Mothers Day

My Mothers Day weekend was wonderful.  It began Friday evening.  I joined several friends for supper at a nearby cafe, then headed to our diocesan retreat center for a Mother's Retreat.  This retreat was first given by my own pastor about 13 years ago, something I didn't know until recently.  He first began offering this retreat because nursing mothers couldn't attend the regular retreats (for various reasons).  This is a 24 hour retreat, each woman has her own room and is served four meals.  Friday night begins with Mass at 8:15 p.m. followed by quiet time.  It is a silent retreat.  Saturday morning begins with morning prayer, then breakfast, a talk also called a conference, adoration, benediction, mid-morning Mass, then more prayer, another conference, quiet time, and one more conference.  Lunch falls in there somewhere, and at supper, at 6:00, the silence is broken so that the women can visit with one another.  After supper, the retreat is over.  Nursing babies are welcome! 

Sunday, I was allowed to sleep in.  The children had made me gifts and cards at school and Jeremy picked out a beautiful matching earring and necklace set.  Best of all, I got to spend the entire day with my family and after noon Mass, Jeremy took our family out to lunch--my one request was not to have to worry about meals on Mothers Day--to one of my favorite restaurants, one which cooks their food over a wood fire and serves cinnamon Creme Brulee for dessert!  After naptime, we headed to a lake outside of town.  Two of Jeremy's sisters, their families, and Jeremy's parents were also there.  We let the kids splash and play in the water; it was hot and muggy but very windy at the lake, which negated the humidity.  It was a wonderful day.

In spite of not having swimsuits or towels and near-freezing water, the kids splashed around.

All children were instructed to go into the water no farther than when it reached their knees.

Morgan was SOAKED.

Jeremy and I are looking toward 10 years of married life; we celebrate next month!  (I know I look slightly pregnant in many of these recent pictures.  I am not pregnant, but my poor tummy will probably look that way for the rest of my life, the result of having five beautiful, healthy children.)

Splash, splash!  Since I was wearing Keens and clothes made out of polyester and nylon (thanks, Eddie Bauer), I was able to get in with the kids, splash all around, and dry off quickly.

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On a more sobering note, while we were at the lake, rescue crews started to arrive from nearby towns, and then nearby cities. They began scouring the lake, looking for a missing 10 year old girl. Unfortunately, she had drowned. They found her body the following Friday. Please pray for the girl's mother, Guadalupe, as she deals with the loss of her daughter!  I can only imagine her heartache.
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That was Noah ... I didn't really dunk him.

Madeleine

Madeleine, (cousin) Anderson, and Morgan

Planes flew over once while we were there, practicing formation.

Pokey Maria is not walking yet, but she's a really fast crawler!

Maria and me (can you believe that she was born with black hair?)

There was a tree perfect for climbing.

...and digging

:: How was your Mothers Day? ::

The Great Outdoors

There's this really great program in our city that is essentially a guide to all of the fun outdoor spots in town and even out of town. There is something to be found at each spot and it is free, through the library system and the parks system. We do have an extensive parks system and it is great to get out and explore!

Madeleine

Morgan

Noah

Maria & Noah

Burrito from a vendor

As we passed a street vendor while heading toward this park (in the van), I commented out loud that I wanted to stop and buy food from one of them sometime, and probably quite a few times after that.  Jeremy took Isaiah on a walk, on a mission to find a restroom and when he came back, he was bearing treats ... burritos from the vendor I had pointed at!

Jeremy & Maria

Madeleine

Pretty, pretty park gates

Madeleine makes the rubbing

Daybook, Volume 46

Monday, January 31st, 2011

I am wearing jeans, wool socks, two shirts and a zip up fleece hoodie.

I am drinking Starbucks Colombian roast.  Mmmmm.

The weather is cold!  It's 19 degrees here in Nebraska, and a layer of ice was laid down last night on the streets, trees, sidewalks, and cars.  My husband called from work and instructed me to stay at home.  He said that driving conditions are awful!  We're looking at snow tonight and tomorrow with 6-8 inches expected.

My kids are on the mend!  A bug went around the house, influenza, I think.  The kids came down with it one by one, beginning with a fever, lethargy, congestion, and continued with a cough that just won't go away.  Morgan ended up in the ER on Tuesday; when I called her doctor and explained her symptoms--fatigue, fever, congestion, bad headache, and vertigo--he told me to take her to the ER for tests.  She was a trooper.  The nurses put in an IV and gave her 500 mL of fluid, and a CT scan, given because of the length and strength of her headache, turned up a severe sinus infection.  With antibiotics, she's feeling much better!

I hear Playhouse Disney in the background, the white noise of our fireplace running, water simmering in an effort to humidify the house, and coffee brewing. 

Out with the old.... We agreed to purchase cable television for one year, the year that I'd be recovering from a cesarean and nursing a new baby.  The year is up.  We subscribed to Netflix, installed Wi-Fi, and can stream to our Blu-Ray player.  We will cancel cable and enjoy Netflix now.  I'm excited about this!  We've been very impressed with Netflix so far and have gotten almost all the way through the first season of Lost, something we've wanted to watch for several years. 

