Showing posts with label Celebrating. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Celebrating. Show all posts

Thursday, December 31, 2015

Merry Christmas! Happy New Year!

I had the loveliest Christmas Day . . . and took almost no pictures. Yay for just being present. Here are a couple of the ones I did manage to take. I know that others who were around took more. I'll get them eventually. Right now, I'm still tripping over train parts and Duplos, so the memories are quite vivid, thankyouverymuch. So, Merry Christmas, everyone!!!

Ready for morning!

Santa brought Minnie's house!

And some "tucks!"

And yesterday's (not)substantial snowfall meant the kids had to play in it.

1/2 inch won't stop them!

Meanwhile, 2016 is about to begin. 

I'm not usually into resolutions, but I'm doing a little goal setting this year anyway. Read more. Write more. Be present more and on my phone less. That may or may not mean I'm around more. I hope it means that I am. 

I, as I always do, jumped on Jennifer Fullwiler's Saint Generator train to select a patron saint for the year. I got Blessed (soon to be Saint) Teresa of Calcutta (i.e. Mother Teresa). Sounds like a good choice to me! :-)

The bigger question, for me, is a word of the year. I didn't do one last year, for whatever reason that I don't recall, but I know that my 2014 word, patience, came back over and over and over again, in so many different aspects of my life. This year, the word that came to mind is boldness. I don't know where that will take me or whether it will look the same in 12 months as it does now, but I'm excited to find out.

Meanwhile, here's my everybody's doing it Instagram #2015bestnine:


Happy New Year! Blessings in 2016! (And, above all, be safe out there tonight!)


Monday, April 6, 2015

Happy Easter!

Alleluia! He is risen!

I didn't really mean to totally take Holy Week off from blogging, but it was a lovely, fruitful week, so I'm glad I did. We spent a lot of time preparing for Easter, praying, and talking about Jesus on the Cross. Clare asked a lot (and I mean a lot) of deep, impactful questions. That meant I spent a lot of time thinking about (and explaining) the Passion of Our Lord. What a lovely, wonderful blessing!

We also observed zero Easter activities until the Big Day, save for putting stickers on plastic eggs Saturday morning. All things considered, I decided that dying boiled eggs was just not worth it this year. Maybe some day. But seeing how the stickers-on-eggs thing went, I think I made the right choice. ;-)

Trying to get her to show off the egg.

The Holy Spirit had a hand in preparing Charles' work schedule for Holy Week, so even though he was still on service, we were able to go to Holy Thursday and Good Friday services as a family in the evening. Charles was chosen to be among those getting his feet washed on Thursday, so that was extra-special. Clare also decided to have a tantrum in the last 90 seconds of Mass that evening -- during the silence after the consecrated hosts have been moved to the Alter of Repose for the night -- because we gasp! made her put her shoes on. I know. I know.

I only mention that, because on Friday, instead, Clare fell asleep on Charles' shoulder during the Gospel reading. She slept through the liturgy, in the car, and in her bed until about midnight, woke up to go potty, and then slept until morning. 

We've determined that our kids are not quite ready for the Vigil on Saturday, so once they were in bed that night, I got the house all Easter'd up. 

Baskets, banners and blooms -- oh, my!

Clare was unbelievably excited when she woke up on Sunday and it was Easter. She was jumping up and down and squealing and seeing everything. It was magic -- I wish I had known to film it on secret camera. It was that spectacular!

Peter was much more stoic about the whole thing.

After Mass, we tried to take pictures. We probably should have done it before, but wanted to get out the door early, knowing that it would be a full house.

Like herding cats. (Dress and shirt: Children's Place)

Then we spent the day playing, eating, and being together. We talked to our families and just basked in the joy of Christ's Resurrection. 

He is risen, indeed! Alleluia!


Friday, February 13, 2015

7 Quick Takes, Vol. 76

Joining up with Kelly, who is so cool that I just tried to type her name with an extra 'e'. That's how I show my affection. Apparently.


1. This is totally going to be an update post. Sorrynotsorry.

2. Clare, probably like all toddlers, is an enigma. When we leave to go to a friend's house or the library or the store, she REFUSES a jacket like it is made of burning hot lava. "No no no no no do not want a jacket!!!!" Then, last week, we get some serious snow flurry action (only a dusting accumulated), and the very instant-second-moment she saw it, she was insisting on going outside. And very compliantly let me dress her in alllllll the layers, no questions asked, no sass given. Anything to run around in (falling) snow, I guess. Girl loves snow. Yes, there will be a collage of nearly identical "Clare in the snow" pictures at the end of the season. ;-) On the plus side, jacket issues aside, it seems that Clare and I have gotten over the 2 year old hump. Famous last words, I know. She's acting much more reasonable, and I feel like I've developed a better slew of coping techniques for getting through (most of) her unreasonable moments. I'm eager to see where I end up falling in the "which is worse, two or three?" debate. We even managed a little (very very simple) crafting this week. I'm not crafty, but she likes it, so I decided to "let go and let glue." No really, that's what I told myself when I relinquished control of the bottle of Elmer's.

