Princess vs. Barbie

Posted on January 22, 2014January 23, 2014 by Amy

We have lots of princess dolls at our house.

^^ Thank you to my Mother-in-law for that storage idea ^^

My girls ask for them as gifts. They save their allowances to buy them. They love their princess dolls.

Of course, they have lots of toys they enjoy, and they tend to go in cycles with them. Baby dolls, animals, building toys, etc.

Princesses are always in the rotation though, whether the big princess dolls or small ones or both. We’ve got lots of them.

In contrast, we have only one Barbie. She was given to Miss as a Christmas gift a couple of years ago.

The drastic difference in the number of princesses and Barbies on our house is deliberate. I don’t buy Barbies for my girls. I don’t take them in the Barbie aisle at the store. I’m just not a fan of Barbie.

I realize, those may be bordering on fightin’ words for someone who grew up in the 80s. I have heard lots of women around my age defend Barbie. Because we played with Barbies as kids and some ladies still love her and are excited to share her with their daughters/nieces/etc.

True, I played with Barbies. I loved playing with Barbies. I am not, not, not trying to criticize anyone who loves playing Barbies with or buying Barbies for their kids. My girls play with them when we go to the Farm or to their aunt’s house, and I don’t mind, of course. But. I still won’t buy them. Why?

I can specifically remember as a little girl, playing with my Barbies and thinking they were so pretty. I walked around on my tiptoes (like her) and wished that I had blonde hair and blue eyes and a super skinny waist (like hers). I just don’t want my girls to feel that way because of one of their toys. And maybe they wouldn’t. Maybe I was just particularly insecure about my brown hair and green eyes and normal-sized waist for some reason at that time and they wouldn’t be. But still…

I have some other beefs with B too. Like her clothes. My Barbies never came with clothes like these:

It is pretty hard to find a Barbie to purchase that is not dressed in a way that I find inappropriate for a little girl’s toy. I know this, because I stood in the Barbie aisle at Target staring at the array of dolls for way too long one day when buying gifts for some families at our church, trying to find a doll I felt comfortable purchasing for a little girl who requested one. It’s not impossible to find one, but not easy. Though recently I did come across this funny Homeschool Barbie.

In general, princesses just seem more innocent to me. Barbie is marketed as sexy much of the time. No thanks.

Of course, I do have a few issues with the Disney gals, mostly with the earlier princesses’ tendencies to fall in “love at first sight” and in general be rather helpless (not characteristics I want my girls to cultivate). But the later stories, of Belle, Mulan, and Merida for example, feature heroines who aren’t solely focused on finding true love (though they aren’t opposed to it when they do).

And even the princesses who are a bit overly dependent on Prince Charming or lacking in gumption still have some good qualities that I can talk to my girls about. When my girls say, “I like Snow White because she’s so pretty,” I can respond with something like, “Oh, I like Snow White too, but do you know why I really like her? Because she is so kind and thoughtful.” And if they say, “Cinderella is my favorite princess because she has a beautiful dress” I can say, “I like Cinderella too because she is a really hard worker.”

I like that the princess dolls don’t all look the same. They have different skin colors and different face shapes. I can even get into discussions with my girls about other cultures by talking about the stories of the princesses. I know some Barbies have different colored skin and hair, but they all seem to have the same face. Weird.

When my girls ask me who my favorite princess is, I say, “Belle, because she loves to read and she is very loyal and brave.” Sometimes I mention that I also really like Merida “because she’s also brave and strong and very protective of her family” or Anna “because she is a really good sister.”

What does Barbie have besides her looks and her clothes? A pink car, a mansion, and a boyfriend named Ken.

I’ve come a long way in the past three years. I can tolerate princesses, and sometimes I actually enjoy them (Brave and Frozen are really good movies!). I can even find some good in my girls’ love of princess stories and dolls. The princesses have decent clothes and some positive characteristics that I can discuss with my girls.

I won’t say I’ll never let my girls buy Barbies. But for now, the princesses win.

Saints, Statues, and Archery – 7 Quick Takes

Posted on January 17, 2014 by Amy

Linking up with Jen again.

This is actually one reaaalllly long take and three short ones, but I conveniently made it into seven. Enjoy.

1. I have mentioned in a previous post my utter lack of knowledge about Christianity in general and Catholicism in particular, yes? Here is yet another example. Bear with.

