Thankful

Thanksgiving just might be my favorite holiday.  No matter what, our crazy, materialistic, over-the-top society really can't do anything to spoil it (except opening stores for Black Friday shopping ON Thanksgiving night!).  I love that it just kind of sneaks up on us.  I am so fortunate that my family does a potluck style dinner every year so I never feel overwhelmed.  Kentucky Pecan Pie and Green Bean casserole.  Every year.  Easy.  So really, Thanksgiving gets to be about well, being thankful.  So here is my list..... 

1.  I am so thankful to have grown up in a loving, stable, family.  My needs were more than met and even though I am one of six, I never felt slighted or neglected.  I had rules and boundaries, and while I may not have always felt this way, I see now that those rules and boundaries were created to protect me and help me grow.  Thank you Mom and Dad.

2.  I am so thankful for my education.  I attended a solid elementary school, a High School with enough diversity to keep me real, and an amazing Catholic liberal arts college that taught me above all to seek the Truth.   My college education was a luxury and I absolutely know it.  Hopefully I will pay it forward with my kids.

3.  I am so thankful for my marriage.  I think deep down all everybody wants is to love and be loved.  I get that every day and I am not saying it is always easy but it IS a gift. 

4.  I am thankful for health.  It is so easy to take for granted the simple blessing of health.  I know that the future can hold many things and I see people who are dealing with major illness either in themselves or their children and I wonder how I would manage.  For now I will just try to remember to give thanks each morning I wake up and everything is working.  And I will give double thanks for the health of my kids.

5.  I am thankful for my children.  Without them I would not have the constant, daily task of self evaluation.  I would not have to continually look in the mirror and wonder how I can do better.  I also would not have a lot of hugs, kisses, giggles, smiles and adventures.

6.  I am thankful for the gift of faith.  I did nothing to earn it or deserve.  But I did accept it.  All this thanks is pretty vague unless you have somewhere to direct it.  I am thankful to God, the giver of all gifts.

Of course this list could go on and on but I felt the need  to get at least a few in writing.  Gratitude is certainly one of the most reliable sources of joy. 

Circle of Life and I LOVE BEING CATHOLIC

The weekend festivities continued with a Saturday morning Baptism.  Becky was able to arrange for Maren's baptism since they were going to be in town and she and Tyler asked Mark and I to be her Godparents.  We gathered at SSJ and Fr O'Grady baptized her.  I love private baptisms especially when you have a priest like Fr. O'Grady who explains the significance of what we do.  Maren was an angel - not a peep!

She is such a beautiful, happy child.  Here we are making the sign of the cross on her forehead.

I look like I have never held a baby in my life!  I think I just did not want to drop her in.

It was so special because Fr. O'Grady called Diego up to help him.  Diego later informed me that the Godparents pay the altar boys :)

Mark is lighting the baptismal candle from the Easter candle.

And here we are all holding the light for Maren.

When Fr. O'Grady annointed her with oil, I was struck by the beautiful aroma.  I love the richness of all these symbols - water, fire,oil.  They are so earthy and timeless and life giving.  She is all wet and oily and HOLY - I love it!

As if that weren't amazing enough, following the baptism, Joe and Michele renewed their vows and Fr. O'Grady gave a special blessing.  He had them come up to the altar in the very same church they were married in 25 years ago and repeat the same words of love and fidelity.

I love being Catholic because events like marriage and having children become elevated into these profound, blessed, meaningful and holy experiences.  I love the prayers, the blessings, the acknowledgement that we need grace from our heavenly Father to meet the demands of these roles in our lives. 

We had a wonderful reception at The Windsor and the manager was outstanding (Leslie on shift!).  Then that night, Joe and Michele hosted a party to celebrate and it was a blast!  It is always fun to have a reason to dress up.  Dan and Rick and Michele played music and sang and it was literally like being in the front row of a concert.  After that, Chris DJed and needless to say, I danced the night away.  I danced and danced and danced. SOOO Fun.

I was not kidding about the concert.

I hope to celebrate in a BIG way like this when we hit our 25th!

Happy Birthday Ava Jane!

