and an Epiphany cake

For the epiphany cake, my friend found a bakery (for you locals, it’s Parker Lusseau in Monterey, CA) that made a gluten free version, complete with a little figurine baked inside for someone to find. It was delicious!

When the meal was finished we had simple crafts for the kids. They could make cards or little gift boxes for Baby Jesus.

We also had crowns – plain ones to be decorated and colored ones for those who wanted them already complete.

Since it was the beginning of the year, I wanted to do a tradition we often did in our home when we were older kids. We’d each pick out of a hat a card with the name of a saint and a virtue we’d work on that year. It was always a fun activity and sometimes the virtue we’d pick was spot on. (Why did I keep getting patience? I’d ask myself. 😉 )

I made a Word document with a saint photo, quote and virtue then cut the cards out. I made enough for each person on the guest list. I separated the cards by groups – moms, dads, teen girls and teen boys, then had the guests chose a random card.

For the moms I picked saints and quote like these:

Love – “Spread love everywhere you go: first of all in your own house. Give love to your children, to your wife or husband, to a next door neighbor… Let no one ever come to you without leaving better and happier. Be the living expression of God’s kindness; kindness in your face, kindness in your eyes, kindness in your smile, kindness in your warm greeting.” –Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta

Perseverance – “Let us love the Cross and let us remember that we are not alone in carrying it. God is helping us. And in God who is comforting us, as St. Paul says, we can do anything.” –St. Gianna Beretta Molla

Greater Love of God – “Pure love is capable of great deeds, and it is not broken by difficulty or adversity. As it remains strong in the midst of great difficulties, so too it perseveres in the toilsome and drab life of each day. It knows that only one thing is needed to please God: to do even the smallest things out of great love – love, and always love.” –St. Faustina

Silence – “We need to find God, and he cannot be found in noise and restlessness. God is the friend of silence. See how nature – trees, flowers, grass- grows in silence; see the stars, the moon and the sun, how they move in silence… We need silence to be able to touch souls.” — Blessed Mother Teresa

Prayer – “A soul arms itself by prayer for all kinds of combat. In whatever state the soul may be, it ought to pray. A soul which is pure and beautiful must pray, or else it will lose its beauty; a soul which is striving after this purity must pray, or else it will never attain it; a soul which is newly converted must pray, or else it will fall again; a sinful soul, plunged in sins, must pray so that it might rise again. There is no soul which is not bound to pray, for every single grace comes to the soul through prayer.” –St. Faustina

Make Small Sacrifices for Love of Christ – “Miss no single opportunity of making some small sacrifice, here by a smiling look, there by a kindly word; always doing the smallest right and doing it all for love.” –St. Thérèse de Lisieux

For the dads, saints like these:

Forgiveness – “If a man finds it very hard to forgive injuries, let him look at a Crucifix, and think that Christ shed all His Blood for him, and not only forgave His enemies, but even prayed His Heavenly Father to forgive them also.” –Saint Philip Neri

Love – “Real love is demanding. I would fail in my mission if I did not tell you so. Love demands a personal commitment to the will of God.” –Pope John Paul II

Peace – “Keep your soul at peace, in order to be able to be attentive and very faithful to the inner movement of the Holy Spirit.” –Saint Peter Julian Eymard

Patience – “The truly patient man neither complains of his hard lot nor desires to be pitied by others. He speaks of his sufferings in a natural, true, and sincere way, without murmuring, complaining, or exaggerating them.” — St. Francis de Sales

Obedience to God – ”Obedience is a virtue of so excellent a nature, that Our Lord was pleased to mark its observance upon the whole course of His life; thus He often says, He did not come to do His Own will, but that of His Heavenly Father.” –Saint Francis of Sales

Prayer – ‘We must speak to God as a friend speaks to his friend, servant to his master; now asking some favor, now acknowledging our faults, and communicating to Him all that concerns us, our thoughts, our fears, our projects, our desires, and in all things seeking His counsel.’ –St. Ignatius of Loyola

For the teen girls, saints like these:

