Augustine

Happy Feast Day Augustine Michael!St. Michael the Archangel, pray for us!

Love, your Godmama

Here are a couple of Baptism pictures.

I love how you can see the water in this one.

Augustine and his parents and Godparents.

This is what we got him for his Baptism. You can put all your sacrament dates on it. Isn't it beautiful? I love, love, love it. I bought it from our local Catholic bookstore but the lady there said it's from catholicstationery.com. I got one for each of my kids too. Now I just have to get up the courage to write in their names and dates (in my prettiest handwriting) so I can hang them in the frames I bought.

And just a note, if I'm your kid's Godmother, maybe don't run out and buy one of these just yet...

Poor Oldest Child

Samuel is a puker. He always has been. It doesn't matter what kind of sick he is, he throws up too. He also gets motion sick very easily and occasionally throws up in the middle of the night for no apparent reason. Then we have to keep him home from school the next day, just in case, and he's always fine (and a little annoyed we made him stay home).
It happened again Sunday night. As Jeremy and I were getting ready for bed Samuel raced into the bathroom, sick. He went back to bed and was up two more times, so I thought. Philip has been getting up every two to three hours at night again (he must be growing), so between him and the puking I was tired. The next morning I asked Sam, "So you were up three times last night?" "No, Mommy, four. The last time you didn't come in and there was just a little bit so I got a drink and went back to bed." Poor child, throwing up by himself and putting himself back to bed. Only the oldest could handle that.

Mountains

The last load in the old set......and the first one in the new!

As I mentioned a few posts ago, we bought a new washer/dryer set. We had an old mismatched set that we bought from some neighbors when we moved here seven years ago that has been dying for a couple months. I thought the purpose of having a mismatched set was so you wouldn't have to buy both a washer and a dryer at the same time. So much for that thought. But on the bright side we now have a brand-spanking-new lovely set. Except that apparently I had a Cadillac of an old set because the new one is not revolutionizing my laundry as promised. I like the new set, it's really nice and looks very pretty and is oh-so-much more efficient (they tell me) but the washer seems to clean and hold pretty much the same as my old one. The dryer on the other hand, dries in at least half the time and it stops by itself! My old one only stopped after, well, it depended, a couple of hours maybe, but I once left the house for the day with the dryer running thinking it just needed a little more time and came back hours later to it still going. Anyway, because I'm a dork, I took my towels out to the porch where the old washer is sitting waiting to be taken away and I counted how many fit in- ten. (I'm sure the people driving down the highway thought I was crazy but I'm okay with that.) Then I took those same towels and put them in the new washer- still ten, maybe eleven. The manual says to "fill but not overfill" the washer - thank you, that's very helpful. I could have squished a couple more in but they have to be able to move. I guess I'll have to experiment with how full "overfull" is.

Did you know you can stack full size front loading sets? We put the dryer up on the washer and I didn't like how it looked, I felt a little like the kitchen was half laundromat. We bought the stacking kit because we thought our cabinet would keep the dryer door from being able to open if they were side by side but since both machines are shorter we could scoot them over so the door opens part way. The door doesn't stay though since it's not fully open. The dryer controls are also way above my eye level so I'd have to get a stool. But it gives us a little more space and the door could open all the way. We got an extra long cord because it has to reach from the dryer to the outlet and that's a long way when the dryer is stacked but the cord was three pronged and our outlet is four pronged so we have to exchange it. So we'll see, for now they're side by side and maybe we'll try out stacked for a bit and then decide. Really, dryers aren't that heavy, Jeremy doesn't mind stacking and unstacking them, really he doesn't....

By the way, when Jesus said if I had faith the size of a mustard seed I could move mountains, I didn't know He meant mountains of laundry. But if that's my path to Heaven I guess I'll send the kids out to play in the mud!

Philip is 6 Months Old!

My mom has always done six month "birthday" celebrations (starting all the way back at me). I don't remember letting other six month olds eat their cake (I think Samuel was treated to bananas) but #4 got to! Really, his hand eye coordination is still developing, very little actually made it into his tummy. Yummy!

I think I've had enough, Mommy.

Philip is moving but it's rather unique! Not easy to steer or on the head... maybe he'll flip over soon... I'm not helping with that though!

