Love, Measured in Distance

A while back, Daniel came home from school and stated, "Mom, I missed you."
Continuing, "But I missed Dad more, his office is way farther away from school than our house is. That's why I missed him more."

Hidden Eyes

I heard Daniel's stroll going through my room as I was tidying up the bathroom, and before I saw him, I said, "Hello Danielson!"

Daniel replied, "How did you know?  Oh yeah, mom's have eyes on the back and sides of their heads!"
Me, "Oh, who told you that?"
Daniel, "I just knew it!"

Thank God for hidden eyes!  They may come in handy more than I think...

Have a Blessed Thanksgiving!

Rescue Hero's

Boys at play; thoughtful enough to include their baby brother:

"Come on, let's go, I've got the baby!"

Vocal gun noices, and planned out exit, carrying the baby through the house...

"I've got you guarded, ok.  Quick!"



*10 minutes later:

"Mom, we need to eat, will you feed him so he's ready when we're done."

A Slug-ger

There are just some things about boys that make me laugh! Maybe that's why God keeps gifting us with them: to bring humor to our lives. Some of you readers might not find the humor in this little story, but I am still chuckling. Maybe it's because I had to try and bottle the laughter up when it happened...thus no picture. These boys of mine don't need any encouragement!

John came strolling back into the bathroom this evening, after his shower, bare back, announcing, "Mom, can you get the slug off my back?"

I questioned him, "You have a slug on your back?"

"Yes, I can't reach it, Daniel put it there."

John turned around, and I didn't see a slug. It wouldn't surprise me if I did see a slug there. The boys have found slugs in the yard to feed to the fish. It's possible one of them snuck a slug into the house. It's also possible that one of them would think it is cool to see how a slug would crawl on someone else's back.

Daniel came giggling into the bathroom as I was telling John he didn't have a slug on his back. Try as I might, I could not keep a straight face as I looked at Daniel and his "slug".

Do you want to know what was crawling on John's bare back?

A big slimy booger!

aka slug

straight from Daniel's nose

Happy Birthday Daniel

Yes, your birthday was on June 20, but we just now got around to celebrating it! That's kinda how things go around here. It teaches you patience and flexibility. ;)

At Daniel's request, a Koi on the cake!

Dad traditionally makes the cakes!

Another fisherman!

In the footsteps of Grandpa and Luke.

Father's Day

Daddy got his Father's day gift on Friday, but I wanted to share with you John's view of Father's Day:

"But when is it going to be Kids Day?"

Yesterday, Daddy worked on remodeling the pond with the kiddos, and I played with his Father's day gift a bit.

Hey, the two shall become one, right?

*Here's some pond helping add on photos*

Dad and Luke

Vincent helping

And my favorite sequence:

Can you bring me that big rock?

Whoah, I'm stong!

But I can't believe that big rock made me all muddy.

Deep thoughts

By Daniel:

"Everyone in our family has a "p" in their name!"

He continues to name us all off...

"Mom, Dad, Daniel, (notice he is not going to forget himself) Gabrielle, Luke, Kathryn, Michael, John, Vincent, Gina, the baby. Huh, did you know we have almost 11 people in our family?!"

With a look of shock, "That's a lot!"

Back to the serious look, "But not if God gives us 10 more kids, then it would be 20. That's maybe enough. But I don't think we should have a thousand, that would be way too many. We would get way squashed in our house and no way would we fit in one room."

Job Search: Carpenter; Barber

JOB DESCRIPTION:

Must be able to use tools.

Must be precise!

Capable of removing/adjusting material to make a new look.

On the job training.

Commensurate with experience.

Bonus: bearing the name: JOSEPH!

Sign him up!

He has experience; yet, may benefit from on the job training!

Will you hire him?

Happy St. Joseph the Worker Day!

And whatever you do, in word or in deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him. -Colossians 3:17

FYI: precise, taken from the Latin word, praecis-, meaning 'cut short')

Wordless Wednesday

7 Quick Takes Friday (Vol 1)

Let's see if I can figure this out, 7 Quick Takes Friday, that is. I got this idea from another blogger, so be sure to visit her!

--1--

Spring is here: so is soccer! We set up fields and practices have begun. You may catch me chirping this spring: sometimes beautifully, sometimes a bit aggressively, but I’m happy to join the birdies. According to my dad, they know everything! ("A little birdie told me!") At least one does. Not me!

What part of springtime are you?

--2--

Michael received the sacrament of healing, Anointing of the Sick Sunday. Fr. explained and administered this sacrament during Mass. After the explanation, Michael, 7, whispers in my ear, “Should I go up there, Mom?” I told him that was fine, and then he wanted me to go up with him. I was proud of him and his understanding of the sacrament. I also had the terrible thought go through my head, ‘let’s just ask Father to do it later, so people don’t start asking what’s going on with him.’ We went up. Maybe I was the one who should be receiving the sacrament of healing with my attitude? It was beautiful and probably more moving for his mother.

