Category: The Kids

Seven Late Takes: Sunday, June 1

1. Happy June 1! June is pretty much the best month in the calendar year. We get my birthday and our wedding anniversary. So, you can’t do much better than that.

2. Am I being way to hopeful about the possibility of a curly haired child? 

It was hard to get a non-blurry shot.

 With these warm humid days we have been getting lately, I am really starting to suspect.

Here she is putting clean tissues in the trash.

 Is this a normal way for curly hair to appear. Her hair is much coarser, thicker, and darker than her sisters with dirty blonde, straight, silky hair.

3.  We bought a tree this week, and planted it in the front yard with the help of M’s farmer boy cousins who were in “the cities” from rural Wisconsin for the Catholic home school conference. I am hoping that it will one day shade our front window.

It is a snowdrift crabapple, which means it has white blossoms in the spring and red-orange fruit on the tree all winter. This means we are going to have a color besides white and dirty white outside our front window all winter long. Hooray!

4. Speaking of the home school conference. The boys babysat our girls for us while M and I went to the conference and looked at curriculum ideas. I am feeling pretty peaceful about what we decided on for the kindergarten/first grade level G is going to be at next year. The way I chose what I liked was purely based on whether or not I felt overwhelmed browsing through each book. When I looked at a book and I thought, “I can do this! This will make home school doable!”, then I knew it was a good choice. Not sure if that is the best way, but it is a start.

5. We had a lot of fun playing games with the cousins this weekend; and I even exerted my prowess over the eldest of our cousins by defeating him in Settlers of Catan after losing to him in our first game. They are really into board and card games, so that is about all we did with them when the children were asleep. That is why my Quick Takes are so late. I was playing games…

6. We have a nice Catholic family down the street from us of a school music teacher and three adopted boys, ages 6, 3, and 1. We have been seeing them a lot more since the kids have all been playing outside. Yesterday they invited us over for a May Crowning of their illuminated statue of Our Lady, which was situated in front of three bales of hay and surrounded by Christmas lights. Our kids were already in the bath, so we had to decline. This morning, when we arrived home from Mass, there was a fire truck in front of our neighbors house and the hay bales were blackened and smoking. It turned out to be an electrical fire. The cool thing was that Mary came out of it intact with just a little brown on the back of her head.

7. Oh, and M is finally on Summer break with grades submitted. This does not mean that he is going to play stay-at-home dad until September. It means that I have to try really hard to not bother him all day while he works in his study doing research and writing papers. We do have couple of vacations planned and some visits with family here, but otherwise he will be working away. It is nice though that I can run errands during nap/quiet time or do some exercise without worrying about kids needing me.

And that is it for Quick Takes! Linking up with Jen at Conversion Diary.

http://www.conversiondiary.com/2014/05/7-quick-takes-about-movies-on-the-lawn-my-life-being-a-mensa-puzzle-for-the-insane-and-why-i-do-not-recommend-peppermint-oil-for-eyeball-massages.html

Seven Quick Takes: Friday, May 23

1. When most people write their Seven Quick Takes, they include in the title a few details of what they discuss. I think that I like it a little better this way. It is like opening a present. You know you are getting to read something interesting and fun, but you don’t know what it is until you click the link, right? I was really bummed that I did not get to writing these last week, especially after so many of my dear friends and readers expressed how much they like to read them, but I literally had no time to sit down and even write very quick takes. So, I hope by starting to write them on Thursday, I can get them up for everyone by Friday. 🙂

2. Last Friday we had M’s 400 level (how do you write that out?) philosophy students over for a dinner of my mom’s spinach lasagna made with the sauce that I had cooked to perfection. The students consisted of one woman who hopes to be a cloistered Carmelite nun after college, two lay philosophy students, and eight seminarians finishing out college seminary. It was a very pleasant dinner, and G and L managed to find two willing seminarians to play with them out in the backyard for most of the evening. They told us at the end of the night how much they had enjoyed playing with the girls, which is great. They left us with enough lasagna for another dinner for us, but managed to eat all of the salad, which cracks me up, because I know a few teenage male cousins who will not touch salad.