So in the year of magical birthdays, Ava turned 2 on the 11th day of the 11th month in the year 2011.  I don't know what you call that birthday, but it was pretty special for other reasons.  You see, Ava's birthday kicked off a weekend of glorious events.  After the jog-a-thon, we came home and got to work making strawberry cake (which the girls did by themselves), and pork and sauerkraut pirogies.  My Mom had been cooking all morning with Aunt Peggy and made a pan full of gollumki (I am positive that is not how you spell it).  Becky, Tyler and Maren and Greg & Britany came in town for Joe and Michele's 25th Anniversary party.  So we had a big Polish fest for Ava's birthday. 

I just love creating memories and passing down traditions to the kids.  There is something so moving about knowing that you are repeating a process that has been done for generations.  The kids love being involved.

The finished product........absolutely delicious and it is amazing how the taste of certain food can actually take you back in time.  I thought about Babci and her long silver hair always pinned up just so.  I thought of how she always used vitabath and how I used to be a little afraid of her because she would yell at us sometimes when she lived with us.  All from one bite of food.  Hope we made you proud Babci!  The cake came out beautiful and delicious.

And what about that sweet thing blowing out the candles :)

You got lots of gifts and lots of help opening your gifts!

I hope you know what a gift you are to us.  We named you Ava Jane which means "God is gracious with life" and He has been so gracious to us.  You are the little spark around our house and you think you run the show.  You have been the source of thousands of smiles that never would have been if there had been no you.  You have stretched and bent and twisted my heart and I can not believe that you are already 2 years old.  Happy 11-11-11 Ava - we love you!!!!!

Run Baby Run!

The Jog-a-thon is a long standing tradition at SSJ.  This year we had four runners and Mark played the music for the event.  It is always such a fun day.  Paolo ran the second most laps in his class and won a smoothie!  Maybe he just charmed them with his smile :)

Elise was still coughing but she managed to keep going!

The 5-8th grade classes competed with each other for most laps/$ earned so each grade had a different t-shirt color.  It looked cool to see all that color on the field.  Jules with the girls......aaah my little Jules.

Diego's class all wore ties with their purple shirts.  I totally embarrassed him because I begged him to let me take a picture.

These two were pretty funny on the microphone.  Chris kept having the kids do random dancing and running backwards and things like that.  Chris is an SSJ alum too.

Sr. Raphael ran some laps with the kids and Fr. Lankeit made it over to give high 5s.  I do love our community and I love the Jog-a-thon!

It's All About Eight

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ELISE ZOFIA!!!!

Elise turned 8 on Tuesday and because she was turning 8 on the 8th of November, it was her golden birthday!  She had a few friends come for a sleepover Friday.  Poor Lisey has been sick on and off all week.  She tried to hang but you could just tell she did not have her usual spunk.  The girls painted some crafts....

Then we ate one of Elise's favorites...homemade calzones.

Then we took the kids to ZOYO - 8 in all.  What a coincidence! Jules and Ava aren't in the picture.

We celebrated with family on Sunday and Tia Linda really put the "golden" in her golden birthday.

Elise wanted to have a "Mr. Sushi" meal so we made teriyaki chicken and rice, fried california rolls, miso soup, baby shrimp salad and of course, mochi.

I remember choosing a birthday meal when I was growing up.  I think I chose lemon chicken every year.
One of the things Elise requested was a 2-tiered birthday cake - and Nana delivered...

Paolo made her a special drawing. 

I love how when kids are learning to write they just sporadically write words backwards sometimes. 

More pics...

She is really starting to look so grown up.  On Tuesday, her actual birthday, we took pumpkin chocolate chip cookies into her class and Mrs. Swan had the kids brainstorm some really good words to describe the cookies.  They were delicious, fantastic, unusual, stupendous, unique, soft, scrumptious.  It was so cute to hear the kids come up with these impressive adjectives and I will tell you, it made running back home after drop off, whipping a batch of cookies together and throwing them in the oven all worth it.  Ava and I dropped the kids off, went home, made cookies and were back on campus at 9:15.  The crazy things you do for your kids.  That night we had albondigas soup (she is a very international child!) and Linda brought her some flowers.  She immediately became Miss America....

She wanted to know if  she could run with them in the jog a thon.  We sang Happy Birthday again and then Elise did a self inflicted cake face mashing.

What a goofball!  Happy Golden Birthday Elise - I LOVE having you as a daughter.  I love your indepedence and strength.  I love your honesty (most of the time!) and your sense of humor.  You help me to think outside of the box and you challenge me in ways you don't even know.  May God bless you this year and always!