Quick Takes #182 ~ of the quick variety

1. Last Weekend Summary; lots of fun for the kids in the slip&slide and paddling pool. The grown-ups took down the dead since we moved in tree and found Dr Daddy a bike!!
2. Great post by Michele of My Domestic Monastery on raising daughters.
3. Gymnastics Expo this weekend; Dr Daddy is on-call so I will be kid-wrangling but am hopeful  I will be able to watch Lisbeth show off her amazing progress this year. Mostly I'm glad she is having fun and making friends.
4. Speaking of being the mom of daughters was so excited to see this announcement from Meg of a Princess Saint book she is working on!
5. Thoughts and prayers to all those who lost love ones and effected by the storms in Houston.  We were living there at the time of Hurricane Allison and recent pictures look very similar.
6. So excited for the Outlander finale tomorrow; have overall been impressed with how faithful to the book they have been and where they have deviated.
7. Happy Weekend All!!

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five minute friday: Rise

 Today's prompt is:RISE

         The moment often spoken of has recently happen when my kids are less and less often my alarm clock and my husband's actual clock or the sun is. It is amazing how much that minute or two to gather my wits helps. I know that there are breakfasts to make and lunches to pack but not having to answer questions milli-seconds after I have woken has so helped my stress level and ability to rise and greet the day with a smile and bit of enthusiasm.

         While I have never and may never master the skill of rising before the rest of household I am finding my way to a place peace and happiness that I hope is setting a better tone for everyone as they set out to their separate adventures.

For more Five Minute Friday please head over to Heading Home

Birthday Weekend Recap

Last weekend we had the great fun of celebrating both of our birthdays.  Charlie and my birthdays are a day apart and so we are use to celebrating birthdays together, which of course is more fun when they land on a weekend ~ adding to the festivities this year was the fact that his was a birthday ending in a zero and both our moms came to help us party.

Friday after school we head down to Longwood because my mom had never been and my mother-in-love enjoys going whenever we have the time during her visits.

Saturday we let Dr Daddy sleep in and I took the older two for some last minute party shopping ~ they agreed on a  dinosaur theme because everyone loves dinosaur!!

 We made it back in time for a wonderful pancake breakfast and later headed out for a lovely lunch with many of friends from church; some in town for the weekend and some soon moving on to new adventures.

Errands filled much of the afternoon including Lisbeth's end-of-year gymnastics celebration.

 We picked the party up later that evening with Cake & Presents!!

Sunday brought my chance to sleep in before church and coming home to an amazing brunch!  That evening we went out for a wonderful dinner with our moms and friends from the music group Charlie sings with.  All in all a truly wonderful birthday weekend!!

In addition to the cake we got Charlie's music group surprised him with a cake too!!

Quick Takes #181

1. Elisabeth 'bridged-up' this week to Brownies or as Dr Daddy said "you went from being a flower to being a baked good"
2. Caitlin is afraid of our Jack-in-the-box; refuses to play with it and if 'Jack' is visible insist that someone tucks him back into his box
3. Social Security Admin. released the most popular names of 2014; I find it interesting that Liam is top of the list and Elisabeth & Caitlin are fading as they all seem to me to be subtle twists on classic names.
4. My heart and prayers go out to all those injured or who lost loved ones by the Amtrak derailment earlier this week. Hits close to home as this is a train Dr Daddy often takes when working in Washington.
5. Earlier this week was Katharine Hepburn's birthday and I mentioned my favorite movie of her's is Philadelphia Story, but her version of Little Women and The Lion in Winter are also great favorites. 
6. Busy weekend what friends and family coming into town and a couple of birthdays to celebrate. Going to try hard to step away from the stress to enjoy the festivities and maybe even be in some of the pictures.
7. Happy Weekend!

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five faves: May 13th

Dr Daddy's birthday is later this week and so I'm feature some of my favorite things he introduced me to:

1. My Cousin Vinny ~ and I'll admit I didn't get it the first time he showed me the movie but I now think it is one of the funniest movies and fully understand why Marisa Tomei won an Oscar for her performance.
2. Silly Sister: Maggie Prior and June Tabor ~ amazing harmonies on beautiful hymns and songs of olde.  Proven through many a late night drive to family to be the perfect companion ~ soft enough sleep thru but with very witty lyrics for the driver to listen to.
3. Kielbasa; cold kielbasa that is, growing up I had always had (and liked) it grilled and served hot. Charlie introduced me the joy of eating it sliced and served cold. This was actually an even exchange as we also occasionally grill it up for dinner.
4. Calvin & Hobbes: well I did already like the comic but since Charlie really likes it we have most of the books and can enjoy throughly whenever.
5. Him ~ in truth the best thing Charlie brought into my life is him and his example of faith, service and the ability to take great joy in simply being alive.

Please now head over to Sometimes Martha Always Mary for more favorites.

Quick Takes #180: Lots of links

Sharing with you some of my favorite reads cause I like to share and maybe you are having the same kind-of sick, grumpy, toddler testing week I'm having.

1. Still bummed I missed the conference ~ love the recaps: Rosie, Abby
2. Today I got to attend Muffins with Mom at Liam's school. Songs and food; it was a lovely program and so nice to spend some one on one time with Liam.
3. Totally agree with Ana's take on Mother and Sons
4. One night last week Dr Daddy went into the hospital to be with a family as they said those important good-byes. Hugs and prayers to all of those missing their mom or child this weekend.
5. Mary's post on staying present while remembering.
6. Sarah's piece about missing a mom.
7. Happy Weekend!

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May Goals

I'm a bit late getting this up but spent the weekend traveling ~ better late...

    While there are aspects of winter that I love it is also very true that I often get a case of the 'winter blues' which often means some slippage in the self-care department.  So I'm taking the clear appearance of spring and the start of a new month as a opportunity for a reset; and sharing here so that others can join in and/or holding me accountable.

Goals for the month:

• Wake up my style by committing to wearing skirts or dresses 3x a week
• 5000 steps (counting on my phone which I don't constantly carry) a day and strength training 3x a week.
• 30 oz of water a day 
• Journaling daily in my nice new Blessed is She journal
• minimum of 8 posts this month on this little blog here

There you go ~ 5 goals for the fifth month