Belated 2015 Retrospective: What we've been up to

Hello 2016!! [Yes, I know, I'm a little behind.] Hello friends who might still be reading my blog!! I've gone a long time with very intermittent posts. It's been kind of a long blogging break. I'm ready to come back, but don't expect frequent posts. I'm taking my time, and heck, life is busy as a working mom of three small children who still wants to "do all the things."

But let's start this year off with a nice big update with lots of pictures. I'm killing two birds with one stone here. I never got around to doing Christmas cards this year (something that hasn't happened in forever--I even managed to do them the year Silas was born) and I haven't been sharing much on this blog for many moons, so a big update is in order.

So here's a 2015 recap:

BIRTHDAYS

We always celebrate birthdays, but each year is different. For the twins' fourth birthday we decided to have a party for them with friends who had similar aged kiddos. We made it extra fun by having a bubble party. Lots and lots and lots of bubbles. The weather cooperated (thank goodness because no plan B) and everyone had a great time in our backyard. Bubbles, the water table, pizza, and cake; lots of friends, great weather, no gifts. Simple and fun. The boys loved it!

Ethan with little bro Silas checking out the various bubble wands.

We had some interesting bubble wands. I think Ethan was
the only one to figure out how this one worked.

Peter and Ethan spending time at the water table.

The dads were in charge of the bubble machine.

Silas turned 2 this year!! It's so hard to believe my baby is 2 already. He has changed so much in the last year and his language has just been exploding since his birthday. My philosophy on birthday parties is to do a party for birthday #1 and then keep it small until they are old enough to start asking or noticing that other kids have birthday parties. But, we had to cancel Silas' first birthday party due to sickness, so we made up for it this year. My parents came, his godparents were both able to make it, and a few others friends as well. We still kept it simple (because that's how we roll) and I think a good time was had by all.

Opening a few gifts

Silas loves babies!! Here he is with Baby Mikey.

Birthday cupcake!! 

TRAVEL AND VACATIONS

A bit of travel again this year. I had the usual professional conferences this year which took me to Denver in February and then a little closer to home in October for a regional meeting in Louisville.

The boys and I took a long weekend in late May to go to Atlanta to visit family. In addition, I took Silas one day and ventured up to Greenville, SC to visit college friends and celebrate my godson's First Holy Communion. Peter and Ethan enjoyed spending a day with Nanny and Papa.

Brotherly love in Hilton Head, SC

As a family we ventured down to Hilton Head Island once again to meet up with my family for a vacation. It was a bit dreary for most of the week, but we still managed to have fun on the beach one day, the pool another, took a long walk and collected sea shells, visited the Children's Museum, and took the twins to play their first ever round of miniature golf.

Chris had the opportunity in November to go on a retreat. He didn't have to go too far (our diocesan retreat center near Danville, KY), but I'm sure the break was nice for him.

SCHOOL

Peter and Ethan started in the Pre-K class at their daycare this past August. They both have been doing great. The daycare has been great from very early on teaching letters and numbers, days of the week, calendar months, and a few other things, all in a very fun and natural way. So it has been an easy transition to starting to learn in a slightly (they are only 4 after all) more formal way. The school is using "Handwriting without Tears" and the boys have learned so much. They weren't writing much of anything prior to August. Now they can write their names and all the letters in the first half of the alphabet. They are writing numbers and practicing different writing strokes. It's been a really great program so far.

Silas is in the same school, but not doing any formal learning yet. His classes this year do calendar stuff and draw and color and do fun crafts, but it's all very organic, just as when the older boys were in those classes. He has had great teachers who love him which makes it so much easier to leave him (and his brothers) there each day.

Peter, Silas, and Ethan in December following
their Christmas Concert at the daycare

OUR "FAITH"-FUL PURSUITS

Chris and I now both have commitments at our church's Adoration Chapel. He's had his for many years now (every Tuesday at 6 AM). I used to have an hour but had to give it up during my pregnancy with the twins. This year I jumped back in and have the privilege of spending an hour with Jesus every Monday night.

Chris also took a leap of faith this year and went on the Men's Cursillo weekend in November. I wasn't sure if he would enjoy it or not, but he seemed to. I was so glad to have been able to get a sitter for the last day of his retreat so that I could attend the Closing Ceremony. 

I haven't been on a retreat in a long while but I have been working through my novice lessons for the Benedictine Oblates this past year. I've been rather slow going through them and I don't always fulfill all the obligations of an Oblate, but I'm trying. It's a work in progress. The Novice Director has been great and I love getting his feedback on the lesson answers I send him. I'm almost done, have decided on my patron saint (I'll save that for another blog post), and I think we have a date set for Final Oblation. We're all going to take a day trip up to St. Meinrad's for it in April. It should be fun!