3. On last Thursday I spent the evening baking 235 cookies:

Here we only have 229, since a few had to be sampled. Don’t ask who ate 2… 😉

I bake these for M’s last day of classes every year, mostly to have a reputation of generosity towards his students and to be known for my cookies. His medieval philosophy class knew of these particular cookies as the “Anselmian” cookies, that is those-cookies-of-which-no-greater-can-be-thought. They were a hit in the classes, and I managed to get the rest of them eaten by the seniors who came over on Friday. Please pray for M’s sanity this next week as he grades 114 papers…

4. Remember the four baby bunnies I told about in our garden a few weeks ago? Well, there is now a sole baby bunny and her (G and L insist on calling the baby a she) mother living under our shed. The mother has always lived there. I do wonder what happened to the other three, especially since two took off the moment we discovered the garden. I bet the survival rate of baby bunnies in the wild is not that high. We re-rabbit proofed our garden and since then have only seen the bunnies in our yard. The girls and I have daily viewings of little Cottontail from the breakfast nook windows:

“Now my dear,” said old Mrs. Rabbit one morning, “You may go into the fields or
down the lane, but don’t go into Dr. Spencer’s garden:
Your father had an accident there; he was put in a pie by Mrs. Spencer.” 

 (Actually, the only rabbit I ever cooked was flambéd.)

5. The girls have been pretty crazy about dandelions, and I have mixed feelings about our whole backyard turning into a dandelion field with absolutely no grass. I can’t imagine that that is very pleasant for little feet to play on. I am digging up the few out of our front yard, but we are leaving the back for now. On a recent walk, they found a jackpot of dandelions in a neighbor’s yard and now we have this on our table:

Only a mom would allow this many on her kitchen table…

6. This morning, while the children were waiting for me to get my act together (I was doing things like vacuuming…) to read to them about flowers (our “unit study” preschool science), they, of their own initiative, built there very first blanket and kitchen chair fort.

For some reason it makes me really happy to see them doing things kids do. F is not really happy about it since she cannot seem to squeeze her toddler belly past the chairs. I am leaving it up for them during quiet time.

7. Another thing I finally did this morning was get out the summer clothes for F. The poor kid has been stuck in long sleeves during this nice warm week (which also means she did not get sunburned like her sisters did…woops). As I went through them I became extremely nostalgic for toddler G; I think I will always associate the 18 month girl clothes with G’s toddler hood.

Anyway, that’s it for now. Have a great Memorial Day weekend, whatever you choose to grill… 🙂

Linking up with Jen and her Conversion Diary.

http://www.conversiondiary.com/2014/05/7-quick-takes-about-spicy-ebooks-awesome-twitter-bios-getting-foot-jacked-and-other-reasons-why-its-not-going-by-so-fast.html

This Season in Girls: Spring is Here!

The nice Spring days we are having on occasion make me want to move somewhere where the weather is always nice. But we in the North like to think we would not appreciate such beautiful weather as much if we were not confined to the indoors with our small children for six months of the year. Am I right?

Anyway, I realize that I am really bad at doing the monthly update of the kiddos, so I am going to do a Spring one. The girls have been so sweet and my consolation these past few weeks. I am pretty sure I am never going to get over all of their big brown eyes and gorgeous eye lashes. I married M for these eyes, and they just make your heart melt on the face of a little girl.

So, here we go:

G on a walk in the woods two years ago.

