good bye old friend

You have been so good to us, little house.

We knew you before you were created.

We picked your colors, your patterns, your decorations.

We planted your grass, your flowers, your trees.

We built your fence, your gates, your garden.

We cleaned your floors, your bathrooms, your windows.... over and over.

We love you.






You gave us warmth, shelter, and comfort.

You were a nest to birth 4 children in.

You were our first school room.

You graciously hosted many Christmas, Thanksgiving and Easter dinners.

You endured countless birthday parties with many many children running up and down your stairs.

You stood strong against children drawing on your walls and floors, and banging on your doors.

You loved us.

We will always remember you!

my week

packing

feeding babies

feeding big kids

feeding myself

packing

changing diapers x3

feeding babies

putting kids down for naps

packing

making dinner

doing laundry

packing

feeding babies, kids

changing diapers

packing.

oh, the excitement!!

letters to heaven

E came to me this afternoon with a letter that she had written for Jesus:

Dear Jesus, I love you and I love Mary. To Jesus, From E.

She cut it out in the shape of a crown, and decorated it. Then, she told me she was going to throw it up into the sky and let it float on the wind up to heaven for Jesus to have. She walked out the door, and tossed it up..

What faith, young children have. What lively, trusting, loving faith.

... it landed in a puddle, and she proceeded to pick it up, climb up high onto the gate and tossed it again. It still didn't catch the wind, and she looked a little sad, so I suggested maybe she try mailing it and she brightened right up.

She quickly ran to the mailbox and tossed her letter in, telling me that maybe Jesus would write her back.

Later on, after she was reflecting on it, she said to me " I hope the mailman is a Catholic, so he'll know to give it to Jesus!".

Now she is busy crafting up something else.. I heard mutterings of sending a daisy and letter to Mary, and I caught a drift of her taping it to a big balloon that can fly up to heaven. She also wants to know what the Ten Commandments are so she can draw up a big sign and post it on our wall so we know how to be good. Uh-oh, guess I better start behaving too ;-)

Now I know what Jesus meant when he said that we must become as little children to enter the kingdom of heaven. They truly know how to believe.

getting cuter every day

Look at my cuties! Sharing a plate of cheerios on the front lawn.

Having twins is still so much fun. I am loving every minute of it.
What are they up to these days?

Climbing the stairs
Pulling up to stand along the couch, the door, the beds, and anything solid really
Walking with someone holding their hands
crawling faster than a speeding bunny
eating lots of food with their 4 teeth each (popsicles are their favorite..)
saying 'mamamamama' when they are grumpy and want me
making messes wherever they go

Lemonade!!

The kids wanted to make a lemonade stand, and today - being the dreadfully hot day it was - turned out to be the perfect day for it.

They shopped for the lemonade, made the sign, and set up shop on the corner of our busy street, yelling at cars as they drove by.

They didn't do too bad:



4 pitchers of lemonade
1 bottle of sunscreen
2 popsicles
1 dumptruck for decoration
1 big sign
2 cute kids
1 lesson in counting change
$28.55



Even the Ice Cream truck stopped to buy a glass!!

do I really?

E, to me, after she listened to me arguing with my husband about some silly thing for awhile one evening:

...."Mommy, you talk like Anne of Green Gables".

I'll take that as a complement, although I think she thinks I talk too much. hmph!

hangman anyone?

Who says you can't play Hangman if you don't know how to spell, or read for that matter?

Here are E and Z playing Hangman, after their babysitter taught them this fun game. I was skeptical at first when they wanted to play it together after she left.

"But, E" I said, "Z doesn't know how to read. He doesn't even know all his letters yet!" (and you can't spell very many words either, I thought)

Silly me, why should they let that stop them?

Here's a game in full swing with both of them having a great time. The answer apparently is Toucan, but neither of them care if it's spelled wrong. How do they even know what a toucan is anyways??

growing every day

Feast of St. Benedict

What a glorious day!!
The resident artist in the family liked my coloring job (R) of St. Benedict's picture, that she wanted to copy it (L)!! You know, immitation is the finest form of flattery.
These are from the coloring book Fenestrae Fidei: A Coloring Companion to Catholic Mosaic, still a big hit at our house.

And St. Benedict is a twin. They are everywhere!!

The little engine that could...

... by my kids.

Some kids act out movies and tv shows. Some kids play video games and watch television. Some kids go to school and work all day, some kids get dressed even!! But not my kids.. they act out scenes in books, and have a great time doing it.

This is from The Little Engine That Could and was inspired by a treasure box given to little Z from my grandma. He loves this box and has carted it all over the house for the past week now. I'm just glad I got to them while they were still thinking of how to get Zs nose painted red so he could look like the clown in the book. I told them to use their imaginations :-)

I love their creativity.

ok let meez join in on the fun

ht: ruth

learning the alphabet

I can hardly believe that my little baby boy has grown up into a bustling, curious four year old already. He is so smart, and full of questions all day long. He wants to know very specific things, like "what would happen if our house was a boat and we were playing cards on a table and there was a big wave that tipped our house sideways....?".


He likes to help daddy cut the lawn each week too. He follows him around with his little plastic mower and the look on his face is so proud. On friday, he told me, with a very grown-up look on his face, that "when I'm a grown-up like daddy, I can go to work too!" I guess it's time to teach him the alphabet and get a start on some of his very own schoolwork!!


We got him his very own binder, and he has started filling it with his own 'work'. He's done some coloring pages from the Catholic Mosaic coloring book, colored a map of canad for canada day, and started learning the alphabet from all the wonderful resources on line to print out.

For now, preschool will be very simple, and in the fall we'll try and add in some of the wonderful ideas that can be found over on the Real Learning blog by Elizabeth Foss.


This morning, we are all enjoying coloring these letters from Everything Preschool. They are big outlines of each letter of the alphabet, filled with pictures of plants and animals that start with that letter. Too bad they don't have a key telling us what the names are.


Other good preschool links we enjoy:

Higher Up and Further In preschool page

Everything Preschool

Enchanted Learning

Preschoolers and Peace

Letter of the week

Learning planet

Preschool Express

Subtraction here we come!!

We've officially graduated from the first half of our math book.. addition, and we are moving into the world of subtraction. YAHOOO!!!! I still have only good things to say about Math-U-See. It has been a great program for our family.

The blocks are fun for everyone (including the babies) to play with, and the DVDs with Steve Demme are a real hit for the kids.

I also love how the workbook pages are plain old black and white without any fancy pictures or fonts. It helps keep my very distractable and doodling daughter on task. :-)

Here are some of the neat things I found on their website:

• a blog
• online drill pages and a
• worksheet generator that are useful even if you aren't using MUS,
• some free Mental Math exercises to help learn your math facts,
• piano music of the skip counting songs
• a Really cute Mac the Muskrat version of the skip counting songs. This is free, and a great way for the kids to memorize their math facts.

summer evenings