Sometime in the past year or more I agreed to co-chair the Vocations Committee at our parish. The main thing I've been working on with that is a Vocations Crucifix Program where different families host the crucifix each week and pray for vocations. It's been a great experience and the committee and I are hoping to expand our work over the coming year.

WRITING

Well, as you know I haven't been writing much on this blog this year. Most of my writing here was in January and February and then my posting took a serious nose dive for the rest of the year. But that's okay, breaks are good. Besides some "7 Quick Takes" posts and "Small Success Thursdays" I did manage to do two reviews this year. One was for Catholic Sistas on the planner being sold there (check it out HERE) and the other on a new e-Book on the Jesse Tree (check it out HERE). The Jesse Tree book was fun to review and then I used it with the kids this year. Here are a few quick pictures:

Boys hard at work coloring their ornaments

The boys' Jesse tree ornaments: three sets, different ribbons for each kid.

Our Jesse Tree with some of the ornaments

At Catholic Sistas I still maintain a once-a-month spot and I spent 2015 putting together interviews with religious men and women as part of the Year of Consecrated Life. If you're interested in seeing what I've been doing over at CS:

My Year of Consecrated Life posts.

A book review of Soul of Christ: Meditations on a Timeless Prayer by Sr. Marie Paul Curley.

A book review of Life from our Land by Marcus Grodi.

By the way, I highly recommend both of the books listed above.

I also volunteered this year to be a part of the Gospel Reflection Team for 2016 at CatholicMom.com. I was given one date to write a reflection for and submitted that back in September. I'm excited to have this tiny opportunity to branch out a bit more, especially for such a big, well-known website!

During this year long blogging break, I have been considering starting a new blog and leaving this one up as an archive. For the moment I have discerned to keep this one going, but a part of me wants a fresh start. That being said, God has made it clear that now's not the right time, so I'll wait. I anticipate there could be a change here sometime in the next year or so. We'll see what God has in store.

MORE PICTURES

Something I can't really do in a Christmas letter is include a bunch of pictures. But I can here!! So here's some other highlights of the year in pictures. 

A trip to the local children's museum early in the year.

The boys LOVE helping with the laundry.

And fighting over the small vacuum to clean under the kitchen table.

A visit to a local orchard and pumpkin patch in the fall.

Pumpkins!

Halloween superheros and a tiger.

All Saints Day party, Peter as St. George, Ethan as St. Michael.
Costumes made by me, something I've NEVER done before.

Silas attended the All Saints Day festivities as St. Isidore the Farmer.

This is how some people "help" mom out.

The Birthday Boy (Dec. 2015)

Christmas Eve, everyone in Christmas jammies!

Merry Christmas!!
Christmas Day Mass, 2015

Cheating a little with this one: Jan. 2, 2016,
my very first 5K!!

From our family to yours, we wish you many blessings in 2016. 

Introducing Baby

Sorry for the silence on the blog lately. But I have a great excuse and here he is:

Silas Augustine arrived at 2:18 pm on Thursday Dec. 19, 2013. He was a plump 9 pounds and 20.25 inches long. I worked really hard to get the delivery I wanted. But things turned out a little differently. Silas was face up and not descending at all despite my pushing efforts. So he came via C-section. Not what I had wanted, but I have no regrets. We have a healthy baby!

He's a bit of a thinker. Haha!

I managed to get a picture of Peter with baby brother Silas. Ethan had no interest in a similar picture. Peter is happy as punch to have a baby brother.

And a Christmas morning picture of all three of my boys. I can't believe I'm a mom of three boys!!

All is going well so far. We've had some bumps along the way, expected growing pains. Nursing did not take right away but we seem to be doing better in that respect now, though Silas still needs a little extra formula to make sure he's getting enough calories. Otherwise, we're figuring things out.

Thank you to everyone for the prayers over the last 9 months. We are so happy to have Silas with us finally!!

Christmas Program

The boys' Christmas program was Thursday evening. It was so cute. The whole day care participated, even the littlest ones. Here are a few pictures of the evening.

This was them coming into the church. It's a little blurry but that is Ethan in front with Peter just behind him. 

Getting set up for the show. As you can imagine it was a little chaotic. The boys had little reindeer antlers they were wearing but Ethan's ended up around his neck and Peter's were kind of in his eyes. 

Getting ready to sing. The boys' both looked so confused. They had been practicing every morning for a couple weeks, but to come in and see all these people looking at them was completely new to them. They rang their bells during "Jingle Bells" but I'm not sure they said "Hey" on cue. They were too big eyed looking out at all the parents taking pictures and videos. 

After the show with their reindeer antlers on. 

And a brother hug before we headed out for cookies and punch. 

Wordless Wednesday: Christmas and Snow

Peter is excited!

Ethan is trying to figure out why there is paper on everything.

All the cousins in matching jammies!

