Milestones

Amelia's growing so fast that I can barely keep up with her. Here are a few pics from the past few days highlighting her achievments.

Here she is sitting up. She's getting really good at getting into this position and has less and less trouble staying in it without falling over.

Okay, so maybe if you can enlarge this you'll see her teeth. I spent about 5 minutes trying to catch glimpse of them and this is the best that I got.

Here she is sitting up and playing with D. Doesn't she look sporty in her new outfit, all the way from England? (*thanks to Mom-Mom for the new clothes)

The Mary, Mary, Month of May

The month of May traditionally Mary's month. As such, I thought it would be nice to have some resources up for those wishing to honor Mary.

University of Dayton
Blessed Virgin Mary Art Page
Dave Armstrong's Index of Apologetic Posts on Mary
Marian Prayers
Women for Faith and Family - Mary Page

Fair WARNING, I only briefly scanned most of these pages, so I can't be sure that they all contain orthodox info. If you find anything on any of them that is questionable, let me know, and I'll remove it from the above list. If you find any other sites that may be helpful let me know and I'll add them. Really great sites may be permanently added in the sidebar, so take some time this month and read up on Mary and let me know which sites you'd like to see get a permanent link.

Life in the Lap of Luxury

As it's the little things that make life truly luxurious, here's a list of the little luxuries from my day:

1. a nice hot shower, without anyone crying or whining at me (thank you, Barney)
2. both girls taking a nap at the same time
3. sitting on the deck, nursing Amelia and taking in the beautiful spring air
4. planting those bulbs that I've had around for several weeks
5. the feeling of damp earth, the wind through my hair and sunshine through the trees
6. the sounds of Amelia playing and discovering grass.
7. getting to go to benediction on the final night of the 40 hours devotion at church
8. getting to go ALONE to 40 hours (thank you, Jim)
9. the smell of incense
10. singing in Tantum Ergo
11. finishing the day with cake, ice cream, and glass of good wine, and a little blogging

Another Blog Thing

Your Scholastic Strength Is Deep Thinking

You aren't afraid to delve head first into a difficult subject, with mastery as your goal. You are talented at adapting, motivating others, managing resources, and analyzing risk. You should major in: Philosophy Music Theology Art History Foreign language

What Should You Major In?

Storytime with Maria

Today, as I was getting an outfit for Amelia, Maria came into the room and picked up one of her Bible board books. She opened it up to the first page, the story of Creation and she said, "One Sunday morning, the warm sun came up and, POP! Out came one little Jesus..."

And I nearly died laughing.

When you don't have paper....

...legs will do.

Progress

So this is a little late, but Amelia hit the half year mark this past Thursday. She also managed to pull off another milestone that day, getting her first tooth. Here's a picture from that day of Maria and Amelia playing "together" with Maria blocks. The time flies by so fast.

Run for Life

This weekend marked the 8th annual Run for Life, benefiting A Baby's Breath Crisis Pregnancy Center. Jim and I walked the 5K with Amelia and Maria along for the ride in the stroller. It was a beautiful day for the race, unlike last year which was drizzly and cold. Still haven't heard the total amount collected for the center, but I'll post it when I find out. For anyone wishing to donate to ABB, check out the Angel Club link on the website.

The runners lining up for the start of the one mile "fun run." Hard to see in this pic, but this is where all the other people with strollers were. We had the only stroller in the 5K. Luckily for me, Jim did most of the pushing.

Maria and her "ladies." This group of girls came with a team, so they got matching t-shirts. Maria saw them standing in the field and went running over to them. When they asked her what her name was she said, "I'm two." Later while we were doing the 5K, Maria kept asking where her "ladies" were. She was very excited to find them again after the race.

This old barn and tractor were part of the scenery along the path. Jim really wanted to take the tractor home. I told him he could, if he was willing to push it.

Here's Jim doing the hard work of pushing the girls. I started out pushing them, but gave up after the first half-mile. Luckily, I had Jim to back me up.

Here's the biggest surprise of the day... Jim took third place in his age group! With a time of 53 minutes who'd have guessed that any of us would get a medal.

Beauty and the Fall

A recent post by Dean Abbott, has got me thinking about the nature of beauty and how it relates to the Fall.

He writes:

"The loss of that physical beauty in a woman is no small blow, not something to be dismissed lightly.

Like the weakening of our faculties as we age, the vanishing of much of a woman’s beauty over the years is a mark of the Fall. Our bodies are subject to wear and death not as part of nature, but as a result of the presence of sin in creation."

According to JP II's theology of the body, we show forth the glory of God in and through our bodies. So it makes sense that our bodies would also tell the tale of the Fall. As babies, our bodies speak most clearly of the eternal life God wants for us. Babies glow and bubble forth newness, and vitality. They are (for the most part) untouched by sin, and exude innocence.