Purity – “Those whose hearts are pure are the temples of the Holy Spirit.” –St. Lucy

Obedience – “My daughter, know that you give Me greater glory by a single act of obedience than by long prayers and mortifications.” –St Faustina

Pray for the Conversion of Sinners – “I wish, oh Jesus, that my voice could reach to the ends of the world, to call all sinners and tell them to enter into Thy Heart….Oh, if only all sinners would come to Thy Heart!… Come! Come sinners, do not be afraid! The sword of Justice cannot reach you Here!” –St Gemma Galgani

Courage in Living Your Faith – “Proclaim the truth and do not be silent through fear.” — St. Catherine of Siena

Be a Witness for Christ – “Be who God meant you to be and you will set the world on fire.” ― St. Catherine of Siena

For the teen boys, saints like these:

Faithfulness / Fidelity to God – “Fidelity in little things must be the basic rule in striving for holiness,” –Gabriel of Our Lady of Sorrows

Courage in Living Your Catholic Faith – “When God is with us, we do not need to be afraid.” –Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati

Greater Love for Jesus in the Eucharist – “Do you want many graces? Go and visit the Blessed Sacrament often. Do you want few graces? Visit the Blessed Sacrament rarely. Do you want none at all? Then never pay a visit to the Blessed Sacrament,” –St. Dominic Savio

I think the party was a success. I know we had fun and enjoyed everyone’s company. The moms in our group usually get together but it was nice to do something where the dads and kids were involved too. Hopefully we can host another Epiphany party next year. 🙂

Okay, that was my idea for the month. You can find the Pinterest pin for this party here – http://www.pinterest.com/pin/239676011395224224/.

You can find me on Pinterest here – http://www.pinterest.com/rol_bobbi.

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Now it’s your turn! Share something creative you’ve done. 🙂

1. Choose your creation, share about it and snap a photo if you can.

2. In your post, link back the original blogger/idea, rather than your Pinterest pin. That way credit goes to the proper person. 🙂 (But feel free to add your Pinterest profile link so we can follow you!)

3. Add a link back here so others can play along.

4. If you want to use it, here is the html code for the logo:

5. Link up below. Make sure you’re sending us to your actual post, and not to your general blog address.

The link up will be active the whole month. Have fun!

PPS – This post may contain affiliate links.

An InLinkz Link-up

Online Daybook (12/22/14): December Days

By bobbi
December 22, 2014
5 Comments

Moments of Gratitude…

Today I am especially thankful for

A bit of a respite after a busy week(s)
All the recent rain.
Having 75% of my gift wrapping done.
Finally finishing and mailing out our Christmas cards and family letter.
Christmas vacation
For one more week of Advent. (May I make the most of it!)
For 15 years of marriage with the man of my dreams. (Actually he is above and beyond my dreams!)

Beauty in the Ordinary…

After a day of stormy weather, that moment when the sun comes out and everything looks fresh and clean.

Raindrops everywhere.

In the Kitchen…

The kitchen smells of the yummy goodness of coconut granola to be given as gifts.

S – Roasted turkey breast, corn bread stuffing, mashed potatoes and green beans. (Since I had an extra turkey I popped it in the oven today so we’d have plenty of leftovers for the next couple of days.

M – Turkey sandwiches.

T – Turkey enchiladas & salad.

W – Minestrone soup and grilled cheese. (A quick dinner since we are going to Christmas Eve Mass.)

Th – Christmas dinner at my in-laws.

F – Leftovers.

S – Date Night/ Eat Out.

S – Anniversary Dinner (Haven’t decided yet. 🙂 )

Praying…

For my single friends looking for a holy spouse.
For all those suffering from troubled marriages.
For those suffering from loss, depression and loneliness during the holidays.
For those separated from their loved ones, especially for the military and their families.
For the victims of violence and all those affected by it.
For peace within the hearts of all people.