When planning the girls’ baptisms, I was thinking about how Super Friend’s kids all are named after a saint in some way. Super had mentioned once something about these saints being their patrons (as the time I probably didn’t know what that meant). Then I thought about how, on my application form for RCIA there was a space to write in my “baptismal name.” Also, the one time I had seen a baptism was during one of the first masses I ever attended last year. I was still in deer-in-the-headlights mode during mass at that time, and it was during a crowded mass so I couldn’t really see, and the people were on the other side of the church so I couldn’t really hear what they were saying, but I could have sworn that, when the priest asked them, “What name do you give your child?” they said, not just the name, but the name in the way you would say a saint’s name. I don’t remember what it was, but for example, instead of just saying “Catherine” I thought they said something like “Catherine of Sienna.” Looking back now, I’m sure they actually just said the baby’s first and middle name, “Catherine Anna,” or something like that, but deer-in-the-headlights and big church and all…

Getting to my point. As you might imagine considering my history, none of my children are named for a saint or Biblical person. I know I don’t use their real names here, but I’ll just let you know that we have no Mary. No Elizabeth, Theresa, or Anne. So. When I was preparing for their baptisms I thought that I needed to find a Biblical or saint name to announce when the priest asked “What name…?” We didn’t have our baptism class until two days before the baptism because of The Chicken Bone Incident, so I didn’t know any different.

I searched through tons and tons of saints to come up with the right ones to be each of the girls’ patronesses. I chose Saint Cecilia for Miss, Saint Therese of Lisieux for Lass, and Saint Brigid of Ireland for Sis. It wasn’t until after the fact that I learned that I had not needed to do this, and that I would just be announcing their actual names during the baptism, but whatever. By that point I was totally into the idea of each of them having a patron saint they could learn about, so I kept with the idea anyway, though the saints’ names didn’t play a role in the baptisms.

2. SO. The reason I just relayed that whole big long story of my lack of understanding about baptisms is to explain that I have told my girls about their patrons, and the older two each refer to them affectionately as “My saint.” We have books about their saints. We ask their saints to pray for us. On the feast days of the patronesses we have a little celebration, talk about the saints, get out a statue of them, have a special dessert in their honor, and make a donation to a charity of the kids’ choice as their gift (I totally stole this idea from Super Friend).

So we have statues of the girls’ patron saints.

^^ That’s Sis playing with Miss’s Saint Cecilia.

I had intended the statues to be something we would just get out on the feast days, but Lass wanted hers for a toy. She carries her Saint Therese with her everywhere. She sleeps with it too (along with two books of saints open to the pages of Saint Therese).

3. I always remind her to be careful with it. It’s amazing how well that statue has held up in spite of the fact that she drops it all the time.

Naturally, the one time she asks me to carry the statue downstairs for her in the morning, as I was setting it on the counter, I didn’t quite get it all the way over the edge and it fell to the floor and broke. She was heartbroken, and of course I felt awful. My husband glued it back together, and all is well.

So I thought.

I dropped the statue a few weeks ago. About two days ago, as I was making breakfast and the girls were playing with their saint statues, I overheard Lass say, “We are sooo careful with statues. But I think Mama isn’t careful with statues. Mama drops statues.” Miss agreed, “No. Mama isn’t careful with statues.”

Clearly I’m never going to live down The Dropping of Therese.

4. Along those lines, I had no idea when I introduced these saint statues and our books of saints that the girls would get so into them. They love to “play saints.” They fight over our saint books. When they play dress up, they are as likely to get into some elaborate costume as Therese or Cecilia or Mary Magdalene as to dress up as Cinderella or Snow White.

They’ve already asked to dress as saints for Halloween next year. I love it. What better figures to emulate?

^^ One reaaallly long take made into four.

5. I have just realized that this weekend will be our last one home together as a family until March 8. We will be traveling or my husband will be working every weekend in between. It makes me tired just to think about it, but we have some really fun things coming up, like a trip to Florida (and Disney World) and a skiing trip with friends.

6. Miss is really into shooting her bow. She’s pretty good at it too.

^^ She is so proud of being able to get the arrow to stick to the target.

My husband loves teaching her too. He has bought a long bow for himself, partially because he wanted to have a bow similar to what she will be learning on, so they can shoot together.

7. We had family visit two weeks ago. The girls had their first experience of experimenting with make up with their Aunt. What are aunts for?

Miss looked at the picture below and said, about her sister, “She looks like a bad guy there.”

Have a great weekend!

For more quick takes, click here.

All Good Things Come to Those Who…

Posted on January 15, 2014 by Amy

Have you heard about the idea of choosing a word at the start of a new year that serves as “mantra” of sorts throughout the year? I came upon this idea shortly before New Year’s after reading what someone wrote about choosing the word “Joy” for 2013. Apparently lots of people do this instead of, or in addition to, making New Year’s resolutions. As I think of it, maybe I have heard of this idea before, but it clearly never resonated with me enough to put much thought into it. Until this year.