--3--

Gina (the 2 year old 28 pound princess) playing with Rudy (the 5 month old 58 pound puppy):

Gina was playing fetch with Rudy down the hallway. One time Rudy tried to take the toy out of Gina’s hand. She clonked him on the head and told him, “No!” Then, “Sit!” Next, she gave him a big hug, “You’re my best friend, Rudy!” We now know what it takes to be a friend to Gina – listen and do whatever she tells you. You’ll have a friend for life. We’ve got to work on this control thing – I mentioned to my husband that someone needs to inform her that she is not an only child. My husband piped up, “she is much more well adjusted than only child. She knows many different personalities and manipulates each and everyone to get what she wants!

--4--

Daniel: Monday, for the first time, after taking 2 weeks off school, he sat down and did his work right away without complaints. Schoolwork this day was too easy. I didn’t know what to do with my extra time. He gets to put 5 jellybeans in the jar for doing his best work this year! (he did great M,T,W-NOT Thur. O well, it was fun while it lasted!)

About the jelly beans:

We keep a jar and jelly beans in our prayer room during Lent. (Gina got into them once this season, they are ‘her’ jelly beans, ya know.) Everytime we catch the kids doing something good – helping out extra, being kind to a sibling, etc, they get to put a colorful jellybean into the jar. The white beans are set aside with me. The black jelly beans are for poor behavior. They hate getting black jelly beans. The goal is to have the jar filled by Easter. On Holy Saturday night, the white jelly beans replace the black ones as a reflection that Jesus died to take away our sins and make us white again so we can enter Heaven.

--5--

Midnight madness: NO, not basketball, though my kids do enjoy keeping track of who’s winning the games for the NCAA tournament! Luke doesn’t think he can sleep tonight due to Memphis and Duke losses yesterday. Poor boy.

Our midnight madness was a bit different. Chalk it up with the “joys” of parenting. Maybe after the fact, God was rejoicing, but definitely not during the incident: I’ll just say we had a lot of wake up calls but one not so pretty. It was one of those that I didn’t exactly handle well. One of our children was screaming, again. I went to the crying room to assess the situation. The child was on the floor, screaming. I could not calm this child with talking. I went to pick the child up and the blessing decided to pee all over and on the carpet. I too lost it, my temper that is. I was tired, I was mad. How could this child do such a thing? After aggressively taking off the wet pants through the continual screaming, the shirt came off by lifting the child slightly off the ground. I must be doing this too rough. I calmed down, made sure the blessing didn’t have to go anymore in the toilet and gently put the child back to bed with an I love you.

I too went back to bed again, and felt awful (clumped up once again). How could I have treated this child like that?

This Lent, our priest has been using Preface of Lent III for daily Mass. It has been moving for me. It was all I could think of when I got out of bed the next morning.

“…you ask us to express our thanks by self-denial. We are to master our sinfulness and conquer our pride. We are to show to those in need your goodness and mercy.”

So here I am, living it. As it said in the Magnificat that morning,

“By taking upon Himself all the shame of the nakedness and sin in Adam’s, and our place, Jesus once and for all brought it before the merciful eyes of His Father…and from this point on sinners should no longer hide; they have been reprieved from disgrace. So let them come to the light of Jesus’ cross…our own nakedness and sinfulness no longer has a reason for embarrassment or condemnation. It has become an opportunity for faith, faith that can arise even from a foolish self-confidence.”

May we have the “courage to humbly and gently gaze toward the bleeding face of the crucified Jesus” to gaze upon “the shame of Jesus who covers and hides ours.”

Yes, take courage: By God’s Mercy we are saved. How shall we thank Him?

--6--

All is well with Baby: After scheduling an ultrasound with the doctor, trying to change it because we found out the girls would have practice, and deciding to leave it alone and find a sitter for the rest of the crew; the doctor’s office called saying their machine was not working and we would have to reschedule. I called the sitter off, to only call her back a few hours later because the dr. office called back again saying they would be able to use a different machine and my appointment was back on. With all the variables, it ended up being a tricky planning day, but in the end, we got to see:

--7--

Gina: Mothering me on how to cut a pinapple. “No cut it that way. Be careful, don’t cut yourself! Be careful, Mommy! Now this piece. Are you being careful?” She then proceeded to put on Kathryn’s mascara which was left out on the island for some reason.

Where’s my ‘little’ girl?

----------

Have a great Weekend Everyone!

We will be celebrating with Kathryn. She is now old enough to get her permit to drive!

I repeat, "Where's my little girl?"