Catching up

I've been embarrassingly slow to respond to all the wonderful comments left in response to my last post, but I do so very much appreciate the kind words each of you left. Such generous sharing of self and heart makes me ever more thankful to have, at least, an online forum in which to "meet" other like minded women! I pray that, with time and with your great suggestions, I'll soon meet a similar real life community! And if not, I just might have to convince Darren that a move to Texas is essential to my emotional well being. :)

So anyway, here's a small sampling of what we've been up to lately. I've fallen waaay behind on posting, so this is just one giant catch up post for my own compulsive purposes (plus, for my mom). :)

Let's see, one day last week I had the brilliant idea to sort and organize every outgrown article of children's clothing in this house. My mom hates it when I do this. See why?

It involves dragging a hefty ladder from outside to my bedroom, where it's lifted into place at an angle across the doorway, so as to provide access to the cavernous ledge above, which is where we store all said clothing. Whew! This is no easy task, let me tell you. The kids and cats all think it's great fun, but what a nerve wracking mess. Just look at the state of my bedroom! Disaster! But oh, it's so much nicer now. Everything is sorted by age and gender (for the most part), a few "new" items were found (including two pairs of sandals for Kristen and a few really cute shorts for Meghan) and several bags full of assorted sizes made their way to Goodwill. There are also a couple more large bags sitting in my garage to be given to a neighbor whose daughter is expecting, but we still have a lot of clothes we're keeping. The baby boy clothes are especially hard for me to part with. What is it about not having seen them worn in the last seven years that makes me so sentimental? They're just clothes, after all. With the girl clothes, though, it's more, "Oh, look how cute! I remember when Caitlyn wore that...and Meghan...and Kristen." I guess by now they're just familiar. I wonder: do you other moms of many children feel that way about your only son or daughter's old clothing? Perhaps (as I fear) this is just one of my many uniquely quirky personality attributes. I'm curious, though. There are a few of you I'm wondering about specifically. :) At any rate, the baby boy clothes are staying! (And most of the baby girl clothes, too, who am I kidding?) ;)

Okay, so this has become much more long winded than I anticipated. Who knew I could devote nearly an entire post to outgrown children's clothing? Darren will be home any minute now and Dylan's waiting for me to help him finish an experiment, and I've not even gotten yet to our Memorial Day trip to the Gila or the garden pictures I thought I'd share or any of the other little stuff I've missed in the last couple weeks. Oops, he's home! I'll sign off for now but hope to post again soon. :)

How pathetic is this?

Submitting last night to the pervasive sense of loneliness that's been weighing so heavily on my heart, I keyed in a Google search for Catholic homeschoolers in my area. No results, of course, and I'd not really been expecting any, having searched at least a hundred times in the past for this very elusive entity. Plenty in the northernmost regions of our state, but none in reasonable driving distance from here, so, failing that, I thought I'd try a less specific search: "[My City] Catholic moms". Scanning the resulting list, one in particular caught my eye. Seventh down, a quite familiar description...wait a minute, that's ME! My abandoned MySpace page. (Hello, Facebook!) That's right, I turned up in my own Google search.

Sigh.

I feel much like Lillian right now, except that I've lived here my whole life so I really have no good excuse.

Please, God, send me a friend. And if she could just happen to be another Catholic homeschooling mother of many small children, that would be just awesome. ;)

So much to do...

I'm procrastinating right now because there is so much to be done around here that I don't even know where to begin. Posting pictures to my blog seems like a good start! :)

I just wanted to share a little bit of what we've been up to lately. It's been so gorgeous here and the children and I have really been taking advantage of these beautiful days. We're pretty much finished up with school, although there are a few things we'll be working on over the summer, so we've been out and about much more lately.

