Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Welcome, Baby Julianne!
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Recent Holy Day Celebrations
Caroline ate three or four of them!!
We also thought about burning last year's palms, since we didn't on Ash Wednesday, but we didn't get around to that... maybe we'll do it sometime during Holy Week and put the ashes into our garden! We did get new palms at church and placed them behind a crucifix in our home.
Labels:
arts and crafts,
food,
Lent,
Liturgical year
Caroline's 5th Birthday!
Caroline opened presents first. This one is from Mommy and Daddy.
Here she is wearing her helmet (which came with knee and elbow pads).
Friday, March 26, 2010
Kids Say the Darndest Things Friday
My brother and his wife had their first baby, Julianne, on Monday - yay!!! At one point, I was talking on the phone to my mom when they were still laboring in the hospital. Caroline wanted to talk to Gramma, so I gave her the phone and heard the following conversation:
Caroline: "Why hasn't Julianne been born yet?"
Gramma: "She's just not quite ready to come out yet."
Caroline: "Maybe she's shy."
Gramma: (amused) "Hmm, maybe."
Caroline: "Yeah... because she doesn't know anybody on the outside yet."
Another humorous thing Caroline said... she asked me "What was that green bottle that was on the table at our St. Patrick's Day party." "Sprite," I told her, and explained that it was sort of like Coke, and that she'd probably think it was "spicy." She said that at her Mother's Morning Out class they had served Sprite on St. Patrick's Day as well, and she tried a sip and didn't like it at all... then she said, "And some of the other kids liked it! Ivan and Myah, they even asked for more!"
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
100% Whole Wheat Pretzels (and St. Joseph!)
I couldn't resist posting the photo above because of the look on Cecilia's face!
Whole Grain Soft Pretzels
from Whole Foods for the Whole Family
1 T yeast
1 1/2 cups warm water
1 T honey
1 tsp salt
3 T oil
3 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
1/2 cup wheat germ
1 egg beaten w/ 1 T water for glaze
Dissolve yeast in water with honey in a bowl until bubbly. Stir in salt and oil and 2 cups of flour. Beat until smooth, then add wheat germ and remaining flour to make soft dough. Knead until smooth and elastic. let rise for 45-60 minutes or until doubled. Punch down and divide into 16 equal pieces. Roll into 16-inch long ropes and form into pretzel shapes (or whatever shape you wish, as we did!). Place pretzels on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper and let rise 20 minutes, then lower them gently into a pot of boiling water and baking soda (8 cups water and 2 T baking soda) and allow to boil about a minute, 3 pretzels at a time, if you want them to have the characteristic chewy texture. Otherwise, just bake them without boiling. Brush the glaze onto each pretzel and sprinkle with coarse salt, sesame seeds, poppy seeds, whatever. Bake at 400 degrees for about 20 minutes or until golden brown.
The much more discernible pretzel shape, unlike our last batch.
Then Caroline made this cross pretzel. She was excited to make different meaningful shapes.
Mmmm, fresh out of the oven!
And the last photo I have to share is from St. Joseph's feast day last Friday: we made the mini St. Joseph's altar found here. It was fun and cute - Caroline enjoyed it a lot! It made a nice centerpiece along with the daffodils that finally bloomed in our yard and the new St. Joseph holy card given to us by our priest at our church's weekly dinner before Stations of the Cross:
Labels:
baking,
food,
Lent,
Liturgical year,
saints,
St. Joseph,
St. Patrick's Day
Monday, March 22, 2010
For moms of infants and toddlers
Read this: Don't Blink. Beautiful.
Labels:
babies,
vocation of motherhood
Sunday, March 21, 2010
St. Patrick's Day Party!
We had shamrock mint cupcakes (seen above) with some slight alterations due to my misunderstanding the recipe (they still tasted great!), along with other snacks that had a green or Irish theme. We also celebrated St. Joseph's feast day (a solemnity), which was on Friday - but the food and decorations were definitely a St. Patrick's theme!
Veggie and cheese tray arranged to look like the Irish flag (idea stolen from here!)
Here's our table, with shamrock stickers all over the tablecloth courtesy of Caroline... there is guacamole in a bowl alongside a bowl of tortilla chips, and another bowl of green grapes!
These shamrock toasties were last on the table once they came out of the oven... yummy!
Katelyn, Caroline, and Brianna enjoy their snacks!
Good St. Patrick traveled far to teach God's Holy Word.
And when he came to Erin's sod, a wondrous thing occurred.
He plucked a shamrock from the earth and held it in his
hand to symbolize the Trinity that all might understand.
The first leaf for the Father, the second for the Son,
the third for the Spirit, three of them in one.
Labels:
food,
friends,
Liturgical year,
parties,
saints,
St. Patrick's Day
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
Trip to Illinois!
