Virginia Girls Weekend

Valentine's Day morning, Olivia and I left from Indy to go visit Amanda in Virginia for a long girls weekend. We just missed a big snow in VA the day before, but luckily our flight wasn't affected.  Amanda picked us up from the airport, we went out to lunch, planned our meals for the weekend and headed to the grocery store.  I never knew grocery shopping could be so much fun!

The house Amanda rents with 4 other girls

That night, we made dinner for Chris and two of Amanda's roommates, then painted nails and chatted until the wee hours of the morning.  I don't think I have talked or laughed so much in months!

Saturday, Aunt Martha invited us over to her convent in Woodbridge for lunch. She made us lasagna, garlic bread, salad, and eagle brand brownies. Such a treat!  After lunch, she took us in the backyard to show us this beauty...a snow sculpture of St. Michael the Archangel!  One of the sisters is quite the artist and spent a couple hours the night before sculpting this, with amazing detail.

After catching up, we played a new card game called May I with one of the other sisters who lives there, who is from a family of 10.  I think we were a little loud for Aunt Martha...she kept commenting on how crazy we were.  The other sister said she felt right at home.  What can I say...family brings out the crazy in you :)

As soon as we arrived and right before we left, Aunt Martha took us downstairs to make a chapel visit.  They have a chapel in their house!  She said on snow days, father will come to their house to say mass!  How awesome is that?!  What a unique blessing it is to have religious vocations in the family!!!

After we left Aunt Martha's, we drove around looking for all the supplies we needed to make the awesome craft we found on Pinterest.  After some searching, we found what we needed and put these little babies together while watching Catch Me If You Can.

And some fun pictures with our mugs...

Sunday, after mass, we drove to Alexandria and spent the day exploring little shops along the main drive.  Chris and a few of his buddies from Steubenville who were in town decided to join us.  We did a lot of antique store shopping where I happened to find some great books for the girls!  We grabbed a coffee (or tea) to warm ourselves up and even walked along the water.  Such a pretty place!

Adorable shops along King Street

The menu was spelled out in colorful magnetic letters at a little coffee shop we stopped at

A beautiful restaurant along the water

Chris insisted on carrying all our bags for us...such a gentleman

The adorable engaged couple

One shop we stopped in had these adorable pillows for each state.  I need to learn how to make one for myself.

Chris and his Steubenville buddies

On our way to the airport on Monday, we stopped by Amanda's favorite local bookstore called Hole in the Wall Books.  It is a tiny little shop packed full of gently used books at awesome prices.  It was easy to see why Amanda loved the place.  And now it is even more special to her since it is where Chris proposed to her last September!

Amanda in the corner where Chris popped the question

It really was so wonderful to have an adult, girly weekend with some of my favorite people.  Paul and the girls stayed in Carmel while I was gone, so I knew they were in good hands and having a blast, which made it all that much easier to enjoy myself.  We did miss Madeline not being there though, so I guess we will just have to do it again...bummer :)

Valentine's Week

We took advantage of Valentine's week to do a few themed activities during school.  One day, I had the girls cut out hearts and write one thing nice about each of their sisters.  It was sweet reading what they had to say :)  My favorite was Ava's heart to Madeline, which said, "you are good at being the dad."

We read a story about how Valentine's Day came about.

During math, the girls had fun graphing conversation hearts, adding their totals, and even more fun eating them :)  

The day before Valentine's Day, we had recess duty at Rose's school, so we got to see all the kids in their Valentine gear and get a few pictures.

The valentine's Rose brought to school for her classmates.

Rose and her best buddies: Mebrate and Hunter

We had a special Valentine's dinner that week, complete with a red tablecloth, candles

and heart-shaped brownie sundaes for dessert.

The eve of St. Valentine's Day, I laid out a few treats for the girls and Paul to wake up to in the morning.  I found some cute ideas on Pinterest this year that I used for their treats and made a card for the girls with whatever character they are into at the moment.  Rose, of course, had Elsa on her card and as soon as she saw it in the morning, she ran and hugged me saying it was the best card ever.  I guess Elsa was a win!

For the Husband

For Rose (she read her book in 2 days...that girl loves a new book!)

For Ava

For Madeline

For Ella

We try not to make too big of a deal about Valentine's Day, but it is hard not to when you have kids and you can have so much fun with it!

Roller Skating

Rose's school (New Song) had a roller skating party yesterday.  They rented out the roller skating rink for 2 hours and played Christian music for any and all families who wanted to come.  I decided to take Rose and Ava and leave the other two with a sitter.  Being 27 weeks pregnant, I wasn't getting on any skates and I didn't think I could help more than two at a time.

We met one of Rose's friends from school, Hunter, and her mom and sister for lunch at a sushi place before hand.  The sushi was DELICIOUS!  The girls had chicken and fried rice, but were not big fans.  Can you blame me for trying to culture my children a little bit?!  I didn't hear any complaints when they were served a free ice cream sundae at the end of their meal though.

Skating was an adventure, to say the least!  Ava could not stand up without falling and Rose wasn't much better.  But I guess that is to be expected for their first time skating.  I walked them around the rink, one on each arm, a couple of times, but we weren't making much progress.  We ended up renting these ingenious skating walkers (I don't know what they are really called, but that is what they look like), which totally saved the day.  With the skating aid, Rose took off to cruise around the rink on her own.  Ava took a little longer to get used to it (and a few more spills) before she felt comfortable enough to roll around on her own.