G, my big helper and five year old:

You are so inquisitive these days, wondering about everything: “What kind of bird is that that bobs its neck back and forth when it walks?” You correct L whenever she is not precise; maybe our future philosopher? You are also fascinated by anything medical, and were devastated when you did not get your shots a couple of weeks ago. And did not even cry when you finally got them. Maybe a doctor? Or maybe you will “just be” a mom, like you always pretend with your dolls. You have figured out how to match clothes, and dress yourself pretty cutely most days. I also realize how you want to imitate my daily cardigan wearing, which will hopefully stop happening since Summer is coming. You are learning to pump on the new swing set, and have been so patient for your promised “big girl” bicycle. While you forget that mom is tired these days, you are willing to help when you remember. You have been trying to dress F in her pjs, but think that she is “not like a doll because she is so squirmy.” You really dislike being alone (“I want to be with a parent!” “If I go outside without L, I will be lonely!”), but are a good sport most days about taking your quiet time. You are still allergic to bananas as we found out the other night, but seem to be like me in your suffering, cheerful and making jokes half the time. You know how to write all of your letters and numbers, and are getting so good at sounding out words, even though we have taken a hiatus in our reading lessons. You even sounded out verbally C-H-I-P the other day! You are a sweet, wonderful, and capable big girl, and I am so thankful that I have you in my life.

L, my affectionate three year old:

You are the sweetest, cutest middle child there ever was. You were created to be a middle child. You love to play with your big sister, imitating her, laughing with her, imagining with her. You also get frustrated with her, but that is part of being a sister. You are a wonderful big sister as well. Whenever, F, gets her you stop what you are doing, come to her, and give her one of your sweet juicy kisses and say, “Are you okay?” You play so nicely with F, and whenever you two play together, I smile at the continual giggling. You come over to me, give me hugs, and tell me that you are my “comfort.” You impulsively will hug and kiss me and say, “I love you, Mommy!” and did the same thing for your Grandma D when she was visiting last week. At nighttime prayer you always remember to pray for our sick neighbor, Mr. E, and the other night you prayed that we would have another new baby soon. You are not always very good at falling asleep at nap and bedtime, but when you finally do, you sleep like a rock. I can sneak into my room (where you nap) and get things I need. You need time to wake up, sometimes sobbing before you realize that you just want to rest longer. You love to look at books, like both of your sisters, and are working on writing your capital letters. You are still as dramatic as ever; sometimes when you cry I think you must have broken a bone, only to discover that someone took a toy from you. You are so full of emotion, but it is mostly affection, and the affection of a sweet girl is so important in a family.

F, my one and a half year old sponge:

You are absorbing everything these days, and so perceptive. Everyday you are saying new words, learning new things, trying to be so big. I can hardly believe you are halfway between one and two. I am pretty sure you were just born, but here we are one and a half years later. You are on track to be my longest nurser, just a month away from passing your sister. But you night weaned so beautifully and easily, that you are actually sleeping through the night for reals. You are currently really into looking at books, especially your collection of board books (well, the ones we have been collecting for five years). You love pictures and toy ducks, though I am not sure you would know a real one if you saw it, having spent the last six months of your life mostly in doors. (That is actually really sad: for 12 months of your 18 month life it has been Winter.) Now that you can, you are so eager to go outside. You get your socks, shoes, and jacket together and stand by the door saying, “Side! Side! Side!” I cannot always take you out, but when I do, you say, “Slide! Weeeeee! Swing! Weeeee!” and clap your little hands. You really like to clap your hands actually. You clap when people do something for you, or when Mommy or Daddy throw your laundry down the shoot. You clapped for the doctor during your well visit. Every kiss you give is followed by a “Date doo.” (Thank you.) And you know what a dinosaur is; you call them, “Saur!” I am savoring your baby-ness, but enjoying your independence. Don’t grow up too fast!

8 Ways to Make Sure Your Mother Really Appreciates Afternoon Naptime

Do these things in this order starting at 10 AM:

1) Wet yourself in the backyard in your pants and on your boots. Make sure you don’t even ask to go to the bathroom before doing so.

2) Stick your nose in front of the baby swing and get blood all over your mother’s jacket. Make sure you were not listening to her repeated warnings to watch out for the swing.