On the homefront……

This past week was so crazy. It was packed with school events and being Andrew’s first grade room mom, I also had some special school projects to complete. Friday was my busiest day and I left the house in a whirlwind – the kitchen looked like it exploded. I got everything done but you know how you can go, go, go, go, go and then when you are done you just break down. Yeah, well that was me. On a normal day, the hundred little things that go wrong are expected and dealt with but my nerves were so fried that I couldn’t take it anymore and when Brian got home I handed him the reigns and went to the bathroom for a good cry. Thankfully, that’s all I really needed and I was back to normal.

The next day, the first day of our vacation, I just stood home and turned on the Christmas music and finished my Christmas cards and the last of my packages. The kids worked on their Christmas gifts and the house felt peaceful once again.

Pondering…

The best moments this Advent have been the simple and unexpected things such as…

Unexpectedly joining Bella to sing Christmas carols with her youth group at a local convalescent home.

Or making smores on a cold and rainy day. Matthew was amazed we could have a beach bonfire in our home. (We haven’t used our fireplace much.)

I’m glad we still have one more week of Advent. No matter how good (or bad) the past three weeks have been, we still have the home stretch to refocus our eyes on the Christ Child and make the most of our days before Christmas. 😉

Around the house…

Twinkling lights and Christmas smells. (Unless you go into the boys room or the family room. Then it is just mess, mess, mess. Seriously, I have to do another quick charity bin collection before Christmas morning comes!)

Reading…

I haven’t been reading much lately but the two that are on my nightstand (or in my kindle) are…

The Grace of Yes: Eight Virtues for Generous Living by Lisa Hendey

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

Listening to…

Christmas at Downton Abbey

Normally, I am a hot cocoa and Bing Crosby or Nat King Cole Christmas music type of person but today I was feeling like tea and biscuits with a lovely Christmas choir. Not to mention that Julian Ovenden, who sings a couple of songs, has an amazing voice! He is the actor that plays Mary’s suitor Charles Blake. (#teamblake) I’ve been a fangirl since he was on Foyle’s War and played Foyle’s son Andrew. (I was watching a lot of Foyle’s War when I chose the name of my first born son. ;-)) Cora also sings a couple songs and Carson reads Twas the Night before Christmas. Fun!

Watching…

(At the Movies)

Tonight we will start watching The Hobbit in preparation for our movie night next weekend to see The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies. Although I go to the movies alone regularly (after the kids are asleep), movies out with my sweetie seem to happen only once a year!

(On TV)

Now that our regular shows are on Christmas hiatus we are catching up with past seasons of Downton Abbey in preparation for Season 5, which starts Jan 4th.

(On Youtube)

When Bella and I need a laugh we watch this together.

On the blog…

It’s been quiet with the holidays. 🙂

In the blogosphere…

I haven’t had time to read any of my favorite blogs but since we’re on Christmas vacation now I am hoping to catch up!

Photo Credit: Blessed Is She.net

However, I do know that over at Blessed Is She.net Monday is my day to share my thoughts on the day’s Scripture readings. Here is a snippet…

In a few short days, Christmas will be here. Every year I resolve to make this a holy Advent and not to get wrapped up in the commercialism or the busyness of the season and really prepare my heart to receive the Christ Child. Inevitably, I reach a point where I am stressing out over everything that I have to finish. My tendency, besides skipping prayer all together, is to rush through my daily devotional so I can check “prayer” off the To Do list and get back to my stressful day.

Today’s Gospel is challenging me to look at this day in a different way by focusing on Mary’s attitude. Today’s Gospel is challenging me to look at this day in a different way by focusing on Mary’s attitude. Here she was newly pregnant and in a situation that was less than ideal—how is she going to explain this to Joseph? What will other people think? What will this mean for her future life? However, instead of stressing, she responds with humility and docility to God’s will.

Continue reading here.

Pinned…

I am going to make this to go with our Christmas brunch – Christmas Tree Fruit Platter: 🙂

Photo credit: The First Year Blog.com

Plans for the Week…

The obvious things – finish our last minute Christmas prep, Christmas Eve Mass, Christmas/ Jesus’ birthdya party in the morning, Christmas dinner at my in-laws and on the weekend Brian and I will celebrate our 15th wedding anniversary. We debated whether or not to do a fancy dinner but we opted for dinner and a movie instead.It’s more “us.” 😉

Captured…

The joy of jumping in puddles in the rain.