Six Month Comparison

Can you tell they are siblings? Sheesh, there's definitely a certain look to our family.
Here's the stats:

Samuel 19 lbs 3 oz 26 in

Thomas 20 lbs 1 oz 29 in

Julia 18 lbs 6 oz 26.5 in

Philip 19 lbs 2 oz 27 in

Julia is still lagging behind her brothers and Thomas is a whole pound ahead. Philip and Samuel are neck and neck, just like at four months. Who will come out the winner? Stay tuned for nine month comparisons! :)

Reactions

I'll let you use your imagination as to which food is which. Philip seems to be enjoying baby food but we're both looking forward to finger food!

It's kind of the same face every time!

A Whole Bunch of Cute

What a butterball!

Riding the Trains

It was a chilly day for train riding this year but we still had lots of fun. Doug, Katherine and Max joined us (Melissa had a big test to take, which she passed, yay!) and so did Megan and Adam and their kids. We rode lots of trains, had lots of fun and then went to warm up! Who knew we'd want our winter coats?
When the kids and I rode this train we caught a pine cone or something underneath us, the engineer stopped the train to get it out and all the kids leaned to the left to see. Luckily we didn't tip the whole thing over!
Doug and Jeremy and the kids. (It's hard to tell who's who with the hoods up!)Philip was too little to do much riding but he posed with Daddy.He did get to ride on the floor of this train, he enjoyed it. What a cute family!
This year's family picture isn't quite as cute as last year's but we're all looking pretty good.
It was a great day!

PS We also bought a new washer and dryer and celebrated Philip's 6 month birthday, but more about those later...

The Age of Reason

Now that Samuel is seven he has reached the age of reason, at least according to the Catholic Church. So now he knows enough that he can sin. What a great milestone... Anyway here a couple notes on Samuel.

All last week he made Julia and himself breakfast. Samuel gets dressed like lightning and Julia usually gets dressed after the boys leave so while I got dressed and tried to convince slowpoke Thomas to get dressed Samuel went downstairs, put two waffles in the toaster, put them on plates, cut them up and put syrup on them and put them on the table. He was even done eating by the time I came downstairs a couple of times. I liked this seven year old behavior.

Then he locked me out of the house. The screen door no less- and went upstairs. It started with a big fit while practicing spelling words. I'll admit, he knows how to spell them all but it's the principle of practicing now so when he doesn't know them all we'll be in the habit. Anyway he was mad because I made him practice when he wanted to go outside. When we finished, he went out and promptly picked a fight with Thomas. I was on my way over when the fight broke out so I said, "That's it, everyone inside for baths." This made him even more angry. So he jetted up to the house while the rest of us walked, locked us out and went upstairs. He ignored the doorbell. When the phone rang he happily came running to answer it- until he saw me glaring at him, phone in hand, from outside. He let us in but he spent the rest of the evening in his room and lost all his toys for the next day. I didn't like that seven year old behavior.

Overall though, I think we'll keep him.

Cousins

What Philip's Been Doing

Trying out swimming. (He liked it until he got cold.)

Checking out his new cousin.

Practicing sitting up!

"Yay!"

I know, I'm a dork. But an excited one.
http://www.unnecessaryquotes.com/2010/09/sittin-around.html
The picture I took was posted!

Transformation

If for some reason you are not sitting down, please do.

Remember this?

It's gone!

We've moved into the seven year room (so named because we started redoing it seven years ago) the trim is not quite done but it will be...eventually...I promise... (This picture doesn't do it justice you'll have to come see it in person.)

We painted over the awful wallpaper in what had been our room and it is now the big boys'. The boys picked the blue and I chose the gray for the window wall. Eventually we'll knock out the plaster and put up drywall but it's last in line.

Here's their faces the first time they saw it. (They went to Grandma Susan's and Grandpa Mike's while we painted.)

Thomas is calling himself the Blue King.
My mom is making the boys dark gray curtains and bedspreads made out of this: Julia and Philip are sharing the little room for now. The nasty wall behind Julia makes it next on the list for redoing. Jeremy says he'll start after harvest and it will take two months... but no promises. I'm just going for under seven years!

I Love Catholic School!

The other day I walked into the room where Thomas was talking to Philip. Later he told me, "Mommy, I was telling Philip that God created him." It brought tears to my eyes.