As I read what was written in the above linked post, I began to think about what it would mean and how it would work to choose one word to really focus on all year. One thing to work on. Or one thing to be inspired by. Or one thing to think to yourself when feeling discouraged. I wasn’t sure what my word would be, but I began to warm to the idea of choosing one for myself for 2014.

I decided if I could come up with a word that really felt right for me, then I’d go with it. If not, maybe next year. I had a few words come to mind in the first days after reading that article.

“Peace” seemed nice. I could picture myself whispering that word any time I felt rushed or frustrated. I though maybe it would come with a greater focus on prayer and meditation and maybe some yoga. It just didn’t quite seem right though. A little to hippy-dippy for me.

“Faith” was another word that came to mind early on. It seemed appropriate. I’m really working on developing mine, and there are some areas in my life where I really need to just have it. And this will, after all, be the year when I take the leap of faith into Catholicism, for real and truly, when I am baptized, receive first communion, and am confirmed all in one day at the Easter Vigil mass. But still this word just didn’t quite seem right either.

The third word that came to my mind was “Patience.” Lord knows I really need work on this one. I need more patience with my children on a daily basis, of course. And I work hard to do better at this all the time. But even more, there are some other areas in my personal life where my patience has been tested during the past year. Things I really-really-really want and have had to wait for. And wait. And wait some more.

So, the word “Patience” seemed to be a good possibility. But I wanted to be sure it was the right choice. I decided to wait a few days to just see what would happen or if any other words would come to mind. None did, and I ended up not thinking about it too much for a few days. Then last Wednesday (the worst day ever, ever, ever) I read this post in the morning about how Jen at Conversion Diary had picked her word for the year, “Go.”

That got me thinking about it again, and “Patience” popped back into my head. I was still pondering “Patience” when I took a trip to Target that morning (the first of three trips that day) to get my husband’s Tamiflu. During that trip, I became more confident that “Patience” was to be my word. First, the pharmacist didn’t have my order ready. No big deal really, except that it then took forever for it to get ready. And my husband was watching our kids from his quarantine on a video monitor while they watched a movie. I really needed to make it back before the movie was over (and most kids’ movies aren’t really that long).

Then I got the medicine and proceeded to the main checkout to pay for the items I had picked up around the store while waiting for the pharmacist (naturally, this is the real reason I use Target as our pharmacy, so I can shop while I wait). I stood in a non-moving line for an eternity before hearing the cashier say something about the card reader not working. So I looked for another open register with a short line, picked the one that looked the fastest (I knew the movie would be ending soon), and then proceeded to stand there while the woman in front of me searched and searched and searched and searched for something on her iPad that she needed to complete her checkout. I don’t know what it was, but it took her a reeeeaaally long time to find it.

Do you know that feeling you get in your chest and stomach when you are a little nervous about something, and you really want to be able to check on this something, but you can’t because there is some obstacle making you wait, and it seems like everything is in your way when all you want to do is check on your thing to reassure yourself that all is okay? No? Well, I do. I get this crazed feeling of fluttering, antsy, can’t stand still, slightly short of breath, my-kids’-movie-might-be-over-and-my-husband-is-sick-and-can’t-touch-them-or-even-talk-to-them-I-have-to-GO!!!

Yeah. “Patience” is probably a good word for me to focus on, huh?

The cool thing was that I performed a little experiment while in Target and beginning to get into my crazy lady mode. I smiled to myself and thought, “Hmmm, I’ve been wondering if ‘Patience’ is the right word for me. Maybe this is a little test as God’s way of telling me that it is.” And I, very deliberately, thought “Patience. Patience. Patience.” to myself while standing in that line.

And. It. Totally. Worked. I kid you not. My fluttery, freaky, short of breath feelings just kind of left me right there. Gone.

But for some reason, I still wasn’t completely convinced that “Patience” was my word. So later that night, while I was unwinding on my couch after my horrible day and just perusing some stuff on the internet, I came across an email in my inbox from a blog that I subscribe to, Everything Is Yours. The title of her post that day? Fruit of the Holy Spirit Spotlight: Patience Revisited (emphasis mine). Go ahead and click that link. It’s a great post.

I was convinced. Patience was my word.

Well, mostly convinced. There was a tiny, tiny part of me that wondered if it really was my word. For real. But it was such a tiny part, I was going with the it. Patience was it.

Until yesterday when it hit me. Like a ton of bricks, while I was changing a diaper of all things. I don’t know what I was thinking about or why it came to me, but all of a sudden I knew the right word.

