7 Quick Takes Friday

So in an attempt to get my blogging juices going, I'm linking up with Jen for...

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Gianna got her haircut last Saturday. Other than a few trims here and there, it was her first big cut! When I talked about getting her haircut, she was apprehensive and didn't want to do it. While I love her long hair, this was not acceptable, as I was done brushing the tangled weave of curly locks. To help calm her nerves, I took her the week before when I got my haircut, so she could watch and accustom herself to the idea (she is a child who does not do well with new experiences). After that she was excited...the moment she woke up Saturday morning, she got dressed, went to the bathroom, brushed her teeth, ate breakfast, and put her shoes on almost without us having to ask a single time. She was ready to go! I told my hubby we have to do these single dates with them more often, she was so excited to go out with Mommy and get her haircut!

I tell you though, if you saw her in the chair when she got her haircut, "excited" would not have been the word you'd have used to describe her. She barely cracked a smile the whole time. At the end though, when we left, she was jumping up and down and couldn't wait to show Daddy, Dom, and Emma...such is our life with our very shy child.

Before

After

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Thursday was Dominic's first day of 3 year old preschool... He was so excited! He kept saying "I'm going to school all by myself, just like Gianna!" He did so great, I had to steal a kiss from him before he went in. Not a tear was shed (which was quite the contrast from Gianna last year who I had to pry off me and leave her screaming, while I fought the tears myself)!  When I picked him up he said "Mommy, that was so much fun!" God bless my sweet little guy, I hope he always has this much fun learning!"

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Today was Gianna's first day of 4 year old preschool. She was excited too, but not nearly as much as Dom. She's an old pro at this school thing now! She went right in smiling and giving her teacher a hug! No tears this year, woohoo!

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Emma is a 3 year old trapped in a 18 month old body, she tries to do so much more than she physically can and it frustrates her most of the day. Should I or should I not help her...you just never know what she will allow! 18 months...it's a good thing that children at this age are so cute because the screaming fits are enough to drive a momma crazy!

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I have spent too much time for my liking this week helping my children making little felt bears... Thank you Creative Galaxy! It wouldn't have been that bad if I would have made the effort to get my sewing machine out instead of choosing to hand sew them.

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Dominic happened to be using our bathroom the other night and was sitting waiting for me for a few minutes because I was ironing on patches to their school bags.

Dom: Hey, Mommy, do these fings shoot fings out?

Me: Huh? What things?

Dom: (holding up a box of "women's products") These fings, do they shoot fings out of thum?

Me: Ummmmm... no...

Dom: Then what do they doose?

Me:            ....... I don't know, Dom...put it down.

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Has anyone heard of Accountable Kids? It's a positive parenting program helping to teach children accountability, responsibility, and good behavior. I am very drawn to trying it, as it is very organized and I need a little organization in my life. I'll let you know what I think after I have tried it.

For more Quick Takes, visit Conversion Diary!

Making Moments into Memories

I mentioned in my last post that I would write about what inspired me to re-start my blog. As some of you may know, a few weeks ago a young mother, Sarah Harkins, died unexpectedly. I did not know Sarah, but she graduated from my alma mater, Franciscan University. You can read about her life here. As I said, I didn't know Sarah, but she has very much been a source of heartache, inspiration and prayer for me these last few weeks since her death. She was a woman of great faith, strength, and hope striving every day to lead her family and others to Christ in any way she could. She wrote about her life on her blog The Clay Rosary Girl.

Mother's Day 2014

The sudden and unexpected death of this young mother really struck deep in my heart. As mothers, we are called to be the heart of our family and the heart of this family was just ripped from them with hardly a moment's notice. I ached thinking about having to leave my children without their mother at such a young age. How confused and sad they must be. These children's whole lives were just turned upside down and there was nothing anyone could do about it. Nothing.at.all. Except pray. Prayer and faith is the only thing that saves us in these situations. We beg God for explanation on how such a tragic event could really be His will, yet we don't always get one, except for the answers we get in just having faith. Faith in God is the only answer that we can lean on. Faith that He is writer of the story of our lives. Only He knows how are lives are going to go. He will take care of us as long as we give our lives fully over to Him in complete trust. Needless to say it opened my eyes to how precious and fragile our lives really are and to how quickly life can change, and more importantly how much I need God.

