Happy Birthday Gabe!

Gabe turned 4 on Tuesday. Pictures are just a bit late because I haven't had enough time to play with the new camera to figure it out and was waiting for Alan to help.

Gabe asked for a colorful cake with Thomas on it.  It won't win any awards but the kid was happy.  Happy Birthday little man.

Listening to God with Blessed John Paul II

I was looking for a book to help me focus some individual prayer time and Listening to God with Blessed John Paul II seemed like the perfect solution.  This short, simple book you will find passages taken from John Paul's homilies, general audience talks and various other writings.  The passages are then paired with a short dose of scripture.

Each page in this book gives you an easy to digest bit of inspiration to help your spiritual walk.  The short snippets are easy enough to read while waiting for an appointment or sitting in the line to pick up a child from school.  This book is easily able to come with you as you live your busy life while helping to keep you grounded.  Or read a passage a day as you begin your personal prayer time.  Short, inspirational, simple and sweet.

This review was written as part of the Catholic book reviewer program from The Catholic Company. Visit The Catholic Company to find more information on Listening to God with Blessed John Paul II . They are also a great source for a Catechism of the Catholic Church or a Catholic Bible.

Courage, New Hampshire

It can be quite a challenge to find appropriate television shows for the children lately.  No, we don't allow them to watch a lot of the popular characters.  We choose instead to support organizations like Feature Films for Families and introduce the kids to shows from our childhood.  We love to support organizations that are trying to bring back quality entertainment for families.  One of those organizations is Colony Bay Productions.

Colony Bay Productions focuses on telling the story of America in an exciting living history format.  They are a small company working to bring decent entertainment back to families.  They are currently producing a series focusing on a small town called Courage, New Hampshire in the late 1700s.  I ordered the first episode on DVD and enjoyed it.  Or at least as much as it is possible to enjoy a tv show while the children are still awake.  Seriously, if you want to hear all the dialog, you must put the smaller children to bed first.  You'd think I would know this by now.  Or crank the volume up but I kind of refuse to do that because I can't stand when I can hear the television all over the house instead of just in one room.

Ok, now that I am done with that side rant here's what you need to do.  Go visit the Colony Bay website.  See what they are about. If you like what they are trying to do, order a copy of their DVD yourself.  If you really like what you see, become a supporting member or order the teaching materials to use with the DVD.  It's time we stopped complaining about the lack of wholesome family entertainment and started doing something about it.

Kids Pics

Just a few pictures of the kids since I promised they'd be up.

Smiling Ellie

This kid is freezing

She actually gets her head wet now

The dynamic duo

Picture please!

Can you see Sean under the water?

Did I mention I saw some girl checking him out in church today? Yikes.

More Ellie

Abby and homemade snow cones.

Civil War Reenactment

I love our museum memberships.  If you are ever looking for a gift for the kids in your life, buy them a family membership to a zoo or museum.   Because we have the memberships, we are able to go just for a few hours here and there and not worry about getting the most out of our money.  We can take advantage of all the neat programs every weekend if we wanted.  We can decide to just spend a day at the drop of a hat and not worry about the money.  And, well, when you are paying for a family the size of ours, you might was well get the membership anyway since it's often cheaper than buying all the individual tickets.

Today we paid a quick visit to our local living history museum for a Civil War Reenactment.  We were able to see  a battle complete with cavalry and live cannon fire.  Very cool experience although a tad loud.  We were also able to walk through the village and see the changes made by having a war occur in the towns and villages.  Amazing to see the way it became a part of the town's daily life.  Alan decided to pull Sean away from a sign that was giving warnings to avoid pick pockets and loose women so he would not have to explain it.  Kind of wish he'd grabbed a picture of that one.

My only complaint would be the Mom who sent her child back in the bushes during the battle to use the bathroom rather than sending him to the bathroom at the end of the battle field.  Seriously lady? You think that's ok?  It's not like he was 2 and couldn't make it that far.  Anyway, we took a bunch of pictures but only half of them turned out because the camera is dying a slow death and only opens half the time.  Given that it was so sunny, our jr photographer was not able to see that the lens was not open but he did a great job with the pictures he did catch.  Hope you enjoy them.

Better Than Something Cake

I was looking for something different to make for a snack after the crew was in bed the other day and came upon a few recipes for Better Than S3x Cake. Just hoping to avoid the spam bots there but I'm sure you can figure out what it means.  Amazingly enough when I was crazy enough to put the title into google, I did not get unwanted crap.  But I still won't let my kids google something like that.  I combined two recipes and we loved it.  Just need a better title for the kids to use. Sigh.

 And I've discovered that I am incapable of using a recipe written by Paula Dean without hearing the recipe in my head in her southern drawl.  Just try it yourself. I bet you'll hear "boil" in a whole new light.  Here's the recipes we combined: Food Network and Allrecipes.

Seriously, this was yummy goodness.  You must try it yourself. Just make sure you have plenty of folks to help eat it.

Look at Gabe!

Look at Gabe.  He now gets in and out all by himself and seems to handle the big boys with all of their splashing rather well.  If only we could convince his wimpy older sisters to get with the program.  Katie won't let go of the side of the pool and Abby won't let go of her Dad.  Keep in mind her Dad does not need to hold onto her.  She clings to him like a baby monkey making sure even a pinky toe does not enter the water all while screaming her head off.  I have a feeling someone may get tossed in against their will soon if the dramatics don't stop.

Just Swimming

Since we really can't afford to do much running around this summer but still wanted to give the kids some fun, we finally bought one of those quick set pools.  Hopefully it will be deep enough for Katie and Liam to get more comfortable and actually start swimming a bit.  I have to say it is likely just a wee bit too small for all the swimming the older kids want to do but they seem happy anyway.  Ok, thrilled at the moment actually.  It will make for an interesting summer, that much is certain.

Backyard Science

Have I ever mentioned the amount of wild life we can find without leaving our property?  Since moving here we have shared the property at various times with a lonely cat (previous owners abandoned the poor thing, I do not care for cats but that is just wrong), deer, fox, rabbits, various birds, a hedgehog looking thing (Alan's knows exactly what it is but I have no clue), a raccoon with a taste for chicken blood, our chickens, a skunk, snakes, mice, rats and toads. There are also of course lots of butterflies, bees, wasps and other assorted insects.

For the most part I enjoy being able to catch glimpses of these animals out the windows but lately the kids have been bringing the creatures even closer to me.  They are catching snakes and toads.  The last toad caught was left terrified after Kieran carried it and ran quickly all over the yard.  Poor thing was making the most pitiful noises before we insisted it was set free.

And the kids seem to be very talented at catching snakes.  Only garter snakes as they have been warned to stay the heck away from the others.  But they don't seem to understand why I am not as excited as they are over the snakes in the jar.  Guess I'm just not as much fun as I used to be.