Back home and it snowed!

What is this stuff?

Heading back in.

The Answer to Christmas: Happy

"Why does Santa bring gifts to children on Christmas?"

This was the question that was the basis for a cartoon program I was watching with one of my boys the other day. The question took me a bit by surprise at first since this was a secular, non-religious show. But then as I watched the program I saw where the story line was going and it made sense.

Well, it made sense from a secular stand point. It holds an empty message from a Christian perspective.

I'll skip over the details, but basically the main characters in the show, a set of four kids, find Santa who tells them that he loves making and giving gifts to people. It makes him "happy." As it turns out the answer to the question from the beginning of the show is "Happy." So why does Santa bring children gifts on Christmas? It makes him happy.

Really? That's it?

I know I'm crazy for analyzing a children's cartoon, but here it goes anyway. First of all the "answer" doesn't really answer the question. "Why on Christmas?" is how I heard this question. Giving gifts (or anything nice and unexpected, for that matter) often makes the giver happy and the giftee happy (presumably). It feels good to give gifts. I don't want to belittle the message this show was trying to convey, it was a good message for kids. However, it still falls short.

Christmas is so much more than just giving gifts to our loved ones. As Christians we know this. We recognize this day as the day God gave the human race the greatest gift ever, the gift of His Son, Jesus Christ. It's not just an arbitrary day to give gifts to make us all happy.

I don't expect a secular TV show to get into the religious purpose of Christmas, but it still left me a bit empty.

I guess my take away from this was that I'm glad to be a Christian and to recognize a higher purpose for Christmas. Specifically, I'm glad to be a Catholic where we follow a liturgical calendar that places Christmas into a logical place in the year along with all the other feast days and memorials in the Church.

It's too bad some TV programs go out of their way to try to do a Christmas show without bringing in the actual purpose for Christmas. It just leaves an empty feeling instead of the "happy" feeling they were going for.

Wordless Wednesday: Santa Encounter

Not too sure.

Scared of the big man with the beard and the gifts.

It might be in the box, but Ethan knows what it's supposed to do.

The boys with their new Thomas/Percy trains.
Thanks, Santa!

7 Quick Takes Friday, no. 50

~1~

I had a few friends over for a prayer group meeting on Tuesday evening. We hadn't gotten together in several months! So it was great to catch up and share what we've all been doing in our prayer lives, what we're currently reading or studying to help us become better Christians, and how we are evangelizing others through how we live our lives. At the end as we started gathering our stuff my friend C says to me, "Oh, I have maternity clothes in the car for you." Okay, I said I'd go out with her and grab them. Then I notice my friend S looking a little surprised and she says, "Wait, do you need them?" She thought maybe someone had inadvertently spilled the beans.

Haha! No, no, I do not need the maternity clothes. C was returning them to me, she had borrowed them during her last pregnancy. We all had a good laugh at that one.

~2~

We bought a carpet for the boys' bedroom. Our house is all hardwood floors and since moving in we've bought one area rug for the living room. We have been wanting something for the boys' room for a long time ans we finally did it. It got delivered Wednesday night during dinner. So after dinner, we put the boys in the playroom and we go up to roll out the carpet. It took us a while to line it up with the pad underneath, but we finally got it. Taking the boys up later was an interesting site. They were fascinated by this softness under their feet. It was funny to watch their reactions! Ethan loved it and kept laying down and putting his face down into the carpet. He also did a lot more crawling than he has done in a long time. And then he discovered that the hard floor was still there on either end, which led to him crawling to one side to see the hard floor and turning around and crawling back to the other to feel the hard floor on the other side. He was so silly!

~3~

What was even funnier was that Ethan immediately laid down on the carpet Thursday morning when I got him out of bed. I think he loves his new carpet.

~4~

I've fallen behind on blogging recently mostly because of perpetual sickness in our home. First Peter was sick, then I wasn't feeling well, then Ethan got sick, then we had an appointment with the allergist who also diagnosed ear infections in both boys, then I got sick again. Through all of this Hubby has remained relatively healthy. He woke up one morning with a frog in his throat causing his voice to sound an octave too low, but he otherwise feels fine. At the moment, he's fine, the boys seem to be back to normal, and I'm (hopefully) shaking off the last of whatever this is. I'm just so tired of being sick!

~5~

On a more positive note: I bought my first Christmas gift of the year this week! It's a gift for my goddaughter. I'm so excited to give it to her. 

~6~

Next week is Thanksgiving! I love this holiday. The pretty fall colors, the cool air, being surrounded by family, the warmth of good food. Most important of all, an entire holiday to give thanks to God for all of our blessings. What could possibly be better than that! 

This year we're having some people over to our house for the holiday. Adults and kids included, we'll number about 13. What are you doing for the holiday? Also, tell me what one dish you must have at your Thanksgiving dinner?