The kids had their Christmas performances this week and I forgot to bring my “real” camera!

If I don’t leave a note on the door, I tend to forget. Sigh.

So I snapped a few pics on my camera instead so my mom and dad could see them. 🙂

Have a blessed Christmas!! 🙂

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Throwback Thursday: At This Time Two Years Ago…

By bobbi
December 11, 2014
No Comments

One of my favorite things about Thursdays on Instagram is #tbt when you repost photos from your past. I was looking at some older posts and was smiling at these photos I took this week in December two years ago. It’s funny how some things change and some things stay the same. (I’m looking at you daredevil Matthew.) 😉 So here is my Throwback Thursday photo post just for fun.

* * * * *

~ Capturing the context of contentment in everyday life ~

Here are my favorite photos and instagrams of the week.

{pretty}

From Day 12 of #adventphotoaday – My favorite photo of Mary. I think I already mentioned this icon when I redid our bedroom but it is still one of my favorites. I got it shortly before I met Brian and I took it with me to all the kids’ births. Whenever we travel, it is always set up in our hotel room.

Our Lady of Guadalupe that hangs in our home.

{happy}

Andrew was sporting his James Dean hair for 50’s Day and he was excited to be holding the cookies he decorated at school. (He made sure to decorate four so he could give one to each of the his brothers and sister. That is so sweet…even though he didn’t bring one for me. 😉

{funny}

We keep our shoes on a shelf by the front door. It works out well until Matthew decides to rearrange the shoes. Brian texted me from work and showed me what he landed out wearing that day. That gives whole new meaning to casual Friday. LOL.

{real}

Speaking of my little spit fire, it’s been awhile since Matthew has tried to give me a heart attack. He is usually not allowed in the bathroom but one of the boys left the door open and he made a run for it. The kid is a fast worker.

Have a great evening!

Pinterest Party & Link-up (vol 33): Slow Cooker Rotisserie-Style Chicken

By bobbi
December 2, 2014
2 Comments

Don’t have a post ready? The link-up will be open for a month so there’s still time. Plus, feel free to link up a new post or an older post that hasn’t had much traffic lately. 🙂

PLEASE NOTE: Because we are entering the busy season of the holidays, I will be doing the Pinterest Party only once a month. It will be every first Tuesday of the month and the link up will be open for 30 days, so there is plenty of time to join the fun! 🙂

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With the busyness of the holidays, we can all use some quick dinner recipes. The first time I cooked a whole chicken in a crock pot I was a little apprehensive but I’ve learned to love it! I changed the ingredients a bit, but I got my inspiration from the recipe for CrockPot Rotisserie-Style Chicken from A Year of Slow Cooking.

Ingredients

(For the rub)

1 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp onion powder
1 tsp paprika
1 tsp Italian seasonings
2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
1/2 tsp dried thyme

(For inside the bird)

1-2 fresh thyme sprigs
1 onion, quartered
3-4 large garlic cloves
1 lime, quartered (You could also use a lemon or an orange.)

Directions

Remove the insides of the chicken and the skin. (You can leave it on if you prefer. Removing all the skin is not as easy as it sounds but I hate all the grease that comes with the skin.)

Mix the rub.

Place in the bird the fresh thyme, quartered onion, quartered lime, garlic and 1/4 of the rub.

Use the rest of the rub on the outside of the chicken.

Place the chicken breast side down in the slow cooker (without water). Cook 4-5 hours on high or 8 hours on low. Mine was done in four hours on high when I checked the temp of the dark meat. (When cooking a whole chicken I use an instant read thermometer to make sure the thigh has reached 165-175 degrees. Need a temp cheat sheet? Click here.)

Here is a picture of our finished product moments before it was devoured by the family. (Remind me to ask for a serving platter for Christmas.) 😉

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