Glue not pictured

3. Peter, meanwhile, is up to his usual tricks. He's finally regular crawling, though he sometimes goes back to his modified army crawl. Pulling up, cruising, bla bla bla . . . please don't walk! We also did a little sleep training a couple of weeks ago. He got with the program quickly and is still doing pretty well through the night. He broke his first front tooth a few days ago, and his second is right there. I'll honestly be a little bit sad when they're grown in, because he looks so stinking cute without them. He also turned 10 months last weekend. [Cliches about time passing here.]


4. At playgroup this week, we took valentines to the residents of a local nursing home. We visit them a few times a year to celebrate holidays. I love the opportunity to teach my children the value of service -- giving to people without an expectation of return. Giving to people they don't know. Providing sunshine to others. Corporal Works of Mercy and all that.

5. I know I wrote about Confirmation a couple of weeks ago, but it seemed flippant to mention another thing I have loved about having our Confirmation kids over every week: I thoroughly clean the upstairs every week. I mean, we clean regularly and put toys away at least every night anyway, but having people come over (even teenagers who probably don't care), always gives that extra push to make sure things just so.

6. Charles started his third (of three!) months on the medicine floor this week. These are definitely his hardest rotations, but this week, in particular, it is clear how much he has grown as a doctor this year. #proudwife

7. I'm unusually excited for Valentine's Day tomorrow, mostly because Clare is excited, but also because I get to celebrate my loves. I hope you have a wonderful day with those you love. But if you, for whatever reason, feel down this Valentine's Day, wear a pink sweater and eat something with sprinkles. It might not fix everything, but it might just brighten your spirits. :-)


Have a lovely weekend!

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Friday, January 2, 2015

7 Quick Takes, Vol. 75 -- Christmas Round-Up

Joining Kelly to get some Christmas stuff posted while it is still Christmas!


1. Since Charles worked all day on Christmas Day, we ended up just doing some celebration shifting and did all the the "main event" Christmas celebrating on Christmas Eve morning. The kids wore matching jammies. Santa came a day early. We opened presents in a couple of waves with a big breakfast in the middle. There were a lot of treats and toys and merriment. We went to Mass that evening, and Clare passed out on the 3-minute drive home. Charles and I ate Mexican food and enjoyed the last of our day together.


2. The sunrise that greeted me as I prepped cinnamon rolls (actual) Christmas morning left the Canticle of Zechariah ringing in my ears all day. The photo doesn't nearly do it justice, but it's the best I could capture. I felt the joy of Christmas, even if it was going to be a different kind of holiday for me.

O Radiant Dawn, indeed!

3. I, um . . . maybe made the kids wear their second set of matching jammies Christmas Eve night, so they ate cinnamon rolls and yogurt in festive duds.


4. The rest of the day was a blur of food and movies and singing and dancing . . . and a lot of emotion. FaceTime chats with family in Arizona, combined with a long day for Charles, combined with what went down at the hospital made sure the emotions ran high. But again, we managed to end the day with food and each other, so I guess it turned out okay.

Jammies, Peter, Tiny Dancer, Getting my mom-blog on

5. Our week between Christmas and the new year was full of visits and a virus. Peter had a little something early last week that he seems to have passed to Clare. She spent New Year's Eve vomiting, so we spent our night dealing with it. Makes our actual plans of "play a game and go to bed early" sound downright wonderful! Here's hoping that we don't spend the new year how we spent its eve!!

6. This year, I used Jennifer Fulwiler's Saint Name Generator twice: once to choose a 2015 patron for myself (St. Genevieve) and once to choose one for our family (St. John Bosco). All you holy men and women, pray for us.

7. I'm hoping for a lot of things in 2015, but since I'm not really a "resolution" girl, I'll just leave it at that for me. But I will share the kids' resolutions. Peter resolves to get better sleep, especially at night. Clare resolves to ditch the diapers and start using the big girl potty. We'll see how they do. ;-)

Blurry, filtered, and too cute not to share.

Have a lovely weekend, and a happy, blessed 2015!

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Thursday, December 25, 2014

Merry Christmas!


