Be the fairest of seasons, sweet May

 One of my favorite Catholic traditions ever since I was little is May crowning.  Our school Mass is beautiful, so the girls & I decided to join in the celebration.

 The 7th graders stand with gladiolas as kind of a tunnel for all the other school kids (& the rest of us, too) as we present our flowers to Mary. 

Pray for us, oh holy Mother of God,

that we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ!

 I love that our neighborhood friends still carry on the tradition of May baskets as well.  The kids had a blast running door to door with goodies, ringing the doorbell, & running.  Andrew even took quite the flying leap / tumble down one lawn!

 Our friends Joseph & Leo brought these adorable flower suckers over to us.  The rest was gobbled up before I even thought to get out the camera!

'Tis the month of our Mother
The blessed and beautiful days,
When our lips and our spirits,
are glowing with love and with praise.

All Hail! to thee, dear Mary,
the guardian of our way;
To the fairest of Queens,Be the fairest of seasons, sweet May.

Oh! what peace to her children,
mid sorrows and trials to know,
that the love of their Mother,
Hath ever a solace for woe.

And, what joy to the erring,
The sinful and sorrowful soul;

That a trust in her guidance,
will lead to a glorious goal.

Let us sing then, rejoicing,
that God hath so honored our race,
as to clothe with our nature,
Sweet Mary, the Mother of Grace.

All Hail! to thee, dear Mary,
the guardian of our way;
To the fairest of Queens,
Be the fairest of seasons, sweet May.



Smiling

with Red Grandma  =]

Good question

Rebecca:  If I ever get a halo,

do you think Jesus can give me

a pink one?

Punny stuff

Darren's Great Aunt Alyce sent me this list of punny stuff.  Love it!

 

When chemists die, they barium.

Jokes about German sausage are the wurst.

I know a guy who's addicted to brake fluid. He says he can stop any time.

How does Moses make his tea? Hebrews it.

I stayed up all night to see where the sun went. Then it dawned on me.

This girl said she recognized me from the vegetarian club, but I'd never met herbivore.

I'm reading a book about anti-gravity. I just can't put it down.

I did a theatrical performance about puns. It was a play on words.

They told me I had type-A blood, but it was a Type-O.

Why were the Indians here first? They had reservations.

We are going on a class trip to the Coca-Cola factory. I hope there's no pop quiz.

I didn't like my beard at first. Then it grew on me.

Did you hear about the cross-eyed teacher who lost her job because she couldn't control her pupils?

When you get a bladder infection urine trouble.

Broken pencils are pointless.

I tried to catch some fog, but I mist.

What do you call a dinosaur with an extensive vocabulary? A thesaurus.

England has no kidney bank, but it does have a Liverpool.

I used to be a banker, but then I lost interest.

I dropped out of communism class because of lousy Marx.

I got a job at a bakery because I kneaded dough.

Haunted French pancakes give me the crepes.

All the toilets in New York's police stations have been stolen. The police have nothing to go on.

Multipurpose

The large container of sprinkles that I bought for Rebecca's birthday apparently is good for other forms of art as well. 

Andrew's been on an early morning art kick... sometimes to the detriment of arriving at school in a timely manner, but I digress... & recently created this Native American campsite.  It's complete with empty teepee, scattered firepit (see the logs & still burning embers?), & used marshmallow roasting sticks.  ;)

3 months in Heaven

We just had this beautiful vase put on Zachary's grave with the generous help of my parents.  Isn't it nice?  We went to buy some flowers for it... guess who couldn't resist the one with a butterfly?

We love you, baby.

+  St. Zachary, pray for us  +

Happy little trees

Back at my high school, we wrote "prophesies" for all of the junior class (not so hard when there's only 23 kids!)  I've always loved art, & Bob Ross was easily the best known current artist to us all at the time.  Mainly due to his hair.  :P  Thank you public television!  My favorite was when he had created this beautiful painting & then stuck a crazy black "happy little tree" trunk in the middle of it.  Looked ruined for a while, then he made it amazing.   Anyway, my prophesy was that I would go on to become a great artist & "no little tree would ever be sad again".  =]

Though I still love art, outside of craft projects with the kids, the only art I really do anymore is charcoal drawings. 

But, some friends & I got a little crazy a few weeks ago.  We took a painting class from a woman in our parish that has her own art studio.  Super fun! 

I still don't feel like painting is a talent of mine, but we sure had a good time... & now there's something to hang up in our lilac bathroom downstairs!

Thanks for a great time, gals!  Let's do it again soon.

TEC #77

I was so blest to be a part of the team for TEC 77!