~7~

In just a couple short days I will be celebrating another birthday. I am not one to hide my birthday or my age. I think we should all be proud of our years no matter how many or how few they are. I'll be 38 this coming Sunday. We'll be celebrating with a breakfast date on Saturday morning while Ethan's godmother comes over to watch the boys and her own two children. I hope she'll survive four kids at once: ages 3, 17 months (my boys), and 5 months. She is such an awesome friend!

Happy Thanksgiving!!

For more Quick Takes, head over to Conversion Diary by soon-to-be reality TV star Jen Fulwiler.

7 Quick Takes Friday, vol. 34

~1~

Week one of sabbatical project has started.  I hope it will go well.  By day two I was starting to wonder if I was crazy to try working at home with two 7 month old babies and no day care.  Still too early to tell.  If anyone local wants to come visit during the day you're welcome to come during non-nap times.  The boys would love it!

~2~

I started a new blog just for my sabbatical project.  If you're curious about what it is or how it's going, I'll be journaling my way through the sabbatical over there.  You can go to Music Recitals Project to see more.  It's not a very creative name, so if you have suggestions, I'm all ears.  I'm not attached to the current name at all.  Seriously: not. at. all.

~3~

Also this week, I'm back on the wagon.  That is, the weight-loss wagon.  I've fired up the old Lose it! app on the iPod, weighed myself on Sunday, and started counting calories.  Man, I'm hungry!!  I also have a support group on Facebook that a group of friends started, so I'll have some accountability this time.  And motivation!

~4~

The boys and I went for a walk on Wednesday morning.  It's a little too cold for walking the neighborhood, so we went to the mall to walk before the stores opened.  I barely made it.  We had a pooping episode in the morning that required a change in clothes and an unexpected load of laundry and then when I got to the mall I had to remember how to unfold the very big and very heavy double stroller.  It took me a while to remember how the wheels fanned out, but I finally got it.  I was determined to get my walk in and not be foiled by a stroller!  I do love the stroller, though!  It is great: turns easily, is very smooth, looks comfortable for the boys.  But man is that thing heavy!

~5~

I got a Kindle for Christmas!!  It was totally unexpected.  I had been looking at them, but couldn't decide which I wanted.  Did I want the basic, original Kindle or the Fire?  Did I want 3G capabilities?  Did I want to wait a year and see if they released a Fire with 3G?  Maybe I should look at the Nook?  But all my questions got answered for me: Hubby got me the Kindle Fire.  So far I'm loving it!!  I downloaded a whole bunch of free Kindle books and am currently reading The Life of St. Teresa of Jesus (I also got free e-books by Aquinas, Belloc, Ignatius of Loyola, John Henry Newman, and a few others).  Hubby downloaded Angry Birds and started playing Words with Friends.  Currently he may use it more than I do.

I also like that I can get Facebook and my email on it, plus I'm enjoying the Pulse app that comes automatically with it.  Pulse is a little like an RSS feed, but mostly just for newspapers and magazines (current events), though you can also set up part of it to show you the links your friends post on Facebook.

I realized the other day that one of the best features of this is that when I travel I only have to bring the Kindle with me and not my whole laptop.  Bonus!!

~6~

Speaking of Christmas, we had a great Christmas visiting my family in Atlanta.  Everyone was there for Christmas day: my parents, all four of us kids along with two spouses, a fiance, and a girlfriend, four grand-kids, and my aunt who just recently moved (back) to the Atlanta area.  Opening gifts was overwhelming, probably because my two children aren't old enough to do anything and have no idea what is going on, so I felt as if I was constantly being brought gifts from my niece (6) and nephew (3).  Boy were those two excited!!  It was a fun day and very relaxing.  My family is always laid back during holidays, just hanging out, catching up, playing with the little ones, watching football, and enjoying a nice meal together.  And it was wonderful to have everyone there!

How was your Christmas?  Did you travel or stay home?  See extended family or celebrate with your immediate family?  Any special traditions?

~7~

My husband has already accomplished one big goal this year: re-organize the garage so the van will fit in it.  Success!!  The garage was already pretty well organized and neat (for a garage) but there was really only space for the two cars.  Now that we sold one of the cars and Hubby re-organized things, the van fits!!  That is quite an accomplishment if you know the neighborhood and kinds of houses in this area.  Garages are small!  The van barely fits, but it's in there.  Now that the weather is turning colder, this will be a good thing.  I don't want to deal with doors frozen shut early in the morning when we have to go somewhere (no repeats of what we had on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception trying to get to an 8am Mass ... no surprise, we were late).  And it was snowing all day while Hubby was working in the garage, thankfully mostly flurries or heavy flurries with the occasional moments of accumulating snow.

For more Quick Takes, visit Jen at Conversion Diary.