And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid. And the angel said unto them, "Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger." And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men." - Luke 2: 8-14 KJV

Wishing everyone a Merry Christmas!! May the Good News of the first Christmas continue to inspire and shape our lives today and every day.




(Photos by Carrie Zimmer photography.)

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Monday, December 22, 2014

On Being Home for the Holidays

Oh, there’s no place like home for the holidays,
‘Cause no matter how far away you roam,
When you pine for the sunshine of a friendly gaze,
For the holidays, you can’t beat home, sweet home.
-"Home for the Holidays" by Perry Como

I am 33 years old, and I have never not spent Christmas with my family of origin in one way or another.  Charles can (pretty much) say the same.

Until now.


Clare was so excited to do the honors!

This year, things are going to be different. We live a long way from our families, and Charles is a resident. No, worse, he’s an intern. He’s working Christmas Day, beginning at the bright still dark hour of 6 am, and continuing . . . well, into the evening sometime.  Merry Christmas to us! (He’s on the OB floor at least, so delivering babies makes it better-ish.)

Honestly, things could be so much worse. You know you’re a resident family when the best Christmas present you receive is having your husband home . . . on Christmas Eve.  We’ll go to Mass and do most of our family celebrating that day. Santa will come as advertised, but we’ll feast and open presents over the course of a couple of days. We’re still working it out. Thank God for 12 days of Christmastide. (“We’re not accommodating Daddy’s schedule, we’re living liturgically!”)

In a lot of ways, it’s hard to wrap my mind around a quiet, different kind of Christmas. I could spend hours giving you detailed descriptions of my family’s Christmas traditions, and spend many more telling stories of things that happened one year or another. Growing up, Christmas was all kinds of a big deal.

But whenever my heart begins to ache for those family members and places and sights and sounds that I hold so dear; whenever I think about going home for the holidays, I look around. I see my two beautiful children. I see my amazing husband. I see this incredible life we are building together, and I know.

I am home.

So now is a time for new memories. New traditions.  On Thursday, we’ll celebrate and bake and read and play and eat and watch movies and sing songs and do our best to have the kind of Christmas that would make Grandma Roberta proud. My mom was the ultimate Christmas Elf.

That’s not to say that we won’t feel sadness that we aren’t closer to those people that we love; it’s saying that we are making the most of it. I’m not going to let a zip code steal the magic of Peter’s first Christmas or the even bigger magic of the first Christmas that Clare gets. And as those activities grow into traditions and the years fade into memories, I pray that our kids long to be home with us on the holidays, wherever we (and they) may be. 

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Friday, November 21, 2014

{7QT v. 74} It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year

It's the hap-happiest season of all. And I'm going to use the next 7 to tell you all about it.

And linking up with Kelly.


1. Sunday is the feast of Christ the King. That be my Catholic birthday, yo! I'll be celebrating, as always, with breakfast after Mass and making my favorite dinner -- braised beef shanks -- and enjoying it with my beautiful Catholic family.

2. This week and next are the weeks that poor, forgotten, fabulous Thanksgiving gets its due. For two weeks, we get a taste of the world if we all lived liturgically -- feasting, family, giving thanks, heads bowed in prayer that might never otherwise. I freaking love it!!!!!

3. Thanksgiving is Thursday!!!!!! (See above)

4. Then Sunday is the first Sunday of Advent. I'll being singing "O Come O Come Emmanuel" loud and proud for 4 weeks. More on my thinking on Advent from last year here.

5. Feasts feasts feasts! So many awesome wonderful amazing fantastic feasts during Advent. We focus on a few, but it's so easy to live liturgically during this time of year.

Unrelated, pixelated and cute

6. In the midst of all of that is the happy hustle and bustle of the secular Christmas season. Look, I've spent most of my life being a "bust out the carols on the way home from Thanksgiving dinner" kind of gal. I'm working to find a comfortable balance between "letting Advent be Advent" and celebrating with the world. In but not of. Both and. Finding our way, but I can't let go of the joy that (can) come with the season.

7. At the end of all of that is Christmas Eve. I've talked here and here about my love of the last days of Advent. Praying that I might wait with Joyful Hope as we prepare to meet our Lord.

Have a lovely weekend! :-)
 
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Friday, October 31, 2014

7 Quick Takes, Vol. 73

This week, I actually kept a running list of ideas and pictures that don't warrant their own posts, but that I would like to share anyway! Joining Jen with my 7 actually quick takes.


