Quick Takes #252 Happy New Year

Longwood Garden from our December visit.

1. How is everyone? Hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas! We did ~ safely made it to Maine before the worst of the ice storm hit and then got to hunker down cozy warm. The kids actually did great going to Mass twice on Sunday and the liturgies were lovely

2. During our week at my MIL we were able to get in lots of visiting as many of Dr Daddy's extended family were able to stop by for overnight visits. Lots of quality cousin time for the kids ~ and lots of new stuff to play with!

3. We rounded out the week with an Anniversary lunch and shopping trip and our traditional NYE fondue dinner. The year Lisbeth made it to midnight (largely by playing Minecraft with her twin/cousin)!

4. The snowstorm last week meant that the kids only went to school once the first week of January, so this week found us a bit rusty at the whole school routine but the general warming pattern did help.

5. On Monday Caitlin turned 5 and opted for Elana of Avalor decorations plus some Unicorn stuff, bringing Munchkins to school and a unicorn cake at home to mark the occasion!!

6. I owe her a real birthday post soon but as the other excitement of the week for her was parting with her tonsils I'm deferring writing in favor of cuddling her at the moment. Prayers and good thoughts welcome.

7. Have a  good weekend!!

Please head over to Kelly's for more 7QT's.

Quick Takes #220 Christmas memories and looking forward

1. Happy New Year! Happy Epiphany!! Hope you all had a good Christmas. 
2. We did ~ after getting a later start than we had hoped we made the trip north in a great for us 8 hours. Kids only requiring 1 longish stop and 1 quick one plus amazingly little traffic allowed us to keep moving and get to Maine in good order and early enough to get all of us a decent night sleep ahead of Christmas Eve.
3. All in all a great week with a lot time catching up with family, quality cousin time, the chance for an afternoon out to celebrate our anniversary and a 6in snow fall which made for some excellent sledding in G-ma's back yard.
4. New Years Eve we enjoyed the traditional fondue dinner which went so much better than I had envisioned when Dr Daddy suggested letting the kids cook their own meat. When we went to wake Lisbeth and Liam at midnight they both declined to come down but had no memory in the morning which made for annoyed kids ~ next year we will tried harder to wake them.
5. Am once again doing the MMD book challenge; this year she is offering two tracks and while I will be focusing on the fun track will depending on how the year goes try and tackle a few of the stretch category's.
6. I hit my admittedly minimal goal of 50 posts last year; and am (I think) finding my way forward. I still care too much about comments or not but I imagine trusting and resting in my value as a child of God is the work of a lifetime.  Onward!!
7. Along with the ongoing process of putting the house back in order, after the holidays and time away, this weekend we will also be celebrating Caitlin's 4th birthday. Her party is not for a week but we most definitely mark the day with balloons and cupcakes.

Please head to Kelly's for more 7QT's

Quick Takes #219: St Nicholas and Bye Bonnie

1. It feels good to be blogging again; of late blogging had felt like 'one more thing' and suddenly I'm again excited about sitting down and giving voice to thoughts and events going on around me.
2. St Nicholas was good enough to stop by and leave gifts of chocolate and toys. The hit for the two older kids were the Pokemon cards he left, for Caitie the Rapunzel barbie she received and the Elena doll Lisbeth did. The Bishop was kind enough to leave for me a couple of movies I've been wanting.
3. Big excitement last Saturday morning when car dealership called to say that the car we ordered had arrived!! Needless to say we rearranged our Saturday to go pick the car up.  This also meant saying good-bye to Bonnie the blue Subaru Forester we have had since January of 2001. She was the first new car we had ever owned and the car in which I learned to how to drive 'stick'.  We were still living in Houston when we got her and baffled the sales person by asking for the 'winter braking package' but we knew we were soon headed back to the Mid-Atlantic and its occasional snow and ice.
4. The new car is also a Forester and currently tentatively called Holly given the time of year and her red color.
5. Advent is going well; I'm really enjoying the Advent journal from Blessed Is She and the kids are having fun with their Holy Heroes Advent Adventure.
6. As is our tradition the plan is to get our tree tomorrow and will decorate it on Gaudete Sunday. Hopefully we will also get some outside lights up. Best laid plans?!?
7. Happy Weekend!

