Bases Loaded

Counting my blessings

Last night I was annoyed!  I was annoyed that Kent left his phone in the room, which rang and woke up Catherine JUST as she finished nursing and was finally asleep for the night.

I was annoyed that after Kent said prayers with the boys and had gone to bed for the night, John and James decided to argue about their sleeping arrangements.

I was annoyed when the sleeping issue was FINALLY resolved ALL the boys decided to go to the bathroom one last time.  Open and close went the doors, on and off went the lights, and Catherine just sat in our bed and cried.

I was annoyed when I finally put Catherine in her crib well past her normal bedtime.  It was almost midnight, I had next weeks menu to plan and lessons to get together for school in the morning.  I was looking at a 2AM bedtime. 

I was annoyed until I reconnected with a long lost friend on facebook last night, and quickly realized that she had lost the son she had 3 years ago to lyme disease when he was only 7 months old.  All of a sudden all the work I had to do no longer seemed important and I read her blog instead.  I sat there for about an hour looking through her pictures, reading her story, admiring her strength, and crying.  On my way to bed I sat for a while in the boys room, just watching them and crying, thanking God for letting me have all of them long enough to hear them grow up to argue with each other.  When I left their room I went and stood over Catherine, fighting the urge to pick her up and just snuggle. I thanked God for the extra time I got with her that night and looked forward to when she woke up in the morning, no matter how early that may be.  I then crawled into bed and cried myself to sleep, well past 2AM and no longer annoyed! 

"Noah Steven Crowned in Peace"

 

Ten Thumbs Up for "Up"

Technically there were only nine of us, but ten sounded better. And one of those nine is Catherine, who really doesn't have an opinion, but she did seem very enthralled with the movie when she wasn't busy eating the little bits of popcorn or sleeping.

In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning

Last night some guys decided to go out drinking.  After they drank they decide to drive around.  They end up on a back road somewhere.  They pull off of the back road and end up driving on someone's lawn.  One of the guys starts to feel sick so they let him out in the yard with no shoes, and being funny they decide to drive off.  The man who was dumped in the yard throws up all over the back patio of the house, he then walks barefoot through his own waste and leaves footprints from the back patio to the side of the house where he is met by Kent, who happened to be leaving for work at that same time.  Kent calls the police.  The police arrest a highly intoxicated man just down the road from our house who happened to be walking along with no shoes.  Man is arrested for trespassing, Kent is left to clean up the mess.  All of a sudden those 5am wake-up calls don't seem so bad. 

1,584,000 Feet on Foot.

Follow along as four young Franciscan friars and their mentors walk 300 miles on a journey of faith and discovery.

"Walking with Hope"

"There is no use walking anywhere to preach unless our walking is our preaching"
St. Francis of Assisi

Some Free Advice

I just thought you might want to know that you should never be in a hurry when grooming your eyebrows.  I also thought you should know that if you make a mistake it would be best to leave well enough alone and not try to recreate the mistake on the other side in an attempt to make both brows look even.  Otherwise, at the end of the day when it comes time to say prayers with your family, and you get to the part where everyone takes a turn telling God what they are truly thankful for that day, you will find yourself saying, "Eyebrow pencils!" 

Extreme Example

Kent wanted Mexican food for Father's Day, so we headed to the next town over to check out a restaurant there.  The parking lot was on the side of the strip of stores and we ended up in a slot facing the local tattoo and body piercing parlor. Shops like this are not something we come across very often so naturally the boys were curious.   Matthew asked, "Hey Mom, what's body piercing?"

My answer at the time was, "Something you better never tell me you did!"  and when we got home I showed them this:

                            

It's my subtle way of making sure it doesn't appear glamorous or cool in anyway.  Let's just hope this little lesson doesn't backfire on me in the future!

Curious About George

      

      

      

    

Read before shopping

I need new clothes. This is not a fact that particularly thrills me, after all I've had 5 kids and still have baby weight to lose from the first one.  But this alternating between the two half way decent outfits I have hanging in my closet full of clothes fit only for cleaning day is getting old, and I can no longer keep putting this off.

Hello Cabela's!

Remember this?  Michael sure does.  Every few months he would ask us to check and see if Cabela's had a "dot" in Georgia yet.  The answer of course was always, and still is "No!"  

When we told him we were going to move to Wisconsin I'm pretty sure the first words out of his mouth were, "Do they have a Cabela's there?"  This time the answer was "Yes!"  And Sunday he FINALLY got to go.

I was all ready to capture his long awaited pilgrimage on camera, but after two photos the camera batteries became exhausted.  I guess that's just as well since Michael spent all his money at the Bass Pro Shops in Nashville, so it's not like we missed his first big Cabela's purchase.  And even though Michael couldn't buy anything, we didn't exactly go home empty handed.  Kent and I picked up one of these so we could make this .  It's stainless steel and holds 2 chickens, so we'll have plenty for company. Just let us know when you want to come!

                     

                  

Our Future Baker?

At this point I think not.  While Catherine does seem to be a bit of a "Pat-a-Cake" junkie, she only "pats" 3 or 4 times before going straight to tossing it the oven, missing the all important steps of rolling it and marking it with a "B".