1. On Saturday, Clare and I (well, Peter too) drove through Starbucks on the way home from running errands. They poured her milk into a hot drink cup instead of a cold drink cup, so she was excited to have her first coffee "like Mama." I might have been more excited! ;-)


2. If this face doesn't make you smile, I don't know what's wrong with you. I love this little man so much -- he is so quick to grin or laugh, he brightens my day over and over again. It's just hard to stay down when you're surrounded by that kind of joie de vivre.


3. I was talking to my sister the other day about how, even a couple of years into parenting, and a couple of months into parenting a boy, I can already see the differences between raising boys and raising girls. I thought this little collage pretty much summed it up.
 
Boy + Ball; Girl + Fairy Wings

4. I saw these college football rankings for the week on Monday and immediately thought that if this kind of stuff keeps up, the Territorial Cup (Arizona v. Arizona State) football game might be meaningful this year. Since we're a house divided, we're getting excited. I mean we already know who's tops in basketball (preseason #1, holla!), so a competitive football game is always fun!


5. Yesterday, we finally got a chance to carve a Jack-o-lantern. I'm a skilled and creative carving-artist (or, you know, not), and did the very original "smiley face." Clare didn't really understand what was happening while we were carving, but she loved seeing it lit up -- and played carve a pumpkin the rest of the evening, so win.


6. Clare is fighting a terrible case of the sniffles and has reached the age where I can't get her to smile for the camera. As a result, we have a lot of artistic "looking lovingly at the pumpkin/brother/wall" shots . . . and a lot of shots with her with her tongue out to "moisturize" her chapped upper lip. I am trying to keep lip balm/Aquaphor/whatever on it, but you know how it is when your nose is runny. Poor kiddo.


7. A preview of tonight: my little ballerina and Superman. We'll see how things this evening. We're expecting a good, Midwestern Halloween (read: cold), but it should be dry, so we're going to try to take the kids out for a bit when Charles gets home. 


Have a lovely weekend! Happy (and safe and warm) Halloween today and Happy All Saints tomorrow!

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Friday, July 18, 2014

7 Quick Takes, Vol. 71

It's Thursday afternoon. Both kids are napping (even if Clare isn't quite sleeping yet), it's raining, and I'm sipping a cup of coffee while writing these for tomorrow. Bliss.

Linking up with Jen, and updating on the goings on around these parts in the last couple of weeks.


1. Last Thursday, we celebrated Clare's 2nd birthday. I have my belated reflections on my sweet 2 year old ready to publish next week (thanks to a busy week and unplanned blog break). We didn't have a big, crazy party, but I think we did a good job of celebrating her and giving her a wonderful day.

Blueberry muffins for breakfast

Eagerly (understatement of the century) watching dad put together her Cozy Coupe from grandma

Playing at her new water table.
Opening presents
Chocolate cupcakes with pink frosting for dessert
It was cool and rainy in the morning, but it cleared up so that we had a blast playing in the (now toddler-ific) backyard all afternoon. Charles, by dumb luck, got a short day, so he was able to enjoy it with us. I made some of her favorite Mexican food dinner, and we got to enjoy some yummy cupcakes. I might not have mad decorating skillz (cake or otherwise), but I can celebrate with love and joy and food -- and hopefully, that will resonate for many family celebrations to come.

2. ^^ That counts as two, right?!?

3. I love this picture of Clare doing stickers and Peter playing on the floor, like he's watching her. They already love each other -- you can tell from how much he smiles at her and how much she loves interacting with him. It makes me look forward to them growing up and, hopefully, becoming partners in crime.

Put Minnie Mouse here.

4. I never got around to posting this picture from Charles' first official day of residency!

There's a doctor in the house!

5. On that note, I've been thinking quite a bit about my blogging transition to residency. Mostly in that I'm probably not going to talk about it a lot. I'll talk about how it affects me, of course, but I'm not interested in turning this into a medical wife blog or into a complaining about residency blog. Of course, I won't be silent about it. It does affect my life, so it will linger in the background. It's just that I'm a lot of things and my life is a lot of things, and being a resident's wife is just a little piece of it.

6. Miss Clare had a bit of a cold Tuesday night/Wednesday. Thankfully, she is back to her goofy self now, and nothing much came out of it. After a winter and spring of freaking out over every.single. moment of ill health, and watching her spike too many fevers and spend too many days feeling poorly, it was such a relief to see her bounce back and experience a "normal" little cold.

Crazy Clare

7. And Mr. Torpedo has become interested in his Taggie Blanket . . . which is pretty adorable. He fell asleep snuggling it the other night, and, of course, I had to capture the moment.

A boy and his blanket.


Have a lovely weekend!

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