~ 1 ~

I spent all week finishing up my You’re A Good Mom post and never got to finish my link-up posts. So today you get a trio post with Jen’s  7 Quick Takes, LMLD’s {pretty, happy, funny, real} and Kendra’s Answer Me This.

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{pretty}

The view from our deck.

~ 3~

{happy}

On Monday Brian and I went on a lunch date before he started Round 4 of chemo on Tuesday. We had lunch then walked around downtown Carmel.

I was super happy to go out with my sweetheart. 🙂

~ 4 ~
{funny}

Our hallway doubles as a parking garage.

I was in the other room and heard, “You can do it, Spidey!” 🙂

~ 5 ~
{real}

The other day it was really windy outside and the boys wanted to make paper airplanes to see if they’d fly. However, John-Paul insisted that we fly kites, even though we don’t have any. I compromised. We made the airplanes and got out the Tinker Toys to create make-shift airplane kites. They had a blast. 🙂

~ 6 ~
Now Answer Me This hosted by Kendra at Catholic All Year.

1. Do you have a smart phone?

I have an iPhone and it literally goes with me everywhere and holds so much of my stuff, it’s crazy.  I have the older 4S and plan to update it but I am waiting for the new iPhone 6 coming out in September. I remember that I bought my current iPhone in August of 2011 as an early birthday gift. I wanted to have it before I went into go into labor with John-Paul. I loved that I was able to post to post to Facebook and tweet labor updates as I was waking up and down the halls waiting for the contractions to get stronger. Here is one of the first photos taken with my phone.

2. Which is your favorite meal of the day?

Probably dinner since that is the meal in which we are all able to sit down together and eat. Lunch is usually something quick while I am running around picking up kids from pre-school. I am not a huge “breakfast food” fan. In fact this morning for breakfast I had a bowl on lentil soup. 😉

3. Shower or bath?

Definitely shower. I don’t have time to bathe and even if I did I am not brave enough to sit in our tub (where I shower the boys.) Scary.

4. Think of a person you love. How many days have you been in love with that person? (Don’t worry, this site will do the math for you. And, hey, now you can order this card!)

I can’t tell you the exact date I fell in love with Brian but I know I fell in love with him before I met him in person, so I will start it on the date I read his online profile and sent him an email. Have you heard this story? It is such a God-coincidence. In a nutshell –  Brian was in the seminary for 1 and 1/2 years but discerned it wasn’t his vocation. Someone recommended that he try to find a good Catholic girl on Ave Maria Singles.com. He came home, joined and started a novena to find the woman God meant to be his wife. On the last day of the novena he went to the chapel at the Carmel Mission, finished his novena prayers and told God that if he was meant to be married then God would just have to bring his future wife right to his doorstep. Later that night, God delivered his future wife on the doorstep of his computer. I also joined Ave Maria and sent my first email to him on the 9th day of the novena. A year later we were married at the Mission. 🙂 So I have been in love with Brian for 5,683 days. 🙂

5. What’s the best church you’ve ever been inside?

St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. Breathtaking.

6. Happy Feast of the Visitation (on Saturday!) Has anyone ever come to help YOU?

Me, Bella and my sisters Jacinta and Bridgette.

My family is always there when I need their help, even though we live 400 miles apart. (I am in Central CA and they are in So Cal.) My mom and my sisters were especially there when I needed them most – during baby births and while Brian was sick in the hospital. Even when it is not emergency, anytime they come they always help me out.  It’s not often that my entire family gets up here (I’m the oldest of 9) but I get the most visits from my parents and two of my three sisters. Elena is the only family member not living in California. I told her when Matthew turns 5 (in 2 years!) then we’d try to come to VA to visit them. 🙂

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It is late so I must say good night. Have a blessed Sunday! 🙂

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Hey, guys. I hope everyone is well. I took a long blogging break while we were out of town but I’m itching to get back online. I’ve spent the last couple of days catching up on FB and blogs, even though I still have 300+ unread posts in my reader. I was just going to delete everything in my Bloglovin feed and start over but then I wouldn’t have found out things like Micaela is pregnant (congrats!), my sis redesigned her blog and has a great post on motherhood (BTW, sis, am I exempt from the contest since we are related??) and Jen’s new book is out and there are TONS of cool contests to go with it. Like this one…

How easy it that? My sis is sending me an extra copy she had so I am paying it forward and purchasing the book for a friend, as well as a kindle version for myself when I’m on the go. Still not convinced to buy your own? Check out this promo video. You’ll see many of our fave authors and bloggers. My personal favorite excerpts are from Dwija (she also gets my vote for best selfie with the book), second is Bonnie and her Frozen rendition (she also has a great vlog review) and third is Hallie, just cuz I love her smile. 🙂

Anyway, to make up for lost time I am going to milk this post and link up with three awesome blogs – Jen for 7 Quick Takes, Like Mother Like Daughter for {pretty, happy, funny, real} (Refer to QT #2-5) and Kendra for Answer Me This (Refer to QT #7). Here we go…

~ 1 ~

As you may remember, in my last Online Daybook I shared about my frustration with Brian’s cancer and how hard it was to watch him deal with his chemo treatments. He was off chemo this week and I can’t tell you how happy it made me to see him back to his old self. I am relishing these days before he starts his next round of chemo on Monday. I just have to learn to cope and adjust accordingly.

I was thinking about a comment made by Angela, who is also fighting and going through cancer. She said:

Bobbi! You know you and Brian have my prayers! Chemo is rough. Cancer stinks. It exhausts the living daylights out of the recipient AND their families. However..it doesn’t last forever. We can do ANYTHING for a period in our lives, because God equips us daily for the task at hand, and all we have to do is be thankful for the gift of the day…

I love that last line because we can apply it to anything in any season of our life – whether we are sleep deprived moms with little ones or seasoned moms worrying about older kids or single women dealing with other issues.