Out of nowhere, I thought the word and then I immediately knew that it was the right one. I think that’s why I wasn’t so sure about “Patience,” because I had been hemming and hawing about it and waiting for over a week to see if something better came to me…

Well, it did. Wanna know what it is?

Open.

My word for 2014 is Open.

I have been so blessed in the past few years when I have allowed myself to be open to knew ideas or even to ideas that I had already flatly rejected. Homeschooling. Becoming Catholic. Becoming a morning person (in case you wondered how that experiment turned out, I now get up every morning at 5:30).

So, that’s where I will focus in 2014.

I need to be open to new ideas. Open to changes. Open to the possibility that things in my life won’t happen exactly when or how I want them to, but they will still be right.

Of course, I still need to work on being patient. I’ll continue to do that every day.

But this will be the year I will be open to possibility. I will be open to grace. I will be open to God’s plan for my life, whatever it may be.

All good things come to those who… are open to receiving them.

Flumageddon

Posted on January 13, 2014January 13, 2014 by Amy

This winter, I have heard of “Snowmageddon.” I have heard of “Srirachamageddon” (Wha??). I am going to jump on the “-mageddon” train and call the past week in my home “Flumageddon.” My husband woke with a high fever last Tuesday morning. By Tuesday night Lass had a fever. Sis woke with one on Wednesday morning. Somehow, some way, Miss and I have not gotten sick (though she did have a nasty stomach bug/puking reaction of some sort all day Wednesday, which was notawesome).

Yeah. Flumageddon.

Note: I do not mean to sound as though I’m making light of the flu. The flu is bad business, though I have at times been guilty of not taking it very seriously. I always worry about my kids getting the flu, but I never think of it as being too much of a big deal for a healthy adult like myself (except in 2009 when I was pregnant with Lass). This year with the H1N1 strain of flu being prevalent again, relatively young, healthy people are dying from the flu, like this man or this woman. Awful.

Not that this is any more tragic than when elderly people, sick people, or children, those typically at highest risk from the flu, die from it. It’s just scary because young healthy people often don’t get vaccinated because they think they aren’t at much risk of complications from the flu. And because of that they don’t recognize when they do have complications from the flu. It’s a reminder that the flu should be taken seriously.

Anyway, this is why my husband was quarantined in our bedroom, on the recommendation of his pulmonologist friend, to try to keep the girls and me from getting sick. Thank God we all got the flu vaccine (it contains the H1N1 strain this year) and the girls’ symptoms were relatively mild as a result (highest temp only 101.4). I’m sure this is also why Miss and I were able to resist the virus.

Unfortunately, my husband had already been battling a nasty cough for about a month. So after the flu hit, he developed pneumonia. Hello. Commence freak out. When I heard “pneumonia,” I started to panic a bit, worrying that he would end up being hospitalized or worse.

So, my poor husband has been terribly sick, confined to our bedroom, fearful that our kids will get this horrendous flu, and we’re both scared to death because pneumonia can be bad stuff. It’s been a heck of a week.

And as much as I have tried to be stoic and uncomplaining (heroic even?) in my caring for my family, I am not above an occasional bout of self-pity. On Wednesday in particular, when I had a very sick husband, two kids with fever and one puking up every bit of liquid I tried to give her, and I was worried about dehydration and pneumonia, and I was working on very little sleep (because of sleeping on the couch), and I had no help (though my dear Super Friend did offer to deliver supplies to my doorstep if needed), I was a mess. In my own head at least I was. I think I kept the frustration and worry from showing too much to my kids and hubby. But yeah. I was a mess.

I had lovely little battles in my mind between my “Oh-my-gosh-this-suuuucks!” self and my “This-isn’t-about-you-be-grateful-it-isn’t-worse” self. Fortunately the latter self typically won out, and honestly most of the time I was thankful to be able to care for my family, but I’ll admit to a few tears and a whiney phone call to my Mom Wednesday night.

***********

We’ve watched a lot of movies during Flumageddon. Wednesday the all-day movies were for them. They were too miserable to do anything else, and I was trying to minimize their interaction with each other anyway.

Thursday they were feeling much better, but the movies were for me to recover from Wednesday.

Though Wednesday was the toughest day, by far my worst moment came on Friday evening. My husband’s fever was gone on Friday morning (as were the girls’). I have always understood the sickness rule to be that after you are fever-free for 24 hours, it’s safe to go back amongst the healthy folks without contaminating anyone. He had assumed the same thing, so I was giddy thinking he would be out and with us on Saturday morning. He offered to let me go to the spa Saturday. I said (texted), “No thank you, but I would like a nap.” I was dreaming of sleeping in my own bed, having another adult to talk to, and having my usual level of support and help with regular stuff around the house and with the girls.

