Stepping Off the Crazy Train for an Update

Between our Disney trip, Luke's birthday, sicknesses and Christmas, life has be chugging along full speed ahead this last month.  Two days ago, Nash and Stella  tested positive for Strep and today Ellie did too and not to mention I had a fever also.  We've been stewing in germs from before Christmas and it's a time suck taking care of sick people, especially when I'm not feeling so great myself.  Mark also was gone for 5 days, home for one, and then worked another 4.  Oh, and our family doctor closed up shop suddenly...for good, which is not handy when you call when people have fevers and sore throats.  Brooke's junior bridesmaid dress, although already altered, was not right and did I mention we are leaving in 2 days 1 day for my niece's out of town wedding extravaganza?  If all that wasn't enough, the guy thought to be Ellie's bio dad, is really the bio dad and he now has 4 children with 4 different women. And by the way, apparently he's really "excited" that he's Ellie's dad even though he doesn't have any relationship with Ellie's mom.   It's a good thing I'm pretty tight with Jesus, Our Blessed Mother and St. Joseph because I probably should be restrained in a padded cell with what's been going down here.

I don't know how I could possibly withstand any of this without God's grace.  That's the secret. I believe that God has good plans and will not leave us hanging, even in the smallest of matters.  Peace is ours for the taking even in the craziest of circumstances when we pray and I have prayed this Advent like I've never prayed before.

Before Advent got rolling I prayed that God would show me what I should do to prepare my heart to celebrate the birth of Christ.  I didn't hear anything specific, but when things got complicated with Ellie is was as natural as breathing to pray... novena after novena.

Part of my peace has come from my confidence in Our Blessed Mother.  My faith and hope has been bolstered in large part by a nun passing through our parish visiting some friends and handing out some beautiful books to those she met along the way.  We were one of the those blessed recipients!  The books are about the Miracles of Our Lady and of St. Joseph.  Talk about perfect timing!  They are a collection of stories of all kinds showing the different ways Mary and St. Joseph have come to the aid of those who ask for their help in their time of need.  I even wrote to the woman whom translated them from German to English and whom published them and she shipped me big boxes of them to give away...for free!!  It's been really beautiful to share them with others.

The lesson learned this Advent is that waiting isn't all that terrible. In our fast paced, instantaneous culture, waiting is detested.  Doesn't qualify for Amazon Prime?  Forget about it!  Earlier this year the waiting almost did me in, but now I have such a different perspective.  A sweet friend said waiting just means that we have more time to pray and many incredible, small miracles have occurred because of  this additional waiting.  Things I would have never thought possible. I think this year I'm going to adopt St. Padre Pio's popular saying, "Pray, hope and don't worry!".  I'm doing well so far, believe it or not.  I really trust that this thing with Ellie is going to be good.  I believe she's staying, but it's going to take another 6 months to know for sure.  I know we can do this and that something really wonderful is going to occur on the other side. That's God's promise, how can we expect any less?

As if I haven't already spilled my guts, here's the rest of what's on my mind...

Outside my window...it's a dark, clear 39 degrees. It finally has stopped raining!  Just the last day or two has the weather started being cold.  It has been so warm that we didn't wear jackets to Mass on Christmas!

I don't want to forget... Nash trying to convince me to let him crack the eggs for our Christmas Cheesecake by saying, "Don't worry, Mom.  I've got my cracking license!"  Who can argue with that?  Another occasion this month while we were driving in the car, Nash says, "Mom, Ellie's really pumped up about Christmas."  I wasn't sure if he knew what the expression "pumped up" meant so I asked.  He said without missing a beat, "It means she's really excited!".  Got it, Nash!  Additionally, I don't want to forget how Ellie sings a "sleepy song" before she falls asleep.  It's pretty adorable.