Please head over to Kelly's for more 7QT's.

Goodbye Ole Girl and Thank You!

Open Book December 2016

• Am still working away on The Life You Save and am well past when I abandoned it last time but will be reading it into the next year so while I will not finish all the books in the challenge I will be reading the book to fulfill the last category ~ so close enough.
• In addition to finishing Emily Climbs which I enjoyed and plan to soon read the final book in the trilogy Emily's Quest; I read The Blue Castle one my favorites of L.M.Montgomery's stand alone books.  A lovely story of a twenty-nine year old who has failed to marry and has largely lived her life quietly so as not to annoy her widowed mother and other domineering relatives; and how all of that changes when she gets a terminal diagnosis.  Yes I know the plot device is a common one but Montgomery does nice things with it.  
• I'm currently rereading Winter Solstice by Rosamund Pilcher a wonderful Christmas story of what happens to a group of people who find themselves snowed in together in a house in Northern Scotland. Pilcher does a lovely job providing depth and substance to her characters as well as the world they inhabit.
• Kid-wise I did want to share a couple of favorites this time of year. Last year Liam was gifted Samurai Santa by Rubin Pingk and loved it! It is a beautifully written and illustrated story about a young ninja student whose Christmas wish is an epic snowball fight and how Santa grants his wish.  Room for a Little One by Martin Waddell is one I remember the bigger kids liking and has caught Caitlin's attention this season.

Please head over to Carolyn's for more Open Book.

Quick Takes #198 What I did on my Christmas Break

1. 1.  While the trip began with a very long drive through the pouring rain which was with us for the whole while; it was overall a wonderful Christmas holiday.
   2. The payback for enduring and driving straight-thru was that Christmas Eve morning found us at our destination and able to dig in on the preparations for Wiglia and Christmas. We paused for Mass where all the kids did well and afterwards I got to watch Liam singing Happy Birthday to Baby Jesus.
   3. Christmas Eve dinner traditionally includes reading the Christmas story from the Gospel of Luke and this year Elisabeth and her cousin Claire was able to take a part. Christmas it self was its usual wonderful chaos of many people opening presents and sharing yummy food and changing out of pjs eventually.
   4. Ice Skating happened again this year and this time Elisabeth, my sister-in-law, and niece were able to join Liam and me. The kids all did really well and I again remembered how much I enjoy skating. Hopefully it won't be a year until I go again.
   5. Snow finally arrived early the next week and the kids happily broke out the saucers and went a-sleddin. A snowman was built and in general winter in New England was given its due welcome.
   6. Charlie and I were able to get away for an Anniversary lunch where I had a delicious lobster pie.  We later saw the New Year in with a wonderful fondue dinner and hilarious game of Trivia Pursuit with cousins of Charlie who came with their family to celebrate the New Year.
   7. The drive homeward was much smoother and more fun due to the total lack of rain. We are slowly putting the house back into order but are very grateful for all the fun and wonderful memories.
    
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   Now please head over to Kelly's for more 7QTs

Quick Takes #168 Christmas Recap

1. Christmas Eve: Frantic but lovely; Charlie was able to leave the clinic in time to come to Mass with us. The kids did reasonably well and Lisbeth loved joining her fellow 1st graders in helping Father put Baby Jesus in the Nativity Scene. Wiglia small but nice as we began to explain some of those important childhood traditions which we hope will come to be important to the kids too.
2. Christmas morning: Big kids actually waited in their bedrooms till 7a; checked out stockings and then we woke Caitlin for present opening amongst the 5 of us ~ then loaded up the car and headed out for....
3. Christmas in VA, arriving after an amazing traffic-free, stop-free drive down in time to enjoy and wonderful dinner with my side of the family and more gift opening. On Friday we enjoyed some downtime to enjoy the new stuff. On Saturday the kids spent some time with their cousins and Bonne Mamy taking charge Charlie and I enjoyed an amazing day trip to Williamsburg. Really deserves a post of it's own with pictures but summary version: we had a great day to walk and explore not just the Colonial capital but the campus of William & Mary too. Stayed late enough to see some of the Grand Illumination and enjoy a wonderful dinner at the King's Arm. Truly a wonderful anniversary gift to each other!
4. On our actually anniversary we drove back to PA, and on Monday paused to do laundry, clean out the car a bit and sell our first house. I posted about it here when we moved this summer and of course the closing stirred up all the emotions a bit but only a bit as we were off on our next adventure...
5. Maine for New Years: After a longer, more traffic-full drive we made it to Maine and a wonderful New Years Eve/New Years Day filled with more presents and cousin time!!
6. Winter Sports featured on Friday with Lisbeth going skiing for the first time and Liam's inaugural ice skate. I too went skating which was a blast ~ something I used to really enjoy and haven't had the chance in years.
7. Re-entry has been a bit bumpy so I think we are all looking forward to a catch-up weekend but also think this Christmas Season will go down as exhausting but most excellent!!