Friday was a pretty darn good day in spite of Flumageddon. We took our lemons and we made lemonade.

We made a fort.

The perfect little spot to read.

We played with PlayDoh.

I was so happy thinking about my husband being with us again on Saturday, I practically floated around the house.

Then he made a rare and brief appearance out of our bedroom (with antiviral mask on, hands clasped behind his back, and the girls safely gated in the family room) to tell me that he had been checking on things and had learned that 24 hours just wasn’t enough time to be considered safe around others with this flu. So he was not going to be released from quarantine on Saturday morning as we had been anticipating.

Kick. In. The. Gut.

I reacted like a big baby. At least at first. I grumbled. I cried.

Then I took a deep breath. I apologized to my hubby for grumbling. And I went and got ice cream (for both of us).

Now hubby is out of our bedroom, but still not going near the girls. It’s so sad to see Sis reach for him and say “I hode!” (hold) or “I hug!” Watching him play with them through our french doors is precious and heartbreaking. I feel so bad for him. He feels like crap and he can’t be around our kids, the best medicine I know of.

Some time tomorrow he will declare himself all-clear and we will (hopefully) get back to normal. He will need to take it easy for a bit to recover from the pneumonia. We will pray that the girls don’t develop it (it can begin after the flu symptoms are gone). Soon we will hopefully go back to interacting normally with the rest of the world (the girls haven’t left the house since last Tuesday).

Okay. So, after all that I’ve learned about the flu and pneumonia in the past couple of days, consider this my Public Service Announcement for the year: The flu is serious stuff. As a general rule, I never get into the vaccination debate here, and know lots of people think the flu vaccine is not effective or necessary. You can check what the CDC has to say about it if you’re so inclined. If you get the flu and you don’t start to feel better in a few days, call or go to the doctor. It’s hard for a non-medical person to know the difference between flu-cough/fever and pneumonia-cough/fever. Don’t assume that it’s “just the flu” and thus “no big deal.”

I don’t want to seem melodramatic, but seeing how sick my husband has been from this flu, when he is not even 40 and very healthy, has freaked me out. Reading about potential flu complications made me remember that the flu is a big deal. So there you have it. PSA complete.

Bonus PSA #2 – In case you ever thought it would be a good idea to allow your toddler to eat as many prunes as she wanted at lunch time? Just, don’t. Sis discovered a serious love for prunes yesterday. And now, just as we’re recovering from Flumageddon, I’m dealing with our very own little Poop-pocalypse. Geez.

Stay healthy 🙂

Three Kids, Two Different Viruses, One Day

Posted on January 8, 2014January 9, 2014 by Amy

Warning: This post is kind of lame, but I took the time to write it, so I’m posting it anyway. I couldn’t quite pull it together better, so here it is in all its glory.

I wanted to write about something else today, but I’m just too tired. My husband woke up with the flu yesterday morning. I spent yesterday trying to help him as best I could while keeping the girls and myself from getting sick. No such luck with the girls. Lass was the first to go down with a fever last night.

Sis woke with one this morning.

I thought maybe Miss would pull through without getting sick. At lunch time today she still hadn’t spiked a fever and was acting fairly normal. Then while sitting at the table for lunch she got a strange look on her face. I had a passing thought of “Hmmm, she looks like she’s going to get sick. But she’s not going to get sick. This flu isn’t the throw up kind of flu…” Then she barfed her breakfast onto her lunch plate.

So yes, now we have three respiratory flus with fever and one stomach bug with no fever. I am just wondering when I”ll be going down for the count, and whether it will be with flu, pukes, or both. I’ve been washing my hands to the point that they are bleeding in hopes of keeping the craziness from spreading, so hopefully I might make it through (relatively) unscathed.

It breaks my heart to see my babies sick.

It also pains me to know my husband is sick upstairs and to not be able to help him very much. He has been quarantined, so our primary mode of communication has been texting with the occasional phone call or food hand-off. I haven’t seen him in the past two days without one or both of us wearing an anti-viral mask.

I’m sleeping on the couch even. Thus, tired.

So. I apologize for the somewhat whiney post. I just couldn’t get my thoughts together enough to write about something else. Here’s hoping your hump day was better than mine, and that we will be on the mend around here soon 🙂

Seven Quick Takes New Year’s Edition

Posted on January 3, 2014 by Amy

Linking up with Conversion Diary.