It had been 8 years since I worked a TEC & even longer since I was on Resource.  What an amazing weekend!  I had the chance to grow closer to some friends (& old students!) through sharing their experiences, & made lots of new friends, too.  My table was great & I feel blest to have enjoyed the weekend with them.  My favorite part was being there with my niece, Clare, & getting to know so many of her friends.  She's pretty awesome.  ;)

I played guitar & sang all weekend, which was both exhausting & fun.  I'm long since past the days of Newman Center "marathon choir"... & even when I was, my fingers could barely handle playing guitar that much.  But I guess the Holy Spirit was doing the strumming, because I barely even noticed until the end of the last day.  It was nice to sing old guitar songs that I haven't sang in a while, hearing the same harmonies I love so much from fellow team members Emily & Jessica.  Good singing, ladies!  And it was my first real experience of playing with a violin, too.  Sr. Serena, you rock.  =]  My friend Dave came to sing along for a part of the weekend, too, which was just as much fun as ever... though I'm not quite the same vocalist or guitarist I used to be. Thanks for adding your great voice to the weekend, Dave!

I really felt called to work a TEC again & God knew that this was the perfect one for me.  A smaller group of candidates, who were so open to the Holy Spirit, gave me the perfect avenue for telling my story.  It was difficult, to say the least, (& I probably went through a whole box of Kleenex!) organizing my thoughts about our experience with losing Zachary into something coherent, but it was so healing.  It made me really recognize the blessings & consolations we have been given.  If it hadn't been for this retreat, I probably still wouldn't have posted anything here about him.  So, once again God gave me the perfect avenue to recognize His Love for me.  I hope I can be a part of another TEC again soon!

Roomies

Thanks for coming over, gals! 

And even though we had so little Boggle, I still had such a nice time with you.  ;) 

Butterfly Birthday

Our baby Becca isn't a baby anymore!

She turned the big 5 on April 28th.  Per her request we celebrated a Butterfly Birthday. 

All the grandparents, Uncle Fr. Jon, Aunt Cara & Uncle Taylor, cousins Jonathan, Nicholas, & Logan all joined us for lunch on her birthday.

This one's just for you, Brad.  ;)

Notice she's wearing her butterfly wings...

even butterflies on the gift bags! and in the bags! and on the window!

and on her new comforter!  Our little mariposa said it was the "best birthday ever".

For her the only thing that could top a party like that... was McDonald's.

Love you, Sweet Pea! 

Happy Birthday!

Almost 5!

It's amazing to think that our little Becca-boo is almost 5. She's grown up in the blink of an eye. What a sweet little gal she is. We celebrated her birthday a day early at Friday morning "coffee" with the neighborhood friends.
 

Who doesn't love a cupcake at 9:00 a.m.? 

***

Then we went home to party with two of her sweet little preschool buddies.

 After running around giggling & pretending they were butterflies, they played Candyland,

 decorated butterfly cupcakes,

 enjoyed a yummy lunch of pizza & strawberries,

 & sang Happy Birthday to our sweetheart complete with her favorite part... cha, cha, cha.

 Teresa was just as excited as her sister for the festivities.  :)

The biggest thrill for all of them was probably riding in the van together to preschool afterwards.  They were too cute!  What a perfect way to celebrate with friends. 

Thanks for coming, Madeline & Saya!

Hope you had fun!

GodTeens Fun

 We've had such a great year with our sophomore GodTeens!  They're an awesome group.  This last month getting ready for TEC & wrapping up my grad class has been pretty nuts, so we've been pulling in some help from the outside to finish our year strong. 

A priest that we were friends with in college came to speak with us one night & did an awesome job.  Then one of the FOCUS missionaries spoke another week.  Last week one of the orders of religious sisters came out & told us all about their vocations.  So many inspirational stories!

 In between there somewhere, we had a little backyard fun.  Our neighbors also host a Wednesday night youth group from their church, so we got together for some "ecumenical games" & ice cream.  ;)  The kids had a blast!

 We've been talking about apologetics with them all year.  So much of the confusion about the Catholic faith & prejudice against Catholics in general seems to be due to lack of contact with real Catholics.  So, it only seems logical that they should step outside of our Church every once in a while to learn about others as well, so that we don't make the same mistakes.  This is a simple, non-confrontational way of breaking down barriers & recognizing the immense similarities in faith we share simply by all being Christians.

Thanks for a great time, GodTeens!

After the rain

 hunting for roly polies

Big puddles are great for filling up these crayon squirters!

I love how everything looks so green & smells so fresh after a big rain.  Can you smell it?