Pondering

On Raising Saints:

Did heroism go out of fashion when the New Look of the twentieth century came in?  G. K. Chesterton mourned in a poem the passing of those who delighted in honor from a world grown greedy and wise.

He would send the poor present-day idealists, born out of season, to Mary.  Let them hand the trophy of "the broken heart" and the tribute of "the unbroken word" in the house of her "who bore the Child that brought the Sword."

And what is the Sword but Truth?  Truth is the two-edged singing Sword, with the Archangel Michael's motto written on the blade: "Who is like unto God!"  And the hilt is scarred with the single, grim word: "Sacrifice!"

~"Mothers of Saints" by Sister Mariel, S.S.S. taken from the book Motherhood and Family from Integrity Magazine

{phfr} - 4 Days Late

...because that's how I roll nowadays.

{pretty}

I've been working on Halloween costumes for the kids this past week (and of course this week, because everything takes me waaaaaaay longer to do anymore).  On a whim, and because I'm a glutton for punishment, I decided to make a little strawberry bag for Sunflowers costume (Strawberry Shortcake).  I wanted it to be kind of sturdy so she could use it after Halloween as well.  I think it turned out pretty. 

The red material is just scraps I had laying around.  The green is actually from a discarded shirt of my dear husband.  I couldn't bring myself to throw it away at the time and now I'm glad I kept it.

I had to throw in a picture of my little Ladybug who looks so pretty in her Little Flowers shirt.

{happy}

Yesterday was my dear husband's birthday.  He got his present a little early because I couldn't wait to give it to him (and because I couldn't really hide it from him) but I think he was pretty happy with it.

Sorry for the bad picture.  I still haven't figured out my camera, and though I took many pictures this is the only one that kind of came out.

{funny}

 As happy as my husband was with his gift, I think the munchkins were even happier with the box.  They immediately took it outside.  It was just tall enough for them to slip inside and of course that's what they did.  What child could resist?  Not these ones.

Who's in here?

It's Sunflower!

A little Fritter-in-the-box.

Hey, that box has grown feet!  Oh wait.  I think it's Ladybug.

 

 

{real}

 

My dining room table has taken the brunt of all the prepping for Halloween and birthdays (yikes!) to come.  We've taken to eating in the kitchen, which is really no fun at all.  Who wants to look at a pile of dirty dishes when we're supposed to be enjoying our meal?!

 

You can see Sunflower's mostly finished costume on the table.  Somewhere on here is the inspiration for our little Froggy's costume.  Anyone want to take a guess what he's going to be?

 



Go visit Like Mother, Like Daughter for more contentment!

Photo Mash

Remember me?  The girl who said she was going to start blogging more often?  Um...yeah....

 

We've been so busy living that it's been really hard to even find time to blink.  Every once in a while I am reminded by more experienced parents that the time goes by so quickly so I should embrace it.  I now know why it goes quickly.  Half the time the day is ended before I've even realized it's begun.  I have been taking pictures though, so I thought I'd try to share what we've been up to in picture form.  Note that these may not be in any particular order, I've uploaded them from both my camera and my phone, and at some point today we MUST get some school done.

 

 

We celebrated the Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary on October 7.  Because we have lots of birthday's coming up, I didn't want to ruin us on cake so I made these excellent brownies.

For the Feast of St. Therese we made sacrifice beads and read about St. Therese in our Treasure Box Books.  It's been so cute to see the children run around trying to do sacrifices in order to make a present for Jesus.

With all the feast days this month we've been doing lots of coloring.

And as always I've been falling behind on the laundry.  These are clean.  Wow, that's stressful just looking at it and I've put this all away by now.

Fritter caught a toad in our backyard.

After catching him, we looked him up and found him to be a Great Plains Toad, which apparently are very common in this neck of the woods, though this is the first one we've seen around our house.  Maybe it had something to do with all the rain we received.  Anyway, Fritter also drew him in his science notebook before letting him go.

My Fritter is always creating something.  I've been meaning to blog about this little thing for months now (as can be seen from the date stamp).  I have been told this is a blood stream.  The white puff balls are white blood cells.  I'm telling you, this kid is a genius.  :)

We have been soaking up as much of this little guy as we can.  Our little Froggy insists on growing even though I've told him not to.  Why listen to mom when growing is so much fun?

We've had lots of reading time.  Lots and lots of reading time.

Another of Fritter's creations.  This is a bug fort complete with branches from the trimming of our Bird of Paradise.

Of course the bugs needed fire wood so they could stay warm.

The cooler weather has allowed us to leave our windows open at night, but by morning time it's chilly for this little Arizona family (meaning it's about 70 degrees inside).  In an effort to keep my little Froggy warm he's gone back to wearing hats.  Paired with his grandpa's ears and it makes for one adorable baby.

And he's also a very rolly polly little guy.  Grabbing the feet is one of my favorite stages.

Like I said, lots of reading.

I'm not the only one enthralled with my boy baby.  The bigger males in the house are as well.

 

After taking pictures of little Frog, Miss Sunflower said, "I can has a pitur of me?"  Of course little Sunflower.  Who can resist that smile?