Date Nights*

I had a date with my beautiful Cait tonight—dinner together at Whataburger before heading to our AHG meeting.  :)

Tomorrow will be date night with Dylan.  But, I'm thinking ours will be more along the line of Starbucks and the mall.  A tall, tasty Frappuccino sounds to me like the perfect bribe reward for taking him shopping with me.  (He needs a suit for his First Holy Communion and I'd much rather he try it on in the store rather than taking back several that don't fit, feel, or look right.)

*What?  You didn't actually think I'd be talking about date nights with my husband, did you?  If only I could be so lucky.  I'm totally penning him in on my calendar, though.  I figure sometime around the year, oh, 2014 or so we should be good to go.  ;)

I love my boy

"Hey Dyl!" I say to him, grasping a handful of slack from the back of my now slightly saggy jeans.  "Does it look like your ol' mom's lost a little bit of weight?"

"No," he responds in characteristic deadpan.  "It looks like you've lost a LOT of weight."

:)

Blogging in bullets

Fresh from my shower this morning, I walked into the kitchen and found my nine year old son standing at the counter brewing a pot of coffee--FOR HIMSELF.  Hahahaha!  It's really too bad I make him drink decaf; I'd have really enjoyed a cup, too.  ;)

That same boy is meeting with the deacon at our church this afternoon as one of the final requirements before receiving his First Holy Communion on May 8th (Mother's Day!)  I can't believe that day is (finally) nearly here!

Caitlyn and I are having so much fun working towards more AHG badges!  She created some beautiful works of art for her Artastic badge; even Dylan joined us at that kitchen table for that one!  I love including the other kids whenever possible for the requirements we complete at home.

I am seriously loving getting up early each morning.  I was up at 5:00 a few mornings ago and was able (in addition to emptying all the trash cans, sweeping the kitchen, starting the dishwasher, and sorting a load of laundry) to say a whole rosary while watching a beautiful sunrise.  The loveliest shades of  pink filled the morning sky while I sipped my coffee in the quiet living room.

Having said that, I'm realizing more and more that I'm a terribly lazy person.  This morning I accidentally overslept, waking (again) at 7:15 and feeling terribly behind from the moment I set foot out of bed.  So, just for fun, I decided to play a little game with myself; I called it "Let's see how much I can accomplish while Caitlyn has her bath".  The answer:  a LOT!  Had I known how much I could get done in a mere 10 (or so) minutes, I'd have given up facebook long before Lent!  Or maybe not.  ;)

I'm itching to take another road trip.  We went to Tucson in February and it was so much fun!  One night in our hotel room, as we were all sprawled across the two Queen sized beds laughing our heads off at America's Funniest Home Videos, I said (not entirely in jest) to Darren that I wished we could sell all of our things, including our house, and just move into a hotel--the ultimate experience in family togetherness.  :)

Netflix is awesome and I can't believe we held out for so long.  But now a certain five year old is reminding me that I told her she could watch a movie while I prepped for dinner so I guess that's my cue to get off the computer.  ;)

Look who's walking!

He finally figured it out yesterday afternoon! Caitlyn saw his first steps and came running to tell me. We bribed him with chocolate cookies to keep him going. ;)

Kristen's Third Birthday (aka St. Patrick's Day)

Puppies!

I never imagined that puppies (of all things!) would bring me back to blogging, but I tried e-mailing this video to my mom and the file was too big.  So, I'm posting it here because it's the only other way I can think of for her to  see it.  She's not on facebook and besides, I gave it up for Lent.  ;)

Meet Bailey and Janie, the two newest members of our family!