A favorite quote..."Prayers are God-filled words in which our love and God's love are joined.  That love and God's love are joined.  That love embraces the people for whom we are praying, and love always changes people and situations.  This doesn't mean that we will always get what we want, but Jesus does promise that we will get what we need." -Rev. Jude Winkler, OFM, p.14


I'm pondering..."Advent is a very special season that is given to us by the Church.  Commercialism has lost view of it by playing Christmas music and decorating during this time as though this were the Christmas season.  But that is not the way it was meant to be.  If we live in pleasure of the senses all the time, we can't enjoy the actual feast when it arrives.  That's why, in the Catholic Church, the season of Christmas begins with Christmas Eve and continues until the Baptism of the Lord [in January]." -Sr. Mary Grace Kelly  We've really tired not to celebrate early and this year we decorated our tree only a week before Christmas instead of before Thanksgiving.  I felt so much less rushed.  We don't have to hurry because we will be celebrating long after the 25th has come and gone.  Besides, the celebration of Christ's birth is much too important for just one day of celebrating!


I am praying for...Ellie and all of our friends that foster with the county as well.  Every one of the cases, the kids should not go back to their bio parents.  Also, a woman from our homeschool group was recently diagnosed with a very aggressive cancer in her femur. She and her family are suffering greatly as she has begun chemo. I couldn't forget my niece and her wedding this weekend!  Health for our family...Nash also has an ear infection! Oh, boy.

In the kitchen...My relationship with the Instant Pot my mom bought for me is getting pretty steamy.  :)  It cooks the most tender, perfect meat you could ever hope for...EVER.  I made some chicken soup with GF orzo pasta and it was heavenly.

I am thankful for...the families in our extended home school group.  They so generously pray for all the prayer intentions of our group.  The outpouring of emails saying they are praying for Ellie and our family has been incredible.  They are  "Simons of Cyrene"  helping each another carry the crosses we've been given.

Some exciting news... I was entered into a drawing to win a free set of Doterra essential oils because I spent a boat load on oils in December and I won!!  I won a kit valued at $160.  As Nash would say, I'm pretty pumped about it.  :)

News in Ellie..She's 17 months!!  She doesn't say a whole lot, but somehow still manages to have all of us wrapped around her finger.  She says hi, bye, up (for both up and down), diaper (which really sound like "bye-per"), shoes, baby, uh-oh, mom, and dadda.  She mostly takes just one nap a day and loves music.  When she wants to hear music, she'll do a little wiggle to let you know.  She can throw a temper tantrum like the best of 'em, but is usually very happy and smiley. Oh, Jesus, please let her stay!

Some future plans...well, besides The Wedding, our Christmas celebrations are still kickin'.  I've planned a gift or Christmas surprise for all 12 days of Christmas.  It's been fun, except for the fever and Strep Throat.

A final thought...a friend said that after reading my blog she thought that I have everything together and that life is perfect in our world.  I laughed then and that still makes me laugh.  I have piles of junk on my counters, crumbs under my table, mountains of laundry, crabby kids, our cars are rapidly turning into beaters, we have mold in our master bathroom and I yell at my kids A LOT.  Sure we do art projects, but besides math and a few other random subjects, we haven't done school since before our Disney vacation a month ago.  I'm not doing it all, no matter what you see in the pictures.  I think what is different here is perspective.  I've had an attitude adjustment as well as Divine grace.  Life is imperfect, but it's still beautiful.  Pray, hope and don't worry... and stop comparing the high lights of my month to the lows of yours. :)

Here are the pictures...

I felt like I was in school again when I made this presentation board to help recruit for our Catholic explorer group, Federation of North American Explorers. Now when I say school, that could even be my college years because I do have a degree in elementary education.  :)

 The day after we got back from Disney, we went to cut down a Christmas tree.  The field was very picked over due to the fact that it was almost half way through December.  When we went to pay, we found out that we could have told them that we didn't find what we were looking for and they would have taken us to a fresh field.  You live and you learn!  Maybe we will have to do that next year because we will be on a cruise with my parents until December 18th.  Mark always has some trip up his sleeve!

 We have gotten our tree from Big Tree Plantation for the last 4 years and this year they added these sweet little kids to feed.

 Yeah, I don't even remember what was going on here.