3) Scream like a girl every time your mother tells you “no” all morning.

4) Wet yourself right outside the bathroom all over the floor while your mother is taking a rare bathroom break. Make sure you did not even ask to go to the bathroom before doing so.

5) When you wet yourself, make sure the 18 month old is running towards the bathroom and slips on the wet floor, getting all “wet”.

6) If you are 18 months old, and your mother strips you down to clean you up, and has you wait in the bathtub so she can clean the huge puddle off the floor, take off that poopy diaper. Stick your hands in it. Rub it on your belly. Yeah, like that…

7) Run around in the hallway laughing while your mom is putting the 18 month old down for a nap.


8) Stay in your room all of nap/quiet time, fearing her wrath. Please?

And because I just saw this new link up, I am pretty sure this qualifies for it:

Linking up…

Seven Quick Takes: Friday, May 2

1. I spent most of Monday in a little panic about silverfish bugs in our basement. I found a couple in our basement school cupboard, and then discovered that they nest in and eat paper and cardboard. I imagined a whole colony of them just destroying everything in the cupboard and moving onto the rest of the basement. I really do not like bugs in my house. I really don’t. Especially creepy looking ones that destroy things. So, I called M and asked him to spray the whole basement for bugs, because who knows what else might have come out since it stopped being freezing cold in the world. Do they have brown recluse spiders in Minnesota? They have them in Missouri and I always was afraid of being bit by one of those. I also discovered that bugs don’t like the smell of cedar. We have a large cedar closet that came with the house in the basement, which I am super thankful for since I am storing things in there like my wedding dress.

2. The kids have their new swing set. M and our friend, T, built it all last Saturday, just in time for it to rain from Saturday night through Wednesday afternoon. I managed to get a picture of it finally this morning. The big girls have been going out and playing in the cold between rain showers. F has been begging to go outside all week, but I really did not feel up for going outside and standing in the cold while helping F slide down the slide. Maybe it will be sunny this weekend. We could all go for that around here.

3. F (18 months) is thinking about potty training already. The other day, G (5) announced that she had to use the bathroom. Whenever she does this, L (3) screams, “No, I have to go potty!” They then race to the bathroom. F, observing them, pulled up her shirt saying, “I po-yee. Pee.” And then waddles after them. Maybe we will go for it this summer. No pants in the backyard. Why not?

4. We decided to night wean F last week. It was a breeze. This kid is so chill most of the time. I kind of wish all babies could be just like her. I still nurse her before bed, but if she wakes up M goes to her with water and tells her to go back to sleep. The first night, he did this three times. The second night once, and now, for now, she is sleeping all night without waking. That is much better that her sisters who wake up multiple times to go to the bathroom, get a drink, fuss about whatever, monsters… How do you parent night wean 5 and 3 year olds?

5. I ended up making the thickest Greek yogurt the other day. You see, I did it overnight in the crockpot on Monday night. (8 cups whole milk for 2.5 hours on low, cool for 3 hours, add 6 oz plain yogurt starter and wrap in blankets overnight). I usually “strain” the yogurt by putting a bunch of paper towels on top to soak the excess liquid off for about an hour. Well, Tuesday, when we were hurrying to get me to the ER for my miscarriage “complications” I stuck it in the fridge with paper towels on top. Wednesday morning I remembered it and, voila, yogurt as thick as you could want!

6. I am guessing that wondering minds want to know about Tuesday. I would like to write a longer post devoted to my experience of miscarriage, but a few initial thoughts are that passing a 6 week old baby at 8 weeks is like a less strenuous labor. But I feel a lot now like I did after having each of the other babies. I lost a lot of blood, and wears one out. What makes it a little easier, but also sad, is that I can sleep all night, without infant care. It is not what I expected. And the baby had a sense of liturgical time, since he/she stopped growing on the Feast of St. Gemma (my confirmation saint), we found out about the death on Good Friday, I started bleeding on Divine Mercy Sunday, and the baby passed on the (new) Feast of St. Catherine of Sienna (who we have started a devotion to since F was born…her biography by Sigrid Undset is amazing).