2013 was an interesting year here. We had some rough experiences. We had lots of changes, some good, some bad, some amazing. I think I will remember 2013 as a year of change and challenge.

I’m eagerly looking forward to 2014. I don’t make New Year’s resolutions as such, but I do like to think about the past year and the upcoming year. The good, the bad, what I want to modify, what I want to accomplish. I like to look forward to the new year and make goals. Here are a few of mine for 2014 (well, seven to be exact):

1. I haven’t completed any sort of race or other fitness event since running the Disney World Marathon six years ago. I am not sure which event I will do yet, but I will be training and getting back out there for some sort of race/event in 2014 (one thing I am sure of, it will not be a full marathon).

2. Currently, I can do two unassisted pull-ups (unassisted meaning without a resistance band), and eight straight-body (not on my knees) pushups, and I can back squat 135 pounds. By the end of the year my goal is to be able to do ten pull-ups, twenty pushups, and to back squat 185 pounds.

3. I read somewhere around 43 books in 2013. I really don’t need to make a goal to read more. Actually, I probably should make goals to read less and get more other things done in my free time. But that’s not going to happen.

With that in mind, here are some books on my “To-Read” list for 2014:

Catholicism for Dummies – I’m almost halfway through this one.

Divergent – I have a secret love of teen dystopian novels (Hunger Games, anyone?).

10 Gifts of Wisdom: What Every Child Must Know Before They Leave Home

Wool – My husband finished this audiobook recently. It sounds interesting, and when possible, I like reading the same things my husband has read/listened to so we can discuss. We’ve been talking about Screwtape Letters a lot recently, and I really enjoy our conversations (not that I expect this book to be on par with Screwtape, but maybe still fun to talk about)

The Sun Also Rises – This was on my Summer Reading List and I forgot about it. I’ll get to it this year.

Something Other Than God: How I Passionately Sought Happiness and Accidentally Found It – You know how much I enjoy Jennifer Fulwiler’s blog. I’m giddy about her upcoming book.

Ten Ways to Destroy the Imagination of Your Child

He Leadeth Me – Another one from the summer list that I forgot to read.

Things Pondered – I just saw a link to a ton of free Kindle books by this author. This one in particular is interesting to me, but I nabbed all of the free ones and hope to read them all this year.

That’s just a start. I also intend to start reading my Bible more this year now that I’m almost finished with 150 Bible Verses Every Catholic Should Know.

4. I will work on experimenting and using different settings of my camera. I almost always shoot in the “P” mode of my camera, which controls everything but the flash for me. I need to start learning how to shoot in the “A,” “S,” and “M” modes.

At least once a week I’ll be experimenting with different camera settings, lighting, etc. I have tried reading books. I’ve tried taking a class. I need to just do different things with my camera if I really want to learn.

5. I need to pick a Kindergarten curriculum (!!) I also really need to work on being more organized in my homeschool planning and scheduling. I haven’t yet found a system that I’m comfortable with. Suggestions would be welcome.

6. I’m instituting a Family Game Night. We had our first one tonight. I saw the game Cootie on Amazon the other day and remembered how much I loved playing it as a kid. I ordered it.

What was I thinking? It is not fun. But we have lots of other games too, and I think Super Friend has a bajilllion games for her kids, so I’ll ask her for some recommendations as well.

Unfortunately, I suspect my kids will be choosing Cootie as our game for a while.

7. I will be getting back into some cooking adventures. My husband and I used to have fun doing a little version of the Food Network show “Chopped” at home (I even have a whole category in the “Topics” drop-down dedicated to this). Then last year he got me some great books and I started some other fun cooking projects.

I cooked lots of egg recipes one week.

^^Homemade mayo

^^ Shirred eggs (yeah, I didn’t know what that was either) with cream and parmesan-reggiano

^^ Souffle !!

Another week I did Spanish dishes.

I like doing things to make food prep fun, but I’ve gotten away from doing this for a while and have been in a cooking rut (mini meatloaves, lettuce wrap tacos, chicken with mustard/maple sauce, repeat).

So. Back to fun stuff. My husband got me some gorgeous cookbooks for Christmas. Italian and French. I’m going to get closer to my roots and go Italian first. Then I think I’m going to go in depth with onions. Then French. Then, who knows? Sunday I’ll be making gnocchi in tomato butter sauce from scratch. Yum.

I love the feeling of beginning a new year. Reflecting and anticipating. 2014 is gonna to be good.

What are your goals for 2014?

See more quick takes here. Happy New Year!