 We celebrated Luke's 9th  birthday the day after we got the tree.  Needless to say, the tree was not decorated.

 The fish tank was in the big box above.  That was a present from Mark's parents. It's up and running with 5 fish who are amazingly still alive.  :)  Let's just say we've had lots of deaths in Brooke's tank.

 We keep this jail pack n' play in the upstairs hallway on the kids' side to keep Ellie safe and occupied when we are doing things upstairs and can't keep an eye on her.  There are no gates at the top of the stairs which isn't nearly as big of a problem as all the not baby friend junk in their rooms. When we put her in there, she protests for about 10 seconds and then digs into the toys and plays for 30 minutes or even longer.

 A couple days later was Luke's actual birthday where he opened up presents from us.  He got a chemistry set, a money box with a key and many other little fun things from the kids. He ended up getting sick, a sore throat, fever and even vomited once.  Needless to say, he told me it was not his favorite birthday.  He must have just had a virus, because in 24 hours, he was back to normal.

 I gave him a gag gift also which was a box of Rubbermaid containers.  Luke likes to organize the lids and containers occasionally and we have lots of containers, but not all of the matching lids are still hanging around.  I bought a new set to lessen the frustration of putting away the leftovers. Atleast he thought my joke was funny.

A few days later, Luke and Stella tackled the project of finding the mates to all the old ones and Luke even numbered them so we know which lid we are looking for.  He is full of good ideas!

On December 20th Ellie's 7 year old sister Ava came over for a visit.  It was the first time since June that they've seen each other simply because the social worker kept putting me off saying she didn't want to "muddy the waters" while we were waiting to see what would happen with Ellie's mom.  Finally, when we got back from Orlando a new worker showed up with the old and she agreed with us that it was important for the sisters to see each other.  If you missed the explanation last year, Ellie's sister's dad is my nephew's best friend.  I know, it's crazy.  They were so sweet together and as soon as we are healthy and The Wedding is behind us, she's going to come over again.  We hope for this to be a regular thing.

The eve of Christmas Eve we did a poinsettia sponge painting project.  We were supposed to paint the back ground blue, but the kids got distracted by the warm weather and the big pile of wood in our backyard.

I love the way Ellie hooks her toes on the high chair tray.  She's done that for as long as I can remember.

Yep, I just snapped this picture with my iPhone while everyone is sleeping.

The kids wanted to build a fort in our woods and began making a plan for how they would use their allowance money to buy wood and nails and such.  During rest time one day, I got an idea to look on Craigslist for free wood and I found someone in town that was more than happy to give away free wood for a fort building project.  Because Mark worked for almost 9 days straight, I didn't have anyone to pick up the wood so I hired my 16 year old nephew, Joe to do it for me.  It was money well spent!  You should have seen their faces when we pulled into our driveway and they saw the wood piled there.  The next day or so they spread it out all over the driveway which makes me cringe because our home owners association is on our case constantly.  Let's just say Mark did not make friends with the members of the board when he questioned them on fining us for our shutters. #ilovesubdivisions

 On Christmas Eve Mark was home so they got started on the project.  I happened to order kid size work gloves and safety glasses from Amazon for Christmas so I just gave them to the kids early and they were so happy.


Brooke and the other kids roped off with red yarn exactly where they wanted this fort to go so it was easy for Mark to jump in and get started.  They worked for hours and got the roof and two walls up.  It has rained every since and then people got strep so we're at a stand still.  Mark and I are calling it our refugee camp because that is what it looks like now.  We plan on painting it grey so that it blends in with the surrounding and therefore it might lessen the chances of someone reporting us to the HOA.  And to think, we pay a couple hundred dollars each year for them to harass us about forts in the woods and our garbage cans be improperly stowed.  Seriously.

 We need another boy in the family to even out the stockings.  ;)

 After the fort building Mark's parents came over for a Christmas Eve dinner.   The wonderful part is that Mark's mom brings all the food!  This tradition started when I was pregnant with Nash and on bed rest over Christmas.  I am so happy it has continued because it's a really peaceful, fun, low key night.