Last week we packed a picnic lunch and headed to a pretty park to eat under the shade trees. They were pretty disappointed that there wasn't extensive playground equipment, but we did enjoy our picnic and afterwards we spent some time at the mall, then headed home to swim, so it was still a great day! :)

I just love these pictures of them enjoying our picnic:

Yesterday we went to Hobby Lobby to select the materials for Dylan's first grade scrapbook, and while we were out I decided to take them to a nature garden that we haven't visited in a very long while. They love it because it has so many different paths through tall trees and flowering shrubs, a beautiful fountain, a small bridge, a giant gazebo, and an area enclosed in low, stair step walls that feel like the remains of a castle. Although we were greatly enjoying exploring our "enchanted kingdom", it was getting pretty late and we were getting pretty hungry, so we headed home to have some lunch. Next time, we'll go a little earlier so we can stay longer!

Oh, and I just have to share these two photos! Kristen finally had her first haircut on Sunday afternoon! Her hair had finally grown long enough that it kept skimming her eyes, and she just does not like barrettes in her hair...she kept pulling them out and putting them in her mouth every time I tried to sneak them in! Not a good thing. I kept wanting to trim it just a bit but wanted Darren around for moral support (and to photograph the event for me, of course!) Here are her before and after pictures:

Ahhh...much better!

Okay, off now to tackle at least a few of these chores. I'd really like to enjoy our long holiday weekend without having so much to do around here!

Mother's Day

Despite having worked a twelve hour shift Saturday night, my Mother's Day was awesome! Of course, it would have been even better if I had actually been able to spend it with my mother, but still. Darren and the children made it one of the best Mother's Days ever! I was home from work early enough for us to make it to the same Mass my brother was attending, and we were so happy to be able to sit with him!

We treated ourselves to donuts (with pink sprinkles!) when Mass was ended, and then spent some time at our favorite bookstore. I was especially happy to run into an old friend of ours, who was telling me about a few different homeschool groups she is involved in and who invited us to join them at their next park day tomorrow! Her two children--a son and daughter--are close in age to Dylan and Caitlyn, so we're really excited to go play with them and the other children in their group!

From there we went to a store we generally try to avoid, because we had promised the children a swimming pool! They wanted one similar to the one we had last summer, but we opted instead for a less expensive one that would give them a little more room to play. Upon hearing that we could just stick our own slide into one end of the pool, they were even happier with their selection. :)

We also purchased the cutest little baby pool for Kristen to splash in. The pool itself is a large inflatable turtle (we love turtles!) but it's shell comes up to form a large sun shade. I love it! It's so perfect for little Miss Kristen. She's still much too small to play in the big pool with her bigger, rambunctious siblings, but this one is just right for her!

We all had a great time playing outside, and then, after coming inside to dry off and warm up, Darren made the most delicious dinner of eggplant Parmesan, a salad, and cherry covered cheesecake for dessert! (Does he know me, or what?! We even had cherry limeade!) :)

I just have to share this next set of photos, too, because they so hilariously illustrate why group shots are not always such a good idea around here. It's because, as you can see, what begins as a nice, sweet, sibling hug...

...often quickly becomes a mischevious death grip!

Also, I just have to share these two short video clips. They are so cute, and besides, Darren and my mom will be checking my blog until they're up. :)

Hope you all had a wonderful Mother's Day, too!

Black Swallowtail

It's not the best photo, and she flew away right after it was taken, but look who appeared at lunch time yesterday! Our first of the year! :)

Art

I think I've mentioned before how much I love the site Art Projects for Kids. It's just packed with wonderful ideas, and for such a wide age range! We've enjoyed practicing the various techniques that Kathy generously shares there, and I just LOVE the way today's project turned out!!! Dylan and I flipped through one of his duplicate issues of National Geographic to find a suitable picture for a "Finish the Picture" creation, and I think he did such a great job!

While he was working on his project, I was helping Caitlyn with some work of her own. She does a great job printing her name in capital letters, but has a little trouble with lower case. So, today I lightly wrote her name and had her trace over it in marker, then asked her to decorate the rest of the page. She did a beautiful job, and her work makes me smile...she is my Caitybug! :)