Good gravy!

Apparently spaghetti sauce makes great hair gel.

When I worked for Guardian Angels, one of the women I was able to help always used the phrase, "Good gravy!" to express her disbelief. It always makes me smile to say it & think of Edie. :)

Well, today Teresa has had me saying it more than I ever have before. Before 9 a.m. she had climbed out/fell out of her crib for the first time, smacked her head into the door, fell face first on the sidewalk adding to her previous bruise/scrape, covered herself in yogurt, flipped forward to tip over her Jumperoo (with the help of a certain older sister), almost biffed it standing up in the bathtub, torn a library book, emptied the books from their shelf, & came to me carrying the metal vent cover from the living room.

And let me tell ya, it's WAY past 9 a.m.

GOOD GRAVY!

A Tale of Two Leaves

This weekend Andrew decided he wanted to jump in a bunch of leaves. So he raked all of our leaves into a pile...
all two of them.
One of the advantages of living in a newer neighborhood is that we don't have a ton of leaves to rake. One of the disadvantages: we don't have a ton of leaves to rake. :P I was just giggling seeing him roll about in attempts to catch a few leaves, & seeing Rebecca jump in a pile of about twelve shouting, "WHEE!!!"

Daddy's little helper

The baby, not the beer

Pumpkins Night Out

Look at these amazing pumpkins! They are all so different. Carving, DRILLING, melon-balling, linoleum scraping, painting, stamping, & Sharpieing. Mine is the one on the far left. (Pumpkin with green pumpkin hair courtesy of Grandma & Grandpa's garden.)
Last weekend Anne graciously hosted us at her home for a Bible Study Girls Night Out.
We did a LOT of chatting, snuggling babies...
& of course eating.
Check out Jen's pumpkin shaped cake pops... muy impresivo. ;)

At about 9:30 we figured we should get a start on our pumpkin decorating. This is Annie's little house. Isn't it cute? Don't you want to live there?

We all had such different ideas. Is amazing how alike & how different we can be at the same time!

Steph's impressive creation

The gals (sorry we missed you, Aubrey!) & a cutie pie

Thanks for a great time, ladies! Hope to see you all again soon!

One Last Splash

When it's 85 degrees in October, it's time for one last splash in the pool!

Storming Heaven

Please, join me in prayer today for two families whose suffering is heavy on my heart.

~ Tony, an old Newman Center friend, & his wife Jess who were in a serious car accident this weekend. They were blest with marriage for just one month before she passed away yesterday due to injuries from the accident. He has a long road to recovery in addition to dealing with the loss of his bride.

~ Also, please pray for the family of a friend who has three boys all dealing with serious health issues.

Thank you for storming Heaven with me!

Two Hands

The day has come. My baby now has to tell how old he is with two hands. Andrew, I can't believe you are six already!

Make an on-line slide show at www.OneTrueMedia.com

We've established the tradition of decorating after bedtime for birthdays, feastdays, & holidays. So, they were really excited to wake up to this!
The girls gave him the Husker shirt & we gave him Snap Circuits Jr.

These things are seriously cool. It's much simpler (& safer!) then all the wire winding we did as kids. They just snap together & have a book with over a hundred projects in it to make lights turn on, music, alarms, even sound like "space wars". Each project explains the electrical theory at work behind it. They have add-on kits to make it bigger & more complex. If you are looking for a good Christmas idea, this is it! Andrew is fascinated with bald eagles, so I decided to try my hand at a bald eagle cake.

Since it was a Wednesday he got to celebrate with our 20 freshman GodTeens as well. He was very excited to have them all there.

Fabulous facial

Teresa used a spoon successfully for the first time this week!
Didn't you know that yogurt is great for the skin?

Happy Birthday choo choo

Last year Darren started a new tradition. For Andrew's birthday he decided that he wanted to do something special together, just the two of them. Andrew picked the SAC museum & they had a marvelous time. This year they decided to go see a steam engine together.
They drove to Marysville, Kansas EARLY in the morning to enjoy seeing the Union Pacific Challenger #3985.
It is the largest operating steam engine in the country! It's BIG & apparently a little scary with all the steam it lets off. Darren couldn't get any other pictures of Andrew standing with his back to the train. =] Afterwards they went out to breakfast... Andrew's favorite meal.

I knew they would have fun, but I was most impressed by the three hours in the car. Darren said he talked almost the whole time! I guess that's some serious bonding. :) When they got home, the girls & I had ventured out to Pioneers Park for some fun with Dave & Shannon & their kiddos. (Thanks for the great morning adventure!) So, they took a nap, played the Wii, & ate lunch at Runza. It sounds like it was a big hit!

I love this new tradition of a day out with Dad. (Do I get to do it on MY birthday?) What would you choose? What would your kids?