 We also open presents which the kids look forward too.

 This was the first year that Mark was home on Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and the day after.  It was an incredible blessing!

 In the morning we went to the 10 AM Christmas Mass.  We've never done this, but it was actually so relaxing.  On Christmas Eve we weren't rushing around trying to get to Mass in the afternoon and instead a fort was built.  We had breakfast and the kids opened their stockings before getting dressed and heading to church.  We got there 30 minutes prior expecting this Mass to be packed like on Christmas Eve, but it wasn't at all.  I have to say I think we will always come to Christmas morning Mass if Mark's schedule allows.  It was wonderful!

 I took pictures of the kids, but Ellie was in all the cute ones so maybe next year.

 After Mass and before presents.

 I love the thumbs up.  I don't know where he got that, but now it seems to be Nash's signature move. He was pretty pumped up about the new bike we got for him.  Can you tell?

 After figuring out that cheesecake is super easy to make and very tasty (minus the citrus zest), it's become my go-to dessert.  I bought some greenery at Hobby Lobby, the kind you'd put in a wreath and besides a little bit of glitter on the cake, it turned out cute and delicious.

After we opened presents and had lunch, my side of the family came over. My niece brought her pup, Chief or Chiefers as he is commonly called.  She had a Christmas sweater on him, but it was 60 degrees!

 We had a dress rehearsal on the wedding suits because the suit shop is out of town.  Stephanie picked up the boys' suits and brought them over  to make sure they fit.  Luke's fit like a glove, but Nash's not so much.  Ellie likes to dress up and when she spotted Luke's wedding shoes, she had to put them on.  She was even able to walk around in them which was hilarious.

 It was so warm that my mom wore shorts over so she wouldn't be hot cooking the dinner.  I'm so spoiled!  We opened presents before we ate and I think it was Luke that picked out this flipper for her at Dollar Tree.

 All families are weird so it should come as no surprise that Mark was trying to enhance the picture of my niece and nephew by adding some "wind" to blow their hair.  The wind wasn't going to help Jamie much, but you can see Mark's technique went over well.

 After dinner, the kids put their pj's on and then it was time for our White Elephant gift exchange or "Silly Gifts" as Brooke named it years ago.

 Just what Mark wanted...

In one of our gifts, I bagged up the leftover Halloween candy. Aren't you jealous?  Michelle and Jamie sort the spoils.

 When my parent showed up around 2 PM (with the turkey ready to go in the oven none-the-less) they had a whopper of story to tell that involved spending 6 hours in the ER because my dad was having pain in his chest and arm from Pleurisy.  They both slept for less than 2 hours and then showed up at our house like nothing with amiss with food and gifts in hand!  It was crazy and they weren't even cranky.  :)  I would have been a beast!

It was a really fun night and best of all Mark got to enjoy it with us.  I hope we can do it again next year!!


The day after Christmas Nash and Stella both were under the weather.  I can't remember who went down first, but in no time both had fevers and sore throats.  I tried my best slathering them with essential oils, soaking in a detox bath, putting garlic on their feet, but finally we had to succumb to the antibiotics. I took Ellie in yesterday to find the rapid culture negative, but then today we got the call that 24 hours later, it was positive.  Supposedly she won't be contageous after tomorrow around dinner, but ain't nobody got time to wait around for that!  We've got a rehersal  and a dinner to attend tomorrow!  Stella still has a headache after 48 hours of meds so I'm not too sure about that, but we're just going to have to roll with it because we've got places to be.  My throat is feeling iffy so I hope that goes away while I sleep.  Please, Lord, let it go away.

Well, I hope you all have a blessed New Year!  I'll be back sometime with Disney pictures and The Wedding photos.  Raise you're hand if you're excited for Stephanie's wedding!  :)

Peace,
Katie

Pre-Disney Dump...November Edition

Well, we went to Disney the Monday after Thanksgiving.  We've been back now for a little over a week, but it feels like ages ago because we've been so stinkin' busy.  