I remember my (maternal) Grandpa making eggs for me in the wee hours of the morning when I was 18.  I lived with my maternal grandparents during my first year of college.  I would get home from work at 4 a.m., shower, and Grandpa would cook eggs for me.  Now he is 88, curled up in a hospital bed unresponsive, systems failing one by one.  Although he is comfortable and has defeated many diseases and injuries, I do not think that he will be with us much longer.  Please pray for his comfort! 

I had fun ice skating with my brothers and sister yesterday.  We were at my (paternal) Grandparents' home.  They have an acreage with a pond.  At first, Grandpa said that the ice was not solid enough for us to play on it.  My brothers were bound and determined to play.  They chopped a hole in the ice and found that it was six inches thick.  This is Grandpa's lower boundary for "safe to stomp on."  I grabbed skates and headed down to the pond when I saw my 6' 4" and my 6' brothers sliding and playing around on the ice.  Many followed suit, and while I was skating, my Grandpa put my girls in ice skates and sent them down.  It was invigorating!

Ice skating!

Courtney

Madeleine and me

I tried to help Morgan along. 

She tried hard but was unsteady.

Sophie and Madeleine

Goofing off

Nope.  I can't really skate like this.

Morgan

Courtney (my brother's girlfriend) and me

Courtney and Leighton

Madeleine, me, and Morgan

Madeleine got right back up every time she fell (often).

My Low last week was my root canal taking Morgan to the ER for tests. I was afraid she had meningitis. So was her doctor. That's why he sent us. She was so miserable!

My High last week was hearing Maria (11 months) say, "uh-oh!" when she dropped items. She'll identify "Dad" and "Go-gah" for Morgan. It's so fun to hear her try to copy our words and sounds.

I am thinking of starting a private blog, attached to this one, about divorce.  You may not know that my parents, after nearly 20 years of marriage and 9 children, are divorced.  Divorce does not end when a couple walks out of the courtroom, especially when there are children involved, and now grandchildren.  Would anyone be interested in joining, reading, or contributing as an author?  It would be a forum for thoughts, experiences, and emotions.  It would be geared toward grown children of divorce who wish to share these things in the privacy of my/our own blog.
::
Cheers to the original Simple Woman's Daybook!

Reason #12 to Move to Nebraska

S U N S E T S

Last Saturday, Jeremy was trying to watch the Husker game. The first part took place during naptime, which was fairly quiet here. Shortly before halftime, the kids started to wake up. I thought that he wouldn't get to see the second half (much less hear it) if these wild dervishes the kids were allowed to stay in the house. It was a beautiful day, so I decided that we were going to drive to a nearby park. It's at the edge of the city and is a beautifully maintained park with woods, hiking trails, elk, and buffalo. I thought we needed to add another boy to the mix, so I called my friend Sarah to see if she'd lend us her son Thomas for the rest of the afternoon. She obliged, and I picked him up and headed to the park with the kids. We did kid things. We climbed, threw acorns into a pond, the kids "fished" for algae, Thomas got his feet wet, we hiked some more, collected leaves and seed pods that had fallen, visited the buffalo, and climbed some more.

Thomas, Morgan, Madeleine, Noah, and Isaiah climbed the hill to one of the park's statues.

They climbed up to the statue and climbed all over the rocks and in the trees.

We walked down to one of the ponds where the kids did kid things.

Thomas is such a good boy!  As with all of my friends' children, I enjoy him very much.

Isaiah, Morgan, and Maddie messed around at the pond.

Noah loves to be outdoors.

Madeleine

Thomas and Morgan

Isaiah is all THREE and all BOY.

Madeleine made this bracelet at a Little Flowers meeting a couple of months ago.

The kids continued to play while I sat on a bench slightly up hill (read: away from the gnats hovering all over the water).

It was getting close to sunset.  I love silhouette pictures.

Autumn in Nebraska is just stunning.

Boys will be boys!

This is just the beginning of a Nebraska sunset.

Thomas was so good with Isaiah, waiting for him, holding his hand, and making sure he stayed with us. 

You didn't think that I was kidding, about seeing buffalo, did you?

Thomas asked to go to the pillars.  These are pillars that were given to our city when the old treasury in Washington D.C. was torn down (I think).  They're sandstone, so they didn't weather well.  Whose bright idea was that, to make a building with sandstone pillars?  Duh.

I asked Morgan to hold still so I could take her picture but she said she was waving her arms on purpose, so the picture would be "cool."

Morgan, Madeleine, and Thomas

Time for sunset!  The kids loved climbing all over the pillars.

Madeleine

These geese were heading south.

There are lots of sturdy, easy-to-climb trees in the park.

It was starting to get dark, so I said that we had about 5 more minutes.

Reason #12 to move to Nebraska ... SUNSETS.

I did not modify these pictures.

The sunsets here really are amazing.  Come see!