Happy Birthday Gabe!

Gabe just celebrated his 6th birthday. He took us all out for dinner on Thursday (because getting a table for 11 on a Friday night often requires more than a short wait). On Friday, he helped Dad make his cake and he requested spinach tortellini soup for dinner. I have to say there is something magical about the smell of onions and garlic cooking filling the house. And something magical about a 6-year-old who requests anything with the word spinach in it for his birthday dinner.

 He received some pretty awesome presents this year. A catapult from Uncle Matt (which Sean learned it was best NOT to launch in the dining room) and  LEGO set from his cousins.  (Yes, we keep birthdays small around here just in case you haven't noticed.)  We'll work on fixing up the backyard sandbox later this week.

Happy birthday little man. I hope you had a wonderful day.

Totally Catholic

Are you looking for a way to help your children understand the Catechism? A book that explains key concepts of the Church in a way children can understand? But one that does not bore them or talk down down to them? Big order, huh?

Totally Catholic: A Catechism for Kids and Their Parents and Teachers is a book that fits this bill.  Totally Catholic is totally interesting. It engages the reader with pictures, prayers, and a lively lay out. While waiting to do this review, I left the book laying in the living room and found a few of my kids picking it up to read themselves.

Totally Catholic is broken down into 39 chapters, each of which attempts to answer one question from the Catechism.  The chapters range from What is the Trinity and What is the Communion of Saints to How did Jesus Teach and Why is Mary Special.  While answering these questions, each chapter also provides short prayers, scripture links, and brainstorming ideas to help you live out your faith in your everyday life.  A Catholic VIP is also featured in each chapter, sharing a short biography of a different saint in every chapter. This biographies do not go in depth about the saint but provide enough information to encourage the reader to learn more on their own.

I would recommend this book for children in the 8 to 12 year-old age range. Although younger children may be able to read the book or be drawn in by the pictures and layout, there is so much information in the book that they may become overwhelmed.  Older children may find this book to be a starting point in a search for more information.  This book will definitely be useful for our family in the next few years for use with our middle and younger children.

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 Totally Catholic:A Catechism for Kids and Their Pa. The Catholic Company is the best resource for all your seasonal needs such as First Communion gifts as well as ideas and gifts for the special papalYear of Faith.

Cherry Picking

I took 7 of the kids with me today to pick cherries. 18 lbs of cherries. And I'm kind of worried that if I don't get them processed soon, there won't be enough left to do anything with. Ask me how I know.  Ask me what happened to all the strawberries we brought home. Some 25 pounds or so of strawberries I think it was and I only got 1 batch of jam out of it because the kids devoured them. Seriously. I had to go to Wegmans to stock up on more to make a second batch. Then I had to go to Aldi's to get more strawberries so that I could REALLY make that second batch.  I swear I am raising a pack of locusts.

Ellie and Robert I do believe pretty much ate their weight in cherries.  The guy did say we could sample them but I seriously doubt he meant make a meal out of them.  Then we went to McDonald's for free ice cream cones because that is how I feed my kids: cherries and ice cream sounds like the perfect lunch to me.

When Liam wasn't hanging from the trees, he was giving Abby and Gabe rides on his shoulders so they could reach the cherries themselves.  Awfully nice of him, don't you think?  My one issue from the morning was seeing the number of people who refused to follow the signs and the rules.  When the sign says pick in this row only, that is truly what they mean. The other cherries are either not ready yet or set aside for something else. I'm not quite sure why this is such a hard rule to follow or why adults think if you show your kids that they don't have to obey the posted rules, that it's ok.

This is the farm Bryan will be working at for part of the summer so I have a feeling at least part of the family will be spending more time there. And we'll be back in the fall to get our yearly haul of apples as well. Love the place because it is so family friendly and the staff is amazing.

Boys' Campout

Our backyard father/son campout was decided wet. And rainy. And muddy. And a ton of fun from what I can tell.  One family did suffer from a leaky tent and bugged out in the middle of the night but I can't blame them. I will admit that part way through the night I was half tempted to put a sign on the back door directing the boys to go pee in the woods because of the constant wet foot traffic in and out of the house. I think they were just trying to get warm for a few minutes because last year the only child who ever ventured indoors was the one who got injured. I do remember thinking to myself "but you are a bunch of boys and part of the joy of being a boy is being able to pee outside so please go do so" but I kept those thoughts to myself. Until now. Because I'm nice like that.

Given the wet nature of the night, our pictures came out less than perfect but here are a few anyway. Everyone actually enjoyed themselves and Fr. asked us to invite him back next year so we can officially assume the campout will be scheduled next summer again.  Just hoping for less rain.