Please know head over to Kelly's for more Quick Takes!

Happy Birthday Baby Jesus!!

Merry Christmas

from our home to yours!!

Merry Christmas!!

Merry Christmas

from our family to yours.

Quick Takes #148

1. The always busy time of year was made a bit busier by Dr Daddy covering extra call so some collegues could attend a conference + unexpected (but welcome) snow days + Me having to do all the pre-employment stuff to return to my teaching job = neglected blog.  
2. Yes, after taking last academic year off I will be working again as a clinical instructor this coming spring semester.  I had to attend a couple of faculty meetings planning for the coming semester this past week; and happy to report that both Caitlin and I survived.  As I've written before I am of two minds about working but am as always grateful for the opportunity and for those who care for my kids in my absence.  The fact that it was a dear friend of mine definitely made leaving for the first time a bit easier.
3. Last weekend we went a bit crazy and decided to go into New York with Charlie's mom and sister and her family.  Despite some occasional blowing snow/sleet in our faces everyone had a great time and managed to visit the Public Library to see the lions with the festive wreaths, Grand Central Station at the request of my train-crazy nephew, Rockefeller Center and Saint Patricks.
4. Yes, I can cross that one off my bucket list except ~ we arrived just in time for Mass (yay) and so no time to look around (boo) and at the moment most of the interior is covered with scaffolds and cloths.  Mass was lovely and the kids did great but I still hope to return someday when the scaffolds are down and I have the time to wander.
5. After Mass we hurried for the Subway back down to Port Authority to catch our bus home.  We made our bus (yay) but learned that due to the weather they were no longer going to bus stops in my uncle-in-laws town but would dropped off at the edge of town.  During the TWO MILE  walk home all of the big kids were amazing hiker and while Liam and Caitlin were pretty miserable their crying probably kept them warm and alleviated the hypothermia worry that mared an otherwise lovely winter hike.  
6. During both the bus rides into and out of the city Elisabeth and her twin cousin (only 9 days difference in age) sereranaded us with renditions of  "The Wheels on the Bus" and "We are Riding on the Bus".  Hope the other passengers didn't mind :)
7. Some of the fun heard around here recently:

Elisabeth upon noticing that someone had addressed a Christmas tag 'Lisbeth' told a friend of ours that "My name is always spelled E.l.i.s.a.b.e.t.h., just sometime the first E is silent"

Liam: gibberish
Daddy: say that again
Liam: gibberish
Daddy: ??
Liam: Watch and learn!

Linking up with Jen of Conversion Diary  and Rosie of a Blog for my Mom

Theme Thursday: Lights

Linking up with Cari of Clan Donaldson for Theme Thursday: Lights

About an hour south of us is an amazing garden and their Christmas tree and light display truly makes them a year round destination.  These pictures are from last year but definitely planning a visit soon.

Please head over to Clan Donaldson for more Theme Thursday: Lights

WWRW: Advent Edition

Linking up with Jessica of Housewifespice for a special Advent/Christmas edition of WWRW.

Here are two of my favorites, sure to get re-read overall the years.

Winter Solstice by Rosamund Pilcher is primarily the story of how 5 people all come to be staying in a house in northern Scotland in the days leading up to Christmas.  Having read many of her books, this one is a favorite.  The events and misadventures to bring all of the main characters together are interesting and believable but not so predictable that it does not hold your attention.  Her description of the landscapes of Scotland and Cornwall are amazing, and add so much to the metaphors about darkness and the return of light.