7. And, I was not going to buy Jen’s new book, since I do not normally randomly buy books (a certain husband of mine would buy a new book everyday if he could). I was thinking library. But as a treat, to help with recovery, I ordered it on Wednesday, plus a new Von Balthasar for M. It is scheduled to arrive next Tuesday. I previewed the first chapters on Amazon, which let me since I purchased the hardcover. I am eager to read the rest. Jen has a beautiful and interesting way of explaining her childhood in the first couple of chapters. Who knows, maybe I will have time to enter a contest.

Linking up with Jen at Conversion Diary!

In Which She Picked Her Own Clothes Before a Well Visit and Mondays

Photo by Morgan. Used under Creative Commons license.

Last Monday was a rough sort of day. We were still dealing with the miscarriage news (well, let’s just be honest, we still are), and I had to take G to the doctor for a scheduled well-child visit which was supposed to be in conjunction with a progesterone injection. M and I barely got up to get me ready in time and I left the kids to his care as I took a rare morning shower and drank my coffee. G even got a bath since she had spent the previous day playing outside on a farm. We had gotten home too late for baths the night before. At least we were clean before we went in.

I am always thrown off at well-child visits for G, since they have a new set of questions for each particular age. I suppose there is a list somewhere, but really, I am trying to avoid the “is my child on track with the standard expectations for her age” mentality. So, anyway, our doctor and I began by discussing if I had any concerns about G and we discussed her random food allergies (eggplant, banana, and watermelon) for awhile and decided to get an epi-pen for her in case we ever need it. Then Dr. went through her list; I was able to answer confidently on all the questions, until she asked if she could draw a triangle and a square. I fumbled for an answer. The last time I had tested her on that was last Spring when we finished her capital letter handwriting book. I said I was not sure, and Dr. suggested that it was just something we should check on. I did not even think to mention that G can write all of her lower case letters, capital letters, and numbers. Those are far more complex than shapes. I felt like our home schooling seemed like a failure. I hope to jokingly correct my mistake when we go in next. But then we got to the “safety” section. No, we have not sat down specifically to do safety things, but I remind her to look both ways at streets, stay away from strangers, and whenever I set off the fire alarm with my cooking G is very aware and ready to run to the back fence. So, maybe we have safety down after all. Except for the memorization of address thing, and phone numbers.

But then we got to the physical part, and when G removed her shoes, I saw that the socks she had picked for herself, were her sparest of spare socks. The ones I have not pitched, because on some cold winter night they might have been her last clean pair to keep her toes warm. They both had absolutely no heel. But they also were pink, and they were loved. Think the velveteen rabbit of socks. Of course she picked them for herself, but I could not help but be embarrassed that I brought my child to the doctor in holey socks when she has plenty of non-holey ones.

Then, as Dr. was listening to G’s lungs, she informed me that G had pneumonia. Pneumonia from that little virus the children and I all had the week before. She had been fever-free for three days, but had an occasional phlegmy cough; I could not believe it. My poor under-dressed daughter, who can dress herself like a five year old should, had pneumonia. We had kept her out late two nights before and let her play in the windy farm air the day before. It was not that severe of pneumonia since she was happily playing most of the time, but still, there it was.

Also, G was crushed, because she has been talking about getting her five year old shots since she was three. And told the nurse and doctor about how she could not wait to get her shots. But now she does. No shots when you have pneumonia! She should get them in a few weeks with F. Anyway, that was last Monday.

Let’s just say I was a bit flustered on last Monday, and understandably so, but the perfectionist in me could not handle it.