We got to take a long weekend trip to Southern Illinois this past weekend. So, what is in Southern Illinois, you might ask? Well, nothing, really... but it was the halfway point between us and our friends who moved a year and a half ago. So we planned to meet there at a hotel with an indoor pool and just hang out together and let the kids have fun! Their sons, Matthew and Ryan, are about the same ages as our girls, and Caroline and Matthew were good friends... so they were excited to see each other again!
We went out to dinner at Bob Evans right near the hotel and then back to hotel - Cecilia crashed and slept until nearly 6 am without waking (unusual for her), she was so exhausted from a long day (my children do not nap in the car - weirdos, huh?). Caroline went to bed too - later than usual for us since we were on Central time - but Kevin took Matthew to swim for a bit before bed, since he hadn't gotten to go swimming yet!
In the morning, we were up, dressed, and in the breakfast area at 7:00 Central... first dibs on breakfast! They had waffle irons and scrambled eggs, sausage, and biscuits, along with the more typical continental breakfast items such as bagels, instant oatmeal, cereal, and yogurt.
Since it was supposed to rain all day and was actually only drizzling very slightly off and on that morning, we decided to do something outside while we had the chance. There is a nature preserve nearby, so we went there to walk on a trail and see what else we could find to do there.
Cecilia lagged behind a bit....
...but she didn't mind!
Ryan and Cecilia were happy to scribble with crayons.
The artist at work... she takes it seriously! She had one of her feet up on the back of the chair at one point while she worked. ;)
Here is Matthew's "pinchy thing," which has bird info typed on it.
Cecilia found another kestrel picture to color.
After lunch at McAllister's Deli, we headed back to the hotel for naps - we even convinced Caroline to take one since she'd been up late the night before and would likely be up late again. So, after Cecilia slept for nearly two hours and Caroline for one (and Mommy too! ;), we went down to the pool. Unfortunately, we discovered that it was packed with people... it had to be way more people than cars in the parking lot, and we noticed that somebody was holding the door to let people in (you had to have your room key to get into the room where the pool was). So we assumed that these were random people whose friends were staying at the hotel and had invited a bunch of non-guests of the hotel. Kara went to mention this issue to the front desk... it was just not a pleasant swimming environment, being so loud and so loaded that there was barely room to move around. The people at the front desk explained that they rented the pool out for parties for $75 per hour! How disappointing, when we chose that hotel due to the indoor pool in large part! And time-wise, it didn't work out for us to come back at another time. Luckily, the crowd left after awhile, and we did get a good half hour of swim time without fifty other people in there!
Ryan claps after his ball knocks down some pins!
Cecilia chooses a ball... they were smaller than her head, ha ha!
Cecilia after pushing her ball onto the lane
After bowling, we went to dinner at a pizza restaurant called Walt's. They are "famous" for their double-decker pizza... yum!!! It was delicious! We also had the "taco nachos," which are supposed to be a favorite there as well, but the pizza took the prize in my opinion!
It was late again, especially considering daylight saving time beginning the next morning... by the time the girls got to sleep, it was past 10:00, soon to be 11:00 to us! But it was worth it for the fun we all had and the time spent with friends! Then the grown-ups all sat out in the hall and played cards and eating cookies that were provided at the front desk - mmm! I ate way too many of those while we were there!
The next morning, we had breakfast downstairs again and headed right out to Mass since it was Sunday. There were several small towns all within about a 15 mile radius of the hotel, and each small community had a Catholic church, so we had lots of options. We picked the one that worked best for us time-wise, about 10 minutes up the interstate. The girls did surprisingly well even though they'd had lots of excitement and less sleep over the past two days! Cecilia had a meltdown at the very end of Mass, during the announcements... pretty good that she made it that long!
Back at the hotel, we packed up while the kids played around in the rooms... we had adjoining rooms, with a "secret passage" doorway between them, and the kids took turns hiding and finding each other (mostly Caroline and Matthew, although Ryan played a bit as well). One of the best hiding places was in a cabinet in the dresser, under the microwave shelf! They also hid behind the curtains, in the closets (who ever heard of closets with actual doors in a hotel room?), and Matthew hid on a chair underneath his mom's coat, all curled up - he was so still that nobody knew where he was!
Since it was rainy and cold and we knew the kids would be cooped up in the cars soon, we went over to the McDonald's to let them climb in the play area. This was one of the best play areas in a McDonald's that I have seen in quite a while. It had lots of tunnels and nets up high, two or three tube slides, and it was just really big - almost like an old Discovery Zone or Jump 'n' Gym place. Matthew and Caroline kept very busy, while Ryan puttered around at the bottom and Cecilia climbed up, got scared or fell or overwhelmed, and had to have Chris climb up and rescue her. She went back up and it happened again... and then she finally decided to stay down close to the bottom! She was just so tired (but of course, not enough to fall asleep in the van on our almost three hour drive to Nashville! ;).
The adults were all still pretty full from breakfast, but the kids started getting hungry... Matthew and Ryan ate there in between playing, and we got some food to go and took it on the road for our lunch.
Just before we left, all four spent some time running around, being silly!
Happy, energetic children! They enjoyed spending time playing with their friends!
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