Me and Anthony

As a stay-at-home mom of 4 little ones remembering to "enjoy every moment" is a challenge. The days can be very long and the endless demands of 4 little lives who are completely dependent on me in so many ways can be draining. Since Anthony's birth I have been in "survival" mode. It's that time after a newborn arrives that you do what you gotta do to get through the day.  I am always nursing, changing, holding, nursing, holding, changing. It's a hard time for everyone and doesn't always make for fun days for my bigger kids. Holding a baby (who is no small load at 14 lbs 10 oz at 2 months old) all the time often makes it hard to do things with the older ones as easily as you did before. Sarah's death has jolted me into being sure to enjoy as many moments and memories as I can with my children, if they may not be enjoyable, then to appreciate them for what they are because at least they are moments that I get to spend with them. I want to store these moments as the memories that they are whether or not they are the fun, joyful, inspiring moments of motherhood or the oh so tiring, draining, make you want to cry moments of motherhood, because that's just what they are. These are moments, whether good or bad, I have with my family and I don't want to forget them, so I better write them down. I better bring myself to the foot of the cross with trust and thanks for the time I have with the ones I love, especially my babies.

kissing babies never gets old

Trick-or-Treat

Well, I think we have another year before Gianna really gets into Halloween.  This year she was less interested in dressing up and trick-or-treating and more interested in the people coming to the door and our candy were were handing out.  Before we left she was loving going through our box of candy and moving it from the box to a bowl she was playing with.  Seeing this, I thought she was going to love trick or treating and getting her own candy... Wrong!  She didn't want the candy people were giving her, she just wanted to run as fast as she could down the sidewalk.  Once we got home, she did end up liking the candy in her bag.  We tried to get pictures, but didn't really succeed.  Gianna was a cat.  I made her some ears to attach to her pigtails because I didn't think she would keep a headband on.  They worked pretty well at the beginning, but with all the running they kept falling off.  She was pretty cute, even if we didn't get a smile (she pretty much hates the camera).  Oh, and we had one very cute giraffe too!

 

This is the best one, and I like it because Gianna is holding Dominic's hand.

This is when  I gave Gianna the first box of candy I could find to try to get her to sit still so we could get the candy.  There is a sequence of pictures where Dominic discovers the box, grabs the box, Gianna realizes it, yells at him, and then pulls the box away.  It's really funny, but there are too many to put them all up here. Here are a few of the key pics to give you an idea of what took place.  

Dominic spots the candy

Dominic grabs the candy and Gianna notices what he is doing

Gianna yells and pushes him away

Oh, and right after this, I realized I gave her Dots, the worst candy I could have, said aloud to my husband "what did I just give her?" I then quickly subbed them for something else.

Here are some more pictures from the night...

         cute little kitty cat

best Mommy and Gianna picture we could get

Family picture

Mommy and our sleepy giraffe

Gianna running with her bag made by Mommy

We stopped to see Pearl!

All 3 cousins - the best we could get!

Happy Halloween!

So, here I am again, a bit behind.  But I wanted to share our Halloween craft with you before it's not Halloween anymore.  Oh, and I added a picture of our fall tree here.

I found this pumpkin art project on Pinterest and thought it would be the perfect project for Gianna!  I knew that she would not be able to paint within a circle, so I just let her paint all over the paper with orange paint. 

Here are some pictures of her painting...

Concentrating very hard

 

 

She's never sure how she feels about getting paint on herself.

Caught this cute smirk!
 

After it dried, I cut out the shape of a pumpkin and glued it onto another paper.  Then, used her hands to make the leaves of the pumpkin.  I finished it off by painting on the stem and writing Happy Halloween.  I think it turned out well!

Here is our finished project! 

I couldn't get a good picture of Gianna holding it, so I had to settle for this. 

Happy Halloween!

Paint...here we come!

Well,  I decided that I wanted to try to start some crafts with Gianna.  I wasn't sure how it would go seeing as she's really into making a mess lately, so I am really into trying to prevent messes from happening.  Therefore, in my head paint was a little scary!

We have done a few painting projects that have been fun.  We started out by doing this Very Hungry Caterpillar project a couple of months ago.

It went okay.  I discovered while doing these first few projects, that it might be a challenge to get her to actually finish the projects we start without it becoming a big painted blob of something unrecognizable.  She put a little paint on the body of the caterpillar and then seemed to be done.  She was more interested in swirling the paint around on the plate than really painting with it.  After a bit of praise and prompting to keep going and ultimately some help from Mommy, the caterpillar was painted!  The next day when I put the eyes and antennae on (I would have let her help put the eyes on, but I had to use hot glue b/c I need to pick up some Elmer's glue) and she could see that it was actually something, she was very impressed and proud of herself!

Gianna very excited about her caterpillar!

Showing her caterpillar to Mommy!

Our next project was a fall tree that I saw on Pinterest (I thought I pinned it, but guess I didn't, so I am not sure where it is).  You paint their hand and arm to use as the trunk and branches, and then they use their thumbprints/fingerprints as the leaves.  I had to direct Gianna's hand a little bit to help her to use her fingertips to make leaves, but she caught on and did well...for a little while.  All of a sudden she started smearing the paint all over, and then I decided it was time to stop.  I know I have to let her do her own thing, but I kinda want our projects turning out looking somewhat like what they are intended to be.  I'm trying to figure out if finding a middle ground is okay or if I should just let her do it all by herself.