We didn't get our real Christmas tree for our living room until after we got back, but the weekend before we left, we got the kids' trees out to put up in their rooms. We also put up the outdoor lights as well.  I figured we had to do somethings before we left or we'd be way in over our heads after we returned from vacation.  It was a wise move.

The pictures are all out of order, but I'm too tired to fix it and I don't really care that much.  Upon closer inspection, the newest pictures are first on down to the pictures taken at the beginning of the month.  These pictures and events feel like ages ago and honestly, I'm not too jazzed about them anyway.  My anal-ness won't allow me to just move on to our trip so I did my duty and now it's done.  #gotobed  :)

Brooke got a camera from Mark's parents for her birthday and she uses it a lot.  Sometimes it's annoying (on occasion she tries to steal my shot!), but mostly it's cute.  I like taking pictures of her taking pictures.  Above, we were having a duel.  I won because my camera is faster.  :)

My parents gave us Christmas money and so I bought this inflatable with some of that money.  We love it so it was money well spent.  While we were setting up outside, Stella was wandering around whining about not having anything to do so I gave her my camera to keep her busy.  She took way too many pictures ( I know that is like the pot calling the kettle black!) but she was so happy clicking away.  Thankfully, we aren't dealing with film anymore. Stella insisted on taking my picture in front of the inflatable. Who can argue with a 7 year old photographer?

She took this picture of Luke too. :)


Mark worked on Thanksgiving and I was so tired (not from the cooking I assure you!) that I hardly took any pictures.  It's a good thing I forced everyone out on the back deck before dinner or we may not have had any!

So these two are getting married in two weeks!  TWO WEEKS!!!  It's so exciting.  All the kids are in the wedding and it's a whole big deal.  We will make a weekend out of it since it's an hour and a half out of town. We've all got clothes and shoes now we just wait.  That's the hard part, right?

Oh, Sandy and Bill, I love you!  My parents showed up with almost all the food... and happy faces.

I love these boys too.

But not these two  ;)

I thought I'd go a whole post without mentioning Ellie, but I just couldn't do it.  I've got lots to say about that, but that's another post. Insert eye rolling.

Must have been a serious situation with the turkey. :)

The kids and I went to Mass the morning of Thanksgiving and then we did our art project for the week.  This is another Deep Space Sparkle project.  If I had to marry a website right now, it would be that one.

The boys each did two is why we have a whole flock of turkeys.

We used plain old crayons and liquid water colors.  Liquid water colors are so much fun and I wouldn't even have known they existed if it weren't for Patty at DSS.  Liquid watercolors have been a game changer.

These James Rizzi inspired birds were our first attempt at "Pop" art.  Think Andy Worhol's soup cans.   They turned out nice and bright. I added the glasses for Nash and he liked them so much, we put them on his turkeys too.

I took pictures of the kids' rooms when they were clean with intentions of posting them on their doors so when I said, "go clean your room", they'd know exactly what I meant.  It is a good idea, I just never followed through.  I decided to put them on here for posterity's sake.  This yellow room is Stella's.

The big sister's room.

This $20 garage sale loft bed was an amazing find!

Luke and Nash's room is usually the one that gets to me the most and I can tell you in one word why...LEGOS.  They end up everywhere and it drives me crazy.

Welcome to FNE camp!  Mark is the group leader so he was helping lead the little kids (the Otters) campfire program.  It included a hearty attempt at "I'm Singing in the Rain".

Not only does he sing ladies and gentleman, but he acts too.  This is the "Invisible Bench" skit.  Brooke walked up and asked them what they are doing to which they replied they are sitting on an invisible bench.

She then broke the bad news that she moved that bench last week.  :)

Nash always comes to my bathroom in the morning because he knows that's where I'll be.  He likes to hang out,  but I'm not a big fan of this tradition.  One day I found that while I was drying my hair, he was making a road out of the extra soap I keep in the closet.  That was kind of cute. 

I felt like I was in college again when I filled up our minivan for $11.50.  We had a dollar off at Kroger with our points. I could get used to this!

Up next...Pictures from the Happiest Place on Earth.