Flowers to Cheer You Up!

Kathy from The Daily Grotto recently sent me these beautiful flowers. Thank you so much Kathy!! That was so sweet of you... I just LOVE getting flowers.

She said I must send them along to 2-3 other bloggers, so in friendship I send these beautiful flowers to:

Amy from Knit Together in Love
(Who recently found out that she is pregnant!! Congratulations!)

Christine from The Simple Life
(Who is celebrating a birthday!)

Eileen from Eileen on Him...at least I try!
(It's so tough when your hubby's out of town! Hang in there!)

Please pass the bouquet on to other bloggers.

I hope you ALL have a very Blessed Weekend!!

April Shower of Photos :: Day 18

After Mass today, we went to Cold Stone to celebrate a very sweet girl's birthday!! We had a blast!

Anyone have a good caption for these pictures?

P.S. Mr. Peter Nemo lives!! I put a drop of food grade peroxide in the water last night, which was suggested by a friend of mine, and he is doing MUCH better today! She says it works wonders with gold fish!! Yeah!! :)

April Shower of Photos :: Day 17

Well, it looks like Jennifer and Jamie--no, not my sisters Jennifer and Jamie!-- were thinking along the same lines as Captain. He couldn't decide whether he wanted to name his fish Peter or Nemo, so he started calling him Mister in the meantime... (I wonder where he gets his indecisiveness from!? ;) Surely not me!) He finally decided on Mr. Peter Nemo! Try saying that five times fast!

I am a little worried about our dear Mr. Peter Nemo.

Fish are new to me. The lady at the store gave us general directions, and made sure we understood NOT to feed him them too much. We followed all her directions, but Captain's fish just doesn't seem to be doing too well.

I didn't notice, until I was on the phone with a friend of mine and I was asking her questions about fish. (Her boys have had many in the past.) She said if their tail end starts sticking up in the air and they start floating to the top, its a bad sign. I glanced over my shoulder and sure enough that was exactly what Mr. Peter Nemo was doing... and still is.

After watching the fish for awhile, Captain asked me why his fish wasn't swimming all over like the other fishies. I told him, that maybe his fish wasn't feeling too good. He asked if his fish was going to die. I told him, someday he will, but lets hope he gets better. Poor Captains eyes filled with tears as he smiled at me and said, "I hope Mr. Peter Nemo gets better!" Me too Captain... me too.

St. Peter, Patron of Fisherman ~ Pray for Us!

April Shower of Photos :: Day 16

SO... We now have pets!!!! This is a very first for our family!! I have always said that I have more to take care of than I can handle without pets, so why would I choose to add pets to my list of things to take care of... But, my kids have been begging for a pet, and when I saw that this weeks Garden of the Good Shepherd theme was based on "The Wind and Sea Obey Him," and that one of the days was based on fish, I couldn't help but think it would be a perfect time to try out having a pet fish... That shouldn't be too hard, right?!? At least till I have to deal with cleaning the bowl, ick!

We were going to start with just ONE, but when we got to the pet store and the little fishies were only .28 cents each. I splurged and bought 4. One for each of my children excluding Snuggles, who really didn't mind.


The kids LOVE their fish.

If you look closely you can see them all in this picture. It was so fun having the kids name their fish!

On the far left you can see Chiquita's fish. He is Orange and Black. At first she was going to name him Diego, but then decided on Flower, or rather Fwower!

Next you can see Twinkle Toes White fish. She, of course, named her fishie Princess.

The gray/silver fish is Rascals. He was named Sparkle.

The fish on the far right, the orange one, is Captains. Captain said, "I think I want to name my fish Peter, since Peter was a fisherman and a Fisher of Men..." (I was thinking, wow!!! great!!) Then he continued, "Orrrr, maybe Nemo!" He is still trying to decide which, and in the meantime, he has been calling his little fish "Mister."

Thankfully, the fish survived their first night in our home!

WoW ~ Week 7

It has been just a crazy day, and I just realized that I forgot to post for WoW (Weight on Wednesday). I did check in over at Regina's this morning, but thought I would post here as well, now that all the kids are sleeping!

This week, by some small miracle, I am down another half pound... I seriously thought I would have to report a gain this week. My food choices were horrible... But then, I only ate half of that burger and fries my dad shared with me, and only half of that half gallon of ice cream that was just sitting in the freezer, and only half of that extra large pepperoni pizza that hubby brought home Sat night--he worked overtime and then came home with dinner and a movie for the 2 of us... It was so nice! But, see what I mean, I really should have gained!