Here is a not so great picture of our tree

Beginning

Due to the fact that Gianna is into smearing paint all over, I thought I would try this that I also found on Pinterest, and let her have full control (well, for the most part).  I gave her the toilet paper tube and showed her how to do it.  She imitated how I did it a few times and then did her own thing, which was fine.  I even decided that this was a good time to let her smear the paint all over herself too!  She had fun!  And it was really cute!

Middle

End

Next up:  A fun fall pumpkin and our first trip to the zoo!

This is harder than I thought

Well, as it has been a few months since I started my blog (and even posted anything), I feel like I failed at blogging.  It has proven to be hard when there are so many things to pick from to do when I have free time (I recently discovered Pinterest, and if you know what that is, you understand how it can suck you in).  Well, I'm not giving up!  I think I am going to set a new goal to try to post at least one time a week, even if it's a few sentences.

So, here are a few updates on the kids.  Dominic is 5 1/2 months old and a very good and happy baby. He is very laid back and just goes with the flow. He loves to smile and cuddle, such a momma's boy, I love it!  He started "scooting" across the floor about a month ago.  Well, just this weekend he started really crawling!  5 1/2 months old and crawling already!  I thought Gianna was an early crawler at 6 months.  He is also sitting up, still a little wobbly, but doing pretty good! I think he is going to give me a run for my money!

And other times smiley guy

Sometimes he can be Mr. Serious

Gianna is almost 21 months old and getting so big!  Now she is my little girl, no longer my baby.  In the last few weeks her vocabulary has taken off!  She is putting two or three words together to make sentences now.  It is a lot of fun trying to figure out what she is saying!  She still loves her brother, they are best friends already!  She loves to sing songs and dance.  She doesn't get all the words, but you can tell what song it is because she sings with the tune.  She says prayers with us and sings the "Hail Mary" with us every night.  It makes Joey and I smile each time!  We are trying to catch it on video and if we do, I'll post it on here.  I have been trying to do some fall painting activities with her, so I will post those pictures soon! It's fun to see how she is very proud of her artwork!

It's hard to get Gianna to look at the camera and smile at the same time.  This was close!

My Brown-Eyed Girl

I already talked a little bit about Gianna, but I thought I would add a little more.  Gianna is 18 months old and is in a really fun but challenging stage right now.  She is learning so much everyday, more than I sometimes realize.  She has a limited vocabulary, but understands so much!  Her vocabulary includes, Momma, Da Da (even though she currently calls Joey Momma), Dom, NO, yeah, down, hot, out, dog, Elmo, shoes, I don't know, hi, bye, more, cheese, eyes, baby, ball and book (there could be more that I am forgetting).  She loves puzzles, books, singing, dancing and sillyness!  She loves babies and stuffed animals and often walks around with someone under her arm, rocking it and saying "Shhhh." She also loves her little brother very much!  She likes to help me take care of him. If he starts crying and I don't get to him right away she runs up to him saying "Dom, Dom, shhhh Dom," and tries to give him his pacifier.

As I said, this has been a fun but challenging age.  She gets frustrated trying to communicate what she wants and even more frustrated when I say no. We have temper tantrums when things don't go her way.  All of this was magnified the last few months, as all four of her molars were coming in at the same time and there was no consoling her.  Oh, and every diaper change was a struggle.  And she has been really into making messes lately.

This was Joey's birthday, this is where we found Gianna after we sat down for a few minutes in the other room.  The good thing was she was going after the fruit!

It has been a long summer (considering I was also trying to get used to caring for two children), but I am finally starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel.  Her teeth are in, so there is not as much whining, I am beginning to be able to reason with her, she is letting me change her diaper, and she is beginning to play by herself a little more.

Anyway, the good always outweighs the bad and I feel so blessed to be the Mommy of such a beautiful, sweet little girl!


More on Dominic soon!

Why I'm Here

I thought I would follow the trend and start a blog.  I am starting it mainly as place to write about my children. I thought it would be nice to have one place to archive memorable things they say and do.  As I started to brainstorm ideas for the blog, I realized that I also want to include all the other things that are important in my life.  Being a wife, stay at home mom, and catholic woman are the first things that came to mind.  I have enjoyed many blogs lately and they inspired me to start my own. I am not sure how this is going to go, as I am not that great of a writer, but I thought I would try!

I am going to start off with a picture that I took a couple weeks ago of my 18 month old daughter, Gianna.  She has a beautiful head of curly hair!  But, sometimes when she wakes up in the morning or from her nap, it's a bit out of control.  All I can do is laugh, give her a big kiss, and take a picture!