As we grow, spending more time in this world, we lose that innocence and beauty that we once had. Our time in this world is a time of encountering more and more sin, our own and that of others. We become more and more marred by the marks of sin, scars that effect not only our souls, but our physical bodies as well. Sin harms the whole person.

This gradual loss of physical beauty serves as a visible reminder of the cumulative effects of sin. Because this loss of physical beauty is symbolic of the ever increasing ravages of sin it is as Dean says, "no small blow."

I have some more thoughts on this, related to why women are most susceptible to this diminishing beauty, but I'll have to leave them for another post.

Days of whine and noses

The past week or so have been rough, as everyone but me (so far) has had a cold. First Maria, then Jim, then Amelia, and now Maria again. I thought it was gone but it's back. So now I've got two little noses to take care of. Fortunately, Maria can blow her own nose, at least some of the time. But she seems more tired and more fussy than usual. And definitely more whiny.

Amelia, on the other hand, had no idea why I'm always coming at her with a tissue, or worse yet the "snot sucker." She just knows that she hates it and wants not part of it, thank you very much. As soon as she sees me coming for her nose, she begins tossing her head all around, and usually ends up wiping a good amount of the snot on me, the couch, the pillow... anywhere but the tissue. Ah, what joy!

But spring is here! And with it comes an end to the cold season, and hopefully the only nose I'll be wiping is my own (darn allergies).

Lunchtime woes

Maria: (Crying) Oww...

Me: What's wrong sweetie? Did you bite your tongue?

Maria: No, I not bite my tongue... I bite peanut butter and jelly.

Me: (stifling a laugh) Oh, I'm sorry to hear that.

Ready to Go.

Amelia is becoming much more mobile, and is starting to be able to scoot across the floor on her stomach. When she wants to move, she first gets up on her hands and toes, then lunges forward. This picture shows her starting position... it just happens to also be a Pilates position called the Plank. Try it out sometime, it's great for developing your abs.

More Easter Pictures.

Maria's giant "Bob" basket.
Lovely ladies in "boo-tifool" bonnets

The girl's in their matching Easter dresses. Matching Easter smiles not included.

Amelia discovers a camera case and finds it "oh, so yummy."

Easter Pictures

Coloring eggs for the first time. Maria liked drawing on the eggs with her crayons... unfortunately eggs are round and hard to hold , so she dropped a few in the process .
Here's a picture of some of the Easter booty.

And here's a shot of the finished eggs, all arranged in Amelia's basket.

Too much fast food

You know that you've stopped at the drivethru one too many times when your two-year old starts saying, "I want to go in french fry house!" as soon as she sees anything that resembles a McDonald's. Another clue is when the same two-year old is playing with her "money card" and asks "I'd like a #1, peez."

Gardening

Since it we had lovely weather the past few days, I've been spending much of my time outside attacking the weed pit that I call my flower garden. Here's a picture of the garden halfway through weeding.
And here's a picture of some of the "good browns" that I got out of the garden for use in the compost pile. These are the remains of flowers from last year and leaves from the oaks out front. Anything else, like dead weeds etc., I'm not using on the compost heap this year since I don't want to inadvertently spread the weeds via left over seeds.

These are some of the bulbs that I plan to put in this year, begonias, dahlias and a shady mix including ferns for out front.

I really want to get a few more roses to put in, but I can't decide where they should go. And I haven't had much luck keeping the roses that I do have looking nice for the whole summer. I keep trying but something makes the leave fall off after the first bloom. Any advice is appreciated.

Spring

Here are some pictures to cheer everyone up as we are once again experiencing chilly weather and in some places snow.

The good, the bad and the ugly.

This past weekend was fairly busy for us. There was the retirement party for Jim's dad, which my parents came down for. Then there was Palm Sunday and Becky's choir concert.

Here's a summary of the good, the bad and the ugly from this weekend.

The Good: my parent's visiting, seeing family and friends at the party, lots of yummy food, making it to Mass on time, a Sunday afternoon nap, Becky's choir singing in Latin :)

The Bad: staying up way too late, eating too many desserts, a stranger striking up a conversation with Maria during the Gospel reading (then saying "She's ok." when we pick her up and tell her to be quiet, grr...), Amish kids on Rumspringa (thank you netflix)

The Ugly: Maria after missing several hours of sleep, seeing a half-moon from a man in front of us at Mass...eww.

Check it out...

I added a new site to my "Fun Stuff" link on the left. Kunst der Fuge has midi files of various composers' works. It's not like listening to a great orchestra performance, but you can get a good idea of what the music is supposed to sound like. And to my great pleasure, they have Gustav Holst's Suite in E flat, something I've longed to hear since I played in in District Band, many moons ago.

Happy listening folks.

Note to Self:

When you let Maria play in the sandbox, be sure to shake her off, take off her sandy clothes and hose her down before you let her take a nap in your bed. Unless you enjoy sleepy between gritty sheets.