Most Post 2013

Posted on December 30, 2013 by Amy

As the year is coming to a close, I’ve decided to join in with some other bloggers to do a “Most Post.” This idea comes from Sarah at Amongst Lovely Things. Check out her post here to see hers and others’ posts about their “Mosts” of 2013.

Okay, so what the heck am I talking about here? Sarah has posted, and encouraged others to do the same, about some of her blog posts from the year 2013 that fall into the following categories:

Post with the Most Clicks
Post with the Most Comments
Post with the Best Picture
Post that was the Hardest to Write
Post that was Your Personal Favorite

I thought it would be fun to look back over the year and see/think about which of my posts fall into these categories (Please note that I’m in the process of switching my blog to a new hosting company, so if you click on any of the links below and the photos in older posts are not displaying, that’s why. Sorry). Here they are:

Most Clicks: Summer “Bucket List” – 50 Summer Activities for Kids. All of my top posts for traffic are those that have been pinned a lot. Oddly, the most-clicked-non-pinned post was A Wrestling Meet, a Birthday, Some Great-Grandparents, and Disney World. I have no idea why this post got so much traffic, unless it’s because I linked to it from the Snow White Birthday Party on the Cheap post, which was #2 in number of clicks.

Most Comments: I Am a Yoga Pants Wearing Mom This post really seemed to strike a chord with many people. I got lots of “Yes, me too!” comments as well as a few “You are a sloth” comments (on BlogHer where it was a featured post).

Best Picture: There are so many, I am having a hard time picking one (plus I can’t see half of them in the posts). I think I have to choose one from Baptisms, though the photos for that post aren’t fully transferred yet so they’re not showing up in the original. It’s this photo:

Another favorite from Farewell to Summer (which also isn’t showing photos yet) is this one:

Hardest to Write: Lost My Religion, Finding My Faith I felt very awkward with this, my first foray into writing about spirituality in general and my own religious beliefs in particular. I’m glad I wrote it though. It’s interesting for me to go back and re-read it, and consider myself at that stage relative to where I am now.

My Personal Favorite: I had a hard time choosing just one. I thought about So Um, This is the Bible…. Then I thought maybe Still Dirty, Still Weird, Still Fun, because that was my favorite post to write. I also considered Two Stories About Opossums. I like these posts, because they’re ones in which I poke fun at myself. But ultimately I’m choosing On Bread and Wine. Bear With Me Please. as my favorite.

2013 has been an interesting, sometimes tough, and wonderful year!

I Have Bangs

Posted on December 20, 2013 by Amy

I have been wanting to make a change to my hair lately. It’s been on my mind, and then when we were at my parents’ house last week Miss saw a 20-year-old photo of me and exclaimed, “Oh! You look so beautiful!” She especially seemed to like my hair.

“How did you get your hair like that???” It was a bit hard to explain, because she didn’t quite understand the concept of a three-year-old perm. Her questions got me pondering a change more seriously.

Other than a few (very) brief ventures into “different” hair,

my hair has been the same since I was 16.

I’m only wearing that sweatshirt ^^ because I lost a bet.

So this past week I decided it was time to get my hair cut and try something different again. I asked Miss how she wanted me to get it cut and she said “Short!” I told her I hadn’t had very good luck with short hair, so I probably wouldn’t be doing that any time soon (ever, ever, ever).

But I did decide I wanted to try bangs again. I haven’t had bangs since about 1991 (the top photo in this post was taken around then). Well, except for one reaaaalllly bad attempt at reaaalllly short hair in college, around 1995. Thank goodness I have no photos of that horror.

So. 2013. I have bangs.

I like the change. It satisfied my urge for something different (it’s nice to get a haircut and give some directions to the hairdresser beyond, “Just cut off a few inches”), but not too crazy.

Best of all, when I came home from the salon and asked Miss if she liked my haircut, her face lit up and she nodded enthusiastically, “Yes!!” Love that girl 🙂

Christmas Cards – I Have a New Source

Posted on December 7, 2013December 7, 2013 by Amy

A few days ago, I got an email from someone at Minted. As soon as I saw the subject line, I figured it was about asking me to do some sort of post about some sort of product (I didn’t know what Minted was until I opened the email). My initial thought was “No. No more reviews right now.”

I just did a book review and I have another one coming up next week. Though I have enjoyed reading these books and writing the reviews, I don’t want to make this blog all about reviews. That’s not why I write it. So my gut reaction to the email was “no.”

Then I opened it. And I clicked on the link that Matt from Minted sent to me. And I changed my mind right smartly.

Minted is an online stationery store. Forget about the fact that as soon as I read that in Matt’s email I started imagining lovely, thick paper and envelopes just waiting to have a note hand written on them and sent through the real mail (have I ever mentioned that I have a little bit of a stationery thing?). Nevermind that I pictured myself buying some personalized stationery again (I used to have some when I was a little girl).