So, I brought her home, and M watched the kids and I did some clothes shopping, finally finding a few tops and skirts I liked. I have been perusing racks for months. I did not have the heart to go to Bread Co. alone, like we were planning so I grabbed some Jimmy John’s on the way home.

This Monday is a gloomy one. It is raining non-stop. It is supposed to rain all week. Apparently, this nasty, chilly, rainy weather is making way for nice warm spring and summer weather, which we all could go for around here. At least it is not snowing. We had a snow storm last May, but hopefully no more this year.

Seven Quick Takes: Friday, April 25

1. First of all, thank you all for your prayers during our time of loss of our tiny baby. It was hard for me to share what was going on; it almost seemed easier to keep it private. But since I asked for prayers, I have felt an abundance of grace helping us through this time. I am even finding myself quite happy and hopeful a lot of the time, and remembering our loss is less painful.

2. Today, in addition to being Easter Friday, is also the Feast of St. Mark, which happens to be M’s name day. To celebrate, since we are having dinner with our parish home school community, I had the girls make cards for M. I gave them a quick example of a lion drawing, and realized my poor drawing skills:

The girls did a fairly good imitation of mine:

L (3) drew a mouse-like lion, drew M,  and traced capital letters.
G (5) did a lion, her father, lots of hearts, and her name, which is edited out… She also tried to write the date and gave up.

Drawing, check. Writing practice, check. Religion, check. Pre-school for the day, done.

3. When I picked out earrings today, G insisted on me wearing my lions. I think I last wore these to the zoo.

Earring selfie! (Sorry, M, I had to use that word; I know you hate it.)

I am pretty sure I got these from my awesome friend, C, in college, but I do not remember. I had a little thing about lions back before I knew M. Maybe it was a premonition? I am working up the gusto to wear them to evening Mass today. Maybe my veil will hide their ridiculousness.

4. I spent yesterday morning distracting myself by doing a little editing of my blog formatting. Do you see what I did? Any suggestions for other pages/tabs? I could collect things like recipes or posts in certain topics into other pages. Maybe I can delve into home organization next week, as opposed to virtual, while the weather is crummy and rainy. My intentions of organizing during the Winter months vanished with a busy schedule and visiting St. Louis a few times to see my dad.

5. Saturday, during our Easter preparations, M went out to the garden to plant a blueberry bush he bought on an impulse from Aldi. While digging, he found the den of Flopsy, Mopsy, Cottontail and Peter Rabbit. Flopsy and Peter got away immediately, but the other two sat cowering in corners of the garden until M placed them back in their den. The girls thought it was great fun and wanted to keep them, but everything we Googled recommended against it. F (17 months) could not get enough of them and stood by the garden fence saying, “Buh-ee! Buh-ee!” And when I made her bid them farewell her voice became mournful and sad, “Buh-ee… buh-ee…”

Cottontail scared and cold.

When we checked the den on Tuesday, they were gone. The thing is, we thought our garden was rabbit-proof, and now we find that a pregnant rabbit found a way in to give birth and has been returning twice a day to feed her babies. We might have to get the anti-rabbit spray after all to protect our garden from Peter and his cousin Benjamin.

6. If you are my friend on Facebook, you have already heard about F stealing L’s jelly beans. This toddler is quite into her candy. I was keeping the baskets on the table, and she was climbing right up, finding foil-wrapped candies, declaring them to be, “Choc!” and biting right through the foil with her sharp front teeth. She is a little obsessed with chocolate; I wonder where she gets that? I cannot reliably get her to eat foods besides scrambled eggs, meat, processed cheeses, and candy. I guess we have another picky one on our hands, which is too bad because she was really into fruit and vegetables back when they were her only foods. Well, M can get her to eat anything, so as long as he is at a meal, she eats.