We can do ANYTHING for a period in our lives, because God equips us daily for the task at hand, and all we have to do is be thankful for the gift of the day.

So we were thankful for the week of no chemo treatments and took advantage by planning a trip to So Cal to visit with my family.

~ 2, 3, 4 & 5 ~

{pretty, happy, funny, real}

We slept in and didn’t leave the house until 5:45 AM but we are excited and ready to go.

On Highway 101.

Okay, 5:45 AM may not seem like sleeping in but ideally, we get up at 3 AM and are on the road by 4 AM so we can knock out the first half of the trip while the kids are sleeping. Sleeping in was great but when the kids were up and asking, “Are we there yet?” at 6 AM you start to wish you got up at 3. At least the drive was pretty. I LOVE when I see the green hills on one side of the road and the gorgeous Pacific Ocean on the other side of the road. It makes up for other Cali craziness. 😉

I really needed this trip! I needed to get a hug from my mom and my dad. I needed to laugh with my siblings. I needed to see my husband smile again and just relax. We had a going away/early bday party for my brother-in-law Mick who will soon be deployed to Afghanistan. The next day we all headed further south to spend the day with my brother Rob, my sis-in-law Maria and their two sweet little boys Max and Philip.

Laughing with my brother Rob. Poor Andrew is thinking, “Never mind the chatting, mom. Please feed me.” (Photo courtesy of my sis-in-law Maria. Hope you didn’t mind me posting it, Maria! ;-))

My boys had so much fun playing basketball in their backyard. They had never played before and Brian was trying to teach them how to shoot a basket.

Andrew really started to let lose and got the hang of the game. I think he may have found a new favorite sport.

Matthew was ready to use his super powers to make a basket.

Bella enjoyed her time with my sister Jacinta. We laugh because Bella looks just like Jacinta as a girl. She’s her mini-me. (And to this day I will still sometimes call Bella by the name Jacinta.)

Later that night we headed to Disneyland for a couple of days. Little did we know that Cali was going to have a heat wave.

We took this photo at 5 PM when it was still 93 degrees out. (93!)

But we still managed to have fun…

…and keep a smile on our faces.

Well, except for John-Paul. Matthew loves walking but JP does not like heat, noise or too many people. So Disneyland had him in conflicted emotions. But the HIGHLIGHT of Disneyland was their favorite show – The Jedi Training.

At the previous shows we’ve seen, Darth Vader and the Storm Troopers were the only villains to be fought but this time they included Darth Maul as well. I’ve got to admit I was geeking out with the whole thing. 😉

All in all, the trip was a lot of fun. Of course, we had the usual moments when the kids were cranky or running wild in the hotel room and I got frustrated and told Brian that we will never again take a trip like this! But like labor, you soon forget all the pain and only remember all the joy and before you know it, you are planning to do it all over again. 😉

Seriously, this last photo shows that it all worth it…having fun together and the kids spending special time with Brian was awesome.

~ 6 ~

May the 4th

Source

Speaking of Star Wars, don’t forget that tomorrow/today is May the 4th, Star Wars Day! (As in May the 4th be with you… I had to explain it to Brian. He didn’t get it. LOL.)

You’ll find lots of Star Wars themed items out there but I found this one to be particularly interesting. It is a Jedi Work Out. If you can’t get to the Downsize Fitness in Dallas to participate, no worries. There is also a home version you can do. So grab your light saber and get to working out with Light Saber Leaps and Help Me Obiwan Kenobi Squats. Love it. 🙂

~ 7 ~

For my last take, I’ll do a quick Answer Me This.

1. Are you becoming your mother?

Haha! Yeah, there are a lot of little things that I act like my mom. When we were at my parent’s house last weekend my mom was explaining something to my dad (in minute detail) and Brian started laughing saying, “That sounds just like you.” When I act silly or funny with the kids they laugh and giggle and it reminds me of my mom’s playful sense of humor. I’ll find that I have many of the same little house rules like you are NEVER to leave a toilet paper roll empty or if you open the last (fill-in-the-blank) from the pantry, you MUST write it down on the shopping list. I remember as a kid how I used to cringe when I went shopping with my mom because there would always be a situation when she’d complain (granted, politely) because something didn’t ring up on sale or she was overcharged or some such thing. I thought I’d die of embarrassment. Now that I am a mom, I’ve inherited the “i-don’t-care-what-people-think” gene and have no problem correcting a shopping injustice, to the embarrassment of my own daughter. heehee

There are also moments when a negative aspect of my mom’s child rearing come out in me but thankfully, I usually detect it in time to stop myself or else apologize for it after the fact. That is one thing I treasure from my mom. She came from a difficult childhood and had a lot of issues to deal with as she parented her own children. She may have made mistakes but by the grace of God she broke the cycle of dysfunction and brought faith and a strong love of God into our family. She is the strongest person I know and my parents are proof that whatever problems you had in the past, they do not have to control your future. God can make you (and your family) new.

2. Coffee or tea?

I’m embarrassed to say, neither. I hate the taste of both. My coffee cup holds cold water.

3. What foreign country would you like to visit?

I’d love to go back to Rome (Brian and I went for our first anniversary in Jan 2000). I’d also love to visit where my in-laws grew up – Austria (my mom-in-law) and Slovania (my dad-in-law).

4. Do you cry easily?

Yes. I’m a sap…unless I’m mad. Then I refuse to cry.

5. How often do you wear heels?

Um, never. I do not believe in torture.

6. Do you play an instrument?

I play a mean Playskool xylophone, baby.

Have a great Sunday!! 🙂

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. 😉