{pretty, happy, funny, real}

Capturing the context of contentment in everyday life.  

{pretty}

 Our quickly growing Twinkle Toes, wearing a pretty new dress and holding the Strawberry & Peach Tea Cake we just finished baking! 

{happy}

Captain loves the new Catan: Cities and Knights Game Expansion, for with The Settlers of Catan, that he received for his birthday!

{funny}

"The Fireman" made with Stockmar Modeling Beeswax

by Rascal (age 9)

{real}

Snuggles was the only one that didn't like the Tea Cake...  

Visit Like Mother, Like Daughter for more pictures of contentment!

Artist Trading Cards: A Marian Swap and a few pictures from the For all the Saints Swap!

We are all so pleased to hear that Kimberlee is hosting another Marian ATC Swap!   We loved participating in the Marian and For All the Saints ATC swaps last year, and look forward to participating again.  Head over to Pondered in my Heart for all the Details!  

Seeing the announcement reminded me that I still had a post in my drafts folder with pictures of the Artist Trading Cards that my children sent and received last fall! For some reason I didn't take a picture of the cards Rascal and Snuggles received and I wanted to do so before finishing the post, then never did...  Here are the pictures that I did take: 

by Captain (age 10)

St. Gerard, St. Ignatius, St. Patrick,

St. Paul and Our Lady of Guadalupe

by Rascal (age 8) 

St. Mark, St. Margaret Mary, St. Elizabeth Ann Seton,

St. Gabriel and St. Nicholas

by Twinkle Toes (age 7)

St. Theodore Guerin, St. Margaret Mary, St. Brigid,

and two of St. Catherine of Alexandria

by Chiquita (age 5) 

St. Bernadette, St. Rose, St. Catherine of Laboure,

St. Therese and St. Clare

by Snuggles (age 3)

St. Michael the Archangel

The Cards our Children Received last Fall:

My children were very excited to receive a couple cards from their friends, including one of my Godsons.  Captain was also very excited to see a picture that was sent to me by the mother of a boy who received one of his cards, and recognized him from this blog!  It was very sweet, and it made me laugh hearing his reaction, saying "Mom, you are NOT going to believe this!"  SO cute!!  I could picture my boys doing the same thing!

for Captain (age 10)

for Twinkle Toes (age 7)

for Chiquita (age 5)

My children have loved adding the cards they receive to their Holy Card Collection Albums.  Thank you so much, Kimberlee and family, for hosting these fun swaps for all of us! 

So, will your family be creating some Art for Our Lady this year? 

Our Family of Lego Mini-Figures

I was so tired last night, that I never did make it back to the computer to post the answers to our Lego Mini-Figures Guessing Game!

Charlotte was the first one to guess correctly, followed by JenniferM (unofficially), Mary S and Jodi.   It was so fun to see all of your guesses and we will be sending your family a little "party favor/prize" in the mail, Charlotte.  :)

It ended up being a little harder than I thought it would be for you all.     I thought the hair lengths and colors would give it away at the very start.  Even my sister wasn't able to guess it correctly! ;)  I suppose the girls hair lengths do go back and forth all the time... Currently Twinkle Toes has the shorter hair (though it is starting to get longer) and Chiquita has "layers" since she gave herself a haircut last month.   The only way to tell the boys apart was that Captain has much darker hair than Rascal, especially in the summer.

Everyone had such a fun time creating the Mini-Figures.  Charlotte's printables are just perfect and we really enjoyed accessorizing them with paper crafts, stickers and clip art.  This would be such a fun craft to do anytime, not just for a birthday party!

Anyhow, I'll be back either this evening or tomorrow with some more pictures from the birthday party, but first we have a lot of school work and laundry to get done.   I hope you all have a great day!

St. Brigid's Day Arts & Crafts

St. Brigid, The Shepherdess

by Captain (age 10)

Saint Brigid, Abbess of Kildare 

by Rascal (age 8)

inspired by the cover of this picture book

Saint Brigid Holding Baby Jesus and speaking with Our Lady

by Twinkle Toes (age 7)

inspired by Saint Brigid and the cows 

St. Brigid's Cross

St. Brigid from Fenestrae Fidei

by Chiquita (age 5) and Snuggles (age 3)

An Afternoon with Auntie

Last Christmas A year ago the girls each received gift cards for lunch and an afternoon of pottery painting with their Great Aunt Bridget.   It took us nearly a year to finally schedule the date, but it was well worth the wait and they had such a great time!

Lunch at Red Robin

It was so hard deciding what to paint, but Twinkle Toes finally ended up choosing a pretty little platter and Chiquita opted for a darling little tea set.

 

Aunt Bridget painted a cute little bowl to use for Salsa.   I so wanted to stay and paint too, but Rose had a doctors appointment (this was just before her last echo) and so we had to leave. . . 

I came back from the doctors to find Twinkle Toes painting her whole platter "salsa red" with a pink border... Interesting!  

 

Chiquita was so cute to watch paint and so focused most of the time! :-) 

When they were all finished painting, the masterpieces were left to be dipped in a clear glaze and fired in the kilns! 

Here are the finished results, which my Aunt dropped off yesterday:

The girls were so excited! Didn't they turn out pretty?!?

  

 Thank you Aunt Bridget!!