Lucy (a new girl in Rose's class), Eden (Hunter's sister), Hunter, Rose, and Ava

The girls happy to have the skating walkers

Gaining independence

All in all, it was a fun adventure and despite their bruised little tushies, they both left saying they wanted to do it again.

Friday Funnies

Rose:
"I know you have to keep praying for things, but I have been praying for ice powers every day and God still hasn't given them to me."
Says the girl who desperately wants Elsa's life from Frozen.  She wears her Elsa dress every moment that we are home and I don't think I have heard any music except the Frozen soundtrack for an entire month per her request.

Ava:
"I'm thankful for my muscles."
Each evening after family prayers, we ask the girls what they are thankful for and that was Ava's response one night.

Madeline:
"She has brains on her legs that hurt."
Madeline explaining to Ella why I was wearing tights one day (and she meant veins, of course :).

Ella:
"I can't how!"
Meaning, "I don't know how" when I asked her to do something one day.

HAPPY Friday!

Toothpaste Tornado

I bought two new tubes of kids' toothpaste at the grocery today.  A certain two year-old, who shall remain nameless, decided to paint the bathroom and herself with those two new tubes while I was reading a book to the "big" girls.

Maybe she wants to be a smurf

The culprit in her big girl panties

Not too sorry about painting her masterpiece

Don't be fooled by the severity of the mess.  The other side of the toilet and the floor were covered with toothpaste, as well as a bagful of bath toys.  Paul said, "Quick, get the camera so we can laugh about this later."  I was not laughing as I scrubbed the floor, toilet, sink, and child 25 weeks pregnant.

After I cleaned her up, I put her to bed and she started crying saying she didn't brush her teeth.  I thought "yeah, you put toothpaste on everything but your toothbrush."  I simply told her too bad because I was not letting her anywhere close to that sticky blue glue again tonight.  Motherhood at its finest!

Friday Funnies

Rose:
"I don't have any cavities, I just have a hole in my tooth."
Rose happily explained to me after her last visit to Dr. Uncle Alex.

Rose decorated Grandma Joy and Grandpa Ken's living room for them

Ava:
"He broke up that job and got a new one."
Ava trying to say that Paul left his old job for a new one.

Ninja Girls

Madeline:
"I didn't see my arm hitting her."
Madeline's defense: insisting that hitting Ava today was an accident.

Ella:
"Thanks, Dad!  You are awesome!"
Ella's response to Paul after he gave her a piece of cake.

And here is a video of Ella singing "Do you want to build a snowman?" from the new Disney movie Frozen:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B2As81rWjW_FcmRSbHBSemNwRzQ/edit?usp=sharing

(if you highlight the link above and right click, there should be an option that says 'Go to...(this link)' or you can copy and paste the link in a new browser.)  Sorry Blogger would not let me upload the video any other way.

HAPPY Friday!

Motherhood

I was reading a few other blogs today and I realized how "perfect" everyone's life can seem when just a few tidbits are recorded here and there.  I am not sure how my blog comes across, but those who know me well, hopefully know that my life is far from fairy-tale!  I simply use my blog to record some of my favorite memories as kind of a scrapbook to look back on in years to come.

My blog is also a way for me to focus on the good in my life when other things seem to be falling apart.  Unfortunately I am not a very sentimental person.  I wish I was, really.  I seem to skip over some of those precious moments that I know I will miss in the future.  I have to make a conscience effort to see those small moments in each day and not just shift in survival mode.  Because like every mother, we have good days and we have bad days.  There are days when I can't wait for Paul to come home because I am so done with the kids that day.  There are days where there is mess after mess after mess and I am overwhelmed with trying to get everything in order.  There are sibling fights, arguing over having to do schoolwork, ungratefulness, fighting to get them to clean up, and so on and so on.  But I don't want to focus on those difficult moments.  I don't need to remind myself that parenting is hard, but I do need help sometimes remembering the good.

I admit I am in a unique stage of motherhood right now though.  I kind of feel like I am living on easy street (physically) compared to the last few years.  I don't have an infant right now (at least not for the next 4 months or so!), I don't have any in diapers at the moment (Hallelujah!), my girls play very well together (at least half the time ;), and they are all fairly independent.  I also have a few who are old enough to help now with things like: buckling Ella, doing kitchen chores, carrying in groceries, getting themselves dressed, etc.  It is such a change from those days when I had only toddlers and babies and it was all on me.  I was often that mother in the checkout line with a cart full of groceries and screaming children.  Now I am that mother with four little girls running up and down aisles, pulling things off the shelves ;)

But just like every phase of parenthood, I know this phase will pass, so I am trying to savor every moment of this little dose of "freedom" before little boy Klinker arrives and I am back at square one!

Parenthood is a journey at every stage and it's something we are all constantly trying to figure out.  I do love being a mother and wouldn't trade my time with my children for anything.  I just pray that I can be the best mother I can be each day and help my children get to Heaven.

“We find dignity in our work, in raising a family, in participating in the life of the Father’s creation.”                                                          -Leonard Foley