7. Last of all, the gracious hostess of Seven Quick Takes, Jen is releasing her book Something Other Than God next week. It is about her conversion to Catholicism from atheism, and should be a good read. I was not cool enough to pre-order it, but I promise I will read it once I get a hold of a copy. 🙂

Seven Quick Takes, April 11

1. We have a walking one year old! F at 17 months has been our latest walker so far. She is a bit of a perfectionist, I think, and did not want to commit to walking until she was sure she could do it completely. She is now walking about 95% of the time, a huge difference from about 2% of the time. It is pretty cute to see her stand up, get set to waddle, and walk with her elbows at her side and her hands sticking out to each side with her fingers spread wide. It does make life a little more complicated since she wants to spend every second she is awake “‘side” in the backyard waddling around after her sisters. When she is not out with them, she stands on the kitchen nook bench and watches longingly. Occassionally, while watching she will get down and go to the door demanding, “Socks! Shoes! ‘Side!” And becomes angry when she is refused.

2. Last night F woke up around 1:30am with an awful cough, wheezy breath, and a hot little body.  I nursed her and put her back to bed only for her to wake up again 30 minutes later. The poor girl was so sad and could not even say words without talking. We decided to give her some pain relief and I finally got her comfortable after nursing again. She slept until 8am, but was still coughing ans wheezing, so we skipped gym co-op and went up to the doctor instead. I am maybe a little over cautious when it comes to breathing issues, but we do have a family history of asthma on both sides, and L has already had episodes. By the time we saw the doctor she was acting a lot better and did not cough for him once. He said it would be okay to nebulize her until the wheezing goes away even though her lungs sounded clear. I do wonder if maybe she is developing seasonal allergies, and they were triggered by the crunchy leaf bath she received from L in the backyard yesterday.

3. To encourage the big girls in our outing to the doctor this morning, I promised them fried cheese curds from Culvers, if they were good. There is a Culvers just past the highway we take home from the doctor, and since we realized that they have this delectable wonder of a food, it has always been in the back of my mind. We might have to make it a tradition. First of all, they are meatless, so they are okay on Friday. Second, they are cheese not potato, so healthier because of protein. I can’t believe I never stopped there while pregnant with F. I just always went to Burger King across the way for fries and a milkshake. Now it is Culvers all the way. Thirdly, a large is just the right size for the girls and I to split, and once they cool a little bit they squeak! I am going to try using my HSA card next time, because I am pretty sure the necessary stop at Culvers is a medical expense that counts towards our deductible. Just saying…

4. The best fried cheese curds we have ever had are not from Culvers or the State Fair, but from a family restaurant in Albert Lea, MN called The Trumbles. They have typical family restaurant fair and quality, but when we saw the cheese curds on the menu, we knew that they would be done to perfection. And they were. We have stopped there twice on our way home from St. Louis, but usually we just stop at a Culvers 30 minutes from Minnesota, because it makes a perfect second and only stop in the 8 1/2 hour drive. If we waited for Albert Lea, we would have to make three stops.

5. Today at lunch, L (3) told me her understanding of Hell and Purgatory:

L: “If you are just a little bit bad and a little bit good, when you die, you go to Purgatory for a time out, and then you go to Heaven. If you are really bad, when you die, you go to Hell and stay there forever!”
Me: “That’s right. Where did you learn that?”
L: “G told me!”
G (5 and in a matter of fact tone): “Daddy told me all about Heaven, Hell, and Purgatory last summer.”

 6. For those of you not in Minnesota, I just want to let you know that, while we have snow on the ground in some places still, Wednesday was sunny with a high of 75! It was glorious. Next week does not promise to be as warm, but anything about 30 is okay with me! Above 40 is even better, and I dare not hope too much for 50s, since this is April in Minnesota after all. M is going to build a garden box this weekend, and we might get some things in the ground next week. And since F is finally walking and loves to run around the yard, I can spend a good amount of time gardening.

St. Gemma in her final resting place in the Sanctuary of St. Gemma in Lucca, Italy. M took this photo when we stopped in Lucca for a couple of hours.