Star Bright by Fr. Andrew Greeley is a sweet story of a American (Roman) Catholic and a Russian (Orthodox) Catholic falling in love during a fall semester culminating with them celebrating Christmas in Chicago with his family.  Greeley does a wonderful job of showing two young people sharing their faith and talking about the different traditions important to them as they fall in love.

Please head over to Housewifespice for more Advent/Christmas WWRW

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas from our home

to yours!

5 minute friday: Wonder

1. Write for 5 minutes flat – no editing, no over thinking, no backtracking.

2. Link back here and invite others to join in.
3. And then absolutely, no ifs, ands or buts about it, you need to visit the person who linked up before you & encourage them in their comments. Seriously. That is, like, the rule. And the fun. And the heart of this community..

OK, are you ready? Please give us your best five minutes on:

Wonder:

        The due date for this coming baby is New Years; I wonder which month will prove to be his/her birth month, which year?  I wonder what kind of Christmas I will make for my other littles; currently feeling good but I know at some point the energy level will take a hit.  I also know that this time and place is so full of wonder and children if given just the smallest of nudges can find amazement and wonder everywhere.  I wonder who this little person is, and if a boy what we should name him.  Wonder and amazement at the wonderful things about to happen most of the time, anxiety only happens a night a little, praise God.

STOP

Please visit tales from a gypsy mom for other 5 minute friday selections.

Quick Takes #98

1. The "why's" who have previously been a polite guest occasionally seeking my attention has in the last couple of weeks become very insistent, persistent and on occasion loud.  Hoping its stay with us is coming to an end soon.
2. Still have not decide on my word for the year (nothing seems quite right yet) have really enjoyed read posts such as this, this and this.
3. Our lovely host's Saint Selector selected St. Louis for me. Don't know much about him despite having been confirmed in a parish bearing his name.  When I then tried again with the intention of my children and my parenting St. Therese de Lisieux came up, she I know.
4. Our family room needs to be repainted due to water damage from a roof leak and our contractor just  told me that he can't match the border and to select a new one.  I'm trying to view this a chance for a nice change ~ but I really like border.  Can't decide whether to look for something close or make a clean break.
5. Happy Epiphany!  Due to C.'s schedule King's Cake will most likely wait for the weekend.  Another tradition I know get to share with my littles.
6. The answer to the question "Will Liam walk by Christmas/New Years?" is no, but given the interest he is now showing in being up on his feet and with only one of our hands for support, I'm thinking any day now.
7. Plans for the weekend: Putting the Christmas boxes back in the shed and trying to restore some order before the construction craziness starts.  Have a good one!

PLease visit Conversion Diary and enjoy the rest of this week's Quick Takes.

Wordless Wednesday: Photo Card

Three Wise Kings Religious

Unique party invitations and announcements by Shutterfly.

View the entire collection of cards.

Ten on Tuesday: December 13th

1. How do you eat your eggs?
         Lots of ways, love them hard boiled, poached, over-easy and my favorite ~ Benedict

2. Do you volunteer?
           Not much currently, I'm still a 'Big Sister', and help with some programs at my church

3. What’s your favorite brand of jeans?
         Levi's

4. What was your child’s first word? Or what was your first word?
           Not sure what mine was, but Lisbeth's was Dada and Liam's was Yeth (yes)

5. Can you french braid?
               Yes!

6. Do you prefer wide rule, college rule, or blank paper?
                College rule for journaling, blank paper for stationary.

7. Is there a specific treat do you always make during the holidays?
              Cookies!!  


8. Do you have a KitchenAid mixer? Do you want one?
              Recently got handed-down one from my mother-in-law; haven't really done much with it yet

9. What kind of computer do you use?
                  Mac

10. Favorite Christmas movie?
                  It's a Wonderful Life, and The Gathering


Thanks again to our host Chelsea of Roots and Rings!

Merry Christmas!!

Wishing you and yours a Very Merry Christmas

as you enjoy all the wonders and blessings of the season!