I was sick last week, and I did move quite a bit of furniture around on Saturday and Monday, so that saved me! I better shape up this week though!

My goals for this next week:

• Walk at least twice.
  
• Head out to my parents to use their sauna again.
  
• Schedule appointment for Allergy testing.
• Start using SparkPeople again.
  

Summary:

• Week five progress: -0.5 pounds
  
• Total lost in WoW: -5 pounds

To see every one else's results, click here.

Happy Birthday Holy Father!

So, it turns out that my parents were married on the 50th Birthday of our dear Pope Benedict!! That would make today Pope Benedict XVI's 81st birthday!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

In honor of our Holy Father's birthday AND his visit to the United States!! We are spending the week watching lots of EWTN live online, as well as making a lapbook!

We started our lapbooks this morning with:

• Coloring a Picture of Pope Benedict for the cover
  
• Discussing and coloring his Coat of Arms

(YES!!! Those are our new fish!! I will tell you more about them later!)

We will continue later today after we return from town--Captain has another lesson with Mrs. K. There are just SO MANY ideas and links out there... (Our favorite has been this one.) Thank you everyone for sharing!

OH! And don't forget to check out Catholic Cuisine, Amy just posted a great suggestion for a Birthday Dinner for Papa Ben!

Thirty-One Years...

...and Twelve Kids Later!

Happy Anniversary
Dad and Mom!!!

We Love You!

April Shower of Photos :: Day 15

Welcome Holy Father!!

What a blessing to have our dear Pope Benedict XVI visiting our country!!

Don't miss all the wonderful ideas and links that Alice, Colleen, Amy, Michele and Karen have shared for celebrating the Papal visit!

Flower Pot Cupcakes

I have never had much luck with flower pots, or growing any flowers for that matter. Although, admittedly, I have never really put very much effort into trying... Having a yard full of deer doesn't help--though, it really is just an excuse, since they would probably stay off of my porch, although the wild animals around here have been getting pretty daring... However, today we had some friends over, and the kids made some darling Flower Pot Cupcakes. Now, I am sure these won't survive either, but they are sure cute, and yummy too!

These are the three I made--you can see the kids below.

Flower Pot Cupcakes

Ingredients:

• 1 cake mix, any flavor
• Ingredients needed to make cake mix
  
• 24 pink, green and brown ice cream cones
• 1 tub chocolate frosting
• 1 cup shredded coconut
• green food coloring
• 24 lollipop sticks
• 24 Golden Oreo's
  
• 1 tub white frosting
• assorted small candies: we used Mini M&M's & Mike & Ike's
• Gummy Worms (optional)
  

Directions :

Prepare the cake mix as directed on the package. Stand up the ice cream cones in muffin tins. Fill cones 1/2 full with batter. Bake as directed. Cool.


Frost the cupcakes with the chocolate frosting.

Tint coconut with approx 10 drops of green food coloring. Mix well. Sprinkle on top of the frosted cupcakes.

Open up the Oreo, insert a lollipop stick between the halves of each cookie, add some white frosting and then put the cookie back together.

Then put a coat of white frosting all over the front and sides of the cookie. Put the cookie frosted side up on a plate, decorate with candies (to create the petals of flowers) and put them into the freezer until the frosting gets hard.

Take the lollipops from the freezer and frost the back. Push the lollipop stick into the center of the cupcake.

Yum!!!

Catholic Cuisine

I wanted to let you all know about my new recipe blog :

Catholic Cuisine

So far I have a wonderful group of women who will be contributing "Recipes for Celebrating the Feasts and Seasons of the Liturgical Year."

"For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what has been planted...a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance..." - Ecclesiastes 3:1-4. Likewise, there is a time for fasting and a time for feasting. In our culture of immediate gratification, many have lost sight of the importance of seasons. For Catholics, the observance of the different seasons and feast days as proclaimed by Holy Mother Church is essential to restoring the proper and holy rhythm of the liturgical year. Catholic Culture

Mealtime provides a great opportunity for observing these different seasons and feasts of the Catholic Church in our homes, the "Domestic Church." I just love finding fun recipes to use for our meals as well as for our afternoon craft & snack times! Us moms are cooking and baking every day, why not sanctify these mealtimes and teach our children even more about their faith at the same time!?!

Don't miss Meredith's post for making Crepes for the Feast of St. Bernadette, which is TOMORROW!!! Thank you Meredith!!