When I opened the link Matt sent, I found myself looking at some beautiful Christmas card designs, and I immediately changed my mind from “No” to “Oh, I love this stuff. Absolutely!”

I have found so many card designs that I like, I’m having a hard time choosing. There’s this one and this one and this one. The upload and edit process is extremely easy. I have five different saved cards that I made quickly last night, just waiting for me to make up my mind. And though my first impression was that the cards were more expensive than Shutterfly, which is what I’ve used in the past, when I checked it out I found that they actually are comparable or less expensive. And I just like the card designs better than other online photo or card companies I’ve looked at this year.

So. There you have it. I have a new online stationery store. Christmas cards coming soon. Now excuse me while I go shop for some glorious items in their paperie.

P.S. I am receiving a credit from Minted in exchange for writing about my opinion.

P.P.S. I’ll return to regular programing after my next book review coming up this week.

What I’ve Learned About Waking Up Early – 7 Quick Takes

Posted on November 29, 2013 by Amy

Linking up with Jen at Conversion Diary again.

I’ve become a morning person. Amazingly. Incredibly. I’m sort of addicted to waking up at six every morning. I wrote about my plan to try getting up earlier than my kids every morning here. I wasn’t sure how it would work out when I started. I am happy to report it’s working out quite nicely.

Here are seven quick takes on what I’ve learned about waking up early:

1. Coffee tastes really awesome when it’s hot! How did I not know of this little luxury before? I always thought I didn’t care if my coffee got cold, as long as I was getting caffeine. Wrong, wrong, wrong. So much yummier when hot. And I usually only drink one cup now, because I enjoy that one so much more. Win/Win!

2. Getting up early makes me more likely to exercise during nap time. I really thought I would start exercising during my early mornings, and I do sometimes. But I don’t really have time for both a workout and a cup of coffee before the kids get up. And, well, see #1? Right. So working out is not happening much in the early hours. But, if I get up and have coffee and do some other things that I used to do during nap time, then I am much more likely to make the time to exercise when my kids are napping.

3. It works better to be in stealth mode when I’m downstairs. Sometimes Miss will get up really early to go to the bathroom. If she doesn’t see any lights on, she’ll often go back to bed. If she sees the lights, she comes downstairs, sometimes before I’ve even had a sip of my nice warm coffee. So I go stealth for at least the first 30-45 minutes. That means laptop open with screen brightness turned way down and no other lights on. And tiptoeing too. Sometimes I read by the light of my Kindle only. Yes, I am a grown woman who sneaks around my house in the mornings to enjoy a little quiet time and hot coffee.

4. Speaking of which, I really appreciate how quiet and still it is in the mornings. I never realized how much I crave quiet until embarking on this little experiment. Loud is wonderful, and kids, and family, and joy, and laughter. I love loud because it reminds me how full and festive my life is on a daily basis. But quiet is good too. Quiet reminds me to breathe and pray and cherish. Maybe not everyone needs quiet. But I now know that I do.

5. I know that I do because I am so much more cranky in the mornings if I don’t get it. I rarely sleep past six anymore, but when I do, I just feel kind of off all day. I also feel that way on the days when I do get up at six but so do my kids.

6. I like being awake when my girls get up. I used to sleep as long as possible, not waking until the first of my kids got up, sometimes ignoring little voices playing in beds for a bit so I could grab a few more minutes of sleep. Sometimes Miss would come in my room to wake me up and I’d tell her it wasn’t time to get up yet so she needed to go back to bed for a little while. I usually wasn’t much fun during the process of waking up for the day.

Now, when Miss comes down stairs or I go up to get one of the younger girls, I spend time savoring the moments of seeing them again after 10 or 11 hours apart. I say, “I’m so happy to see you this morning!” and I mean it. We have special morning snuggles and tickles and I am so much more ready to be present with them when I’ve had just a little time to be present with myself already.

7. So, you might be wondering what the heck do I do for 30-45 minutes every morning in the dark? Sometimes I write. Sometimes I just surf around the web and read interesting things. Sometimes I prepare homeschool lessons (but I don’t use the printer or laminator – too loud). Sometimes I read with my little Kindle light. I have even used this light to illuminate a paper book (it works just fine if you’re wondering). Often I pray. I have found that praying the rosary in the quiet and dark is very peaceful and centering. It’s a perfect way to begin my day.

I’m becoming a Catholic and a morning person. Wow.

Motherhood and Miscellany

Miscellany