Feast Day Fun

Our little Teresa is named after Blessed Mother Teresa, but since she chose her religious name from St. Therese of Liseux, we figured why not celebrate both?

We started off the day with fun at Jesse Kate's house for Friends Preschool. Teresa & I stayed to babysit Ellie... who peacefully slept upstairs most of the time. But we had fabulous fun!
Show & tell is always a fun part of the morning.
That night after supper we ventured over to the new Goodrich ice cream for a feast day treat. Teresa LOVES ice cream as much as the rest of us! It's funny to think how Andrew probably never even tasted anything like cake, ice cream, chocolate until his first birthday... not this one!

For our night prayers we enjoyed having a painting, a novena prayer card, & a cute statue of St. Therese (painted by her godmother, my talented sister Denise) on our table.

I think she should go into business. ;)

St. Therese, pray for us!

Praise to the Holiest in the Height

I love sleep.
I treasure it.

As long as I've known Darren he has been an amazing sleeper... a trait I hope that he has passed onto our children. ;) If he's tired morning, afternoon, evening, night, give him two minutes (maybe less) & he is out cold. Amazing. That has never been a talent of mine.

Sleep is one of those gifts I never truly appreciated until after having kids. Now when I can sneak in even just five minutes of semi-uninterrupted rest, it's heavenly. I rarely fall asleep but at least I can regroup my thoughts, take a deep breath, & ask Jesus to guide me through the day.

He's the One that I'm praising right now. Teresa has been in the process of weaning & has been taking it pretty well. I was hoping that it would help her sleep better at night. Well, she's gone for almost a week with maybe two night awakenings total. Hallelujah! I finally remember what it feels like to be rested! It's only been, oh, maybe 12 months. (Or 15 if you count third trimester "sleep") ;P

The strawberry on top of it all (cherries aren't my thing), yesterday at nap time & bed time as well as right now, she went down without nursing. Just a hug, a baby doll, a music box, & a few minutes of squeaking, then ZZZ. It was certainly NOT that easy with her older siblings. Rocking, swaying, armloads of books, singing, repeatedly climbing out of the crib, 30 minutes of screaming... not for her. Thank you, God! I know it may seem silly, but I was really prepared for a battle of wills. (If you've seen her lately, you'd know why!) Maybe this is just a fluke, maybe it won't last, maybe more molars will disrupt it all, but I don't care. I'm revelling in the quiet for now. I'm happy for her. I'm happy for her siblings who share the room. I'm happy for us who don't like to hear our baby cry. I'm just plain happy!

God is good!

From the other room

Rebecca: (yelling)

"Mommy!!! Teresa grossed me!!!"

That's Rebecca's new way of saying anything wet got wiped on her... including but not limited to fingers that have been gnawed on while popping 4 molars at once.

Mmm...hippo

Most Sundays we are blest to enjoy an evening out of the house. After prepping the house for bedtime we "go on an adventure". Our adventure usually involves running an errand, playing at a park, making a visit at Pinks, & going out for dinner. It's a nice way to make MY Sunday more of a day of rest!

Last weekend we enjoyed dinner at the Parthenon. Tasty Greek viddles. My favorite part was the chocolate flogeras... basically baklava dipped in chocolate & rolled in almonds. Hard.to.share. ;P Because of our semi-regular weekly adventure, our kids usually do pretty well in restaurants. This time was over the top, though. Instead of ordering their standard cheese pizza or alfredo noodles, we got a little crazy & had them get a chicken gyro plate. DEVOURED IT! Then they wanted to try everything on my plate & Darren's too! Even Teresa was enjoying the pita bread, klitharaki, gyro toppings, & greek potatoes. She was also grooving to the Greek music in her high chair. =] Here are some of my favorite quotes from the night.

Andrew: So, I've eaten cow, pig, chicken, & now sheep. What other animals can I eat? Can I eat a hippopotamus?

Rebecca: Are these real plants or toy plants?

Darren: If you like Chicago-style pizza, try our Chicago-style hippo nuggets.

Andrew: Wow, this sauce (tzatziki) is definitely better than Ranch!

Two Hearts

It's been kind of fun having just us girls around during the day. We do a lot of housework, shopping, tea parties, walks, reading, art, & rough-housing.Rebecca spends most of her time outside picking flowers.
Teresa spends most of her time anywhere running away from me. The chase is on!

Our Virtuosos

I started teaching Andrew piano a few months ago. We're using the same book that Darren learned from when he was a wee little thing: "Teaching Little Fingers to Play". He really has caught on quickly. He tends toward memorization & playing it by ear, though... like me. :P It's been fun to see his progress. Ever since he started playing regularly, the girls have taken more of an interest in it as well. Here's Teresa playing "Good King Wenceslaus".

Random cuteness

Velcro is fascinating
Think it's a nice look?

Giddy-up

Comfy?

Men in red

We love our Daddy!