7. Finally, I want to wish you all a happy Feast of St. Gemma Galgani. She is my Confirmation saint, and had a really intense life in sickness and in prayer. Here is an account of her last months of life during which she experienced the Passion on Good Friday with Jesus and passed away on Holy Saturday. To celebrate I made some hot cross buns, using this delicious recipe:

   
Leftover after breakfast.

For more Quick Takes head on over to Jen’s Conversion Diary!

Cloth Diapering: Five Years and Counting!

I could write a post as a tutorial about cloth diapers, but there are so many great posts about them already. My friend Jacqui has not one, but two posts. And Anna has a nice one also. I could also give you all my reasons that we use cloth diapers, but others have said them well. My friend Mary wrote this one a couple of years ago, and I still remember it!  Further, a friend from college wrote this blog all about cloth diapering a couple of years ago.

We had a cloth diaper baby shower, hosted by my dad’s side of the family. His sister works for Cotton Babies, so she took charge of my wish list and we received everything and more from my family months before G was born. At the time we were living in an apartment with coin laundry, but even with that the cost came out about even and we felt we were doing our part for the environment.

Here is a look at what diapers look like after three kids:

This is our 15lbs and up stash, which has seen more wear and tear than the little baby stash.

A pocket diaper with inserts. This used to be velcro, but I switched it to snaps when L was a baby. We use these overnight when we don’t wimp out and use disposable overnight.
Great all-in-one bumGenius. These were from my aunt, who got them from work for free. It is a good thing we have only had girls… My sister got a matching set, which she has converted to snaps.
These are our covers, which used to have velcro. The velcro wore out, but once again snaps to the rescue! Also, you can see some econobum covers at the bottom of the stack.

Our large, once unbleached, prefolds. These are the best and so durable, though a little frayed now.
Cloth wipes. In my opinion, the number one reason to cloth diaper. They save so much money!

And that is what diapers look like after three kids have used them many times. I think they have a few more rounds left in them. Oh, and the best part about diapering for me is the my husband does the diaper laundry. 😉

Thoughts for a Wednesday

I do not really have anything in particular to say, but I just need to do some writing. I have had a few deep thoughts in the past 36 hours, and even started a few posts in my head, but they are now all missing. It is funny how the daily care of a home, children, and husband can do that to you. I am also thinking about the mail box, because I heard the mailman come while I was getting the kids down for quiet time. I would check it, but yesterday a very excited three year old decided to check the mail and found it empty. I am going to save it for her.

I need to work on dinner a little bit this afternoon, because I have worked out a system of having the older two do a workout video with me on Wednesday afternoons while F is still napping. It has been working well, but that means dinner will need some prepping soon. We are having a mushroom, feta, and spinach quiche. I am pretty excited about it. I will let you know if it turns out as amazing as it sounds. The same three year old go very excited about the prospect of pie for dinner, when I answered inquiries into dinner’s contents. And speaking of food, I have some really yummy leak and potato soup sitting in jars in the refrigerator. I am going to resist it. Maybe we will eat it with lunch tomorrow. It was last night’s dinner with grilled cheese. Alright, enough about food.

We really need to get more planning into our gardening this year, but there is still snow covering our garden, plus where we plan on building a garden box. I really have no idea when planting is supposed to happen in Minnesota. Someone once told me that county’s have a publication that recommends when to plan what. Does anyone in Minnesota know where I can get my hands on some guidelines? That would be really nice. I actually just want a lesson in gardening or a great book to get me through the first summer.

It is supposed to snow tomorrow and Friday, so I think I am going to push back my outdoor Spring plans longer, and just do inside things. I have gotten pretty comfortable with our inside routine. Throwing outside into it all, just throws me off, especially for the non-walking 17 month old who wants to play. I am not going to let her scoot around the yard and ruin all of her pants. She will just have to learn to walk or stay inside and watch her big sisters play outside.

And now I have some pie crust to make.