First...  ALLELUIA ALLELUIA HE IS RISEN!!!

 

I woke up this morning feeling soooo happy and excited - it's been a very weird and stressful Lent and when I woke up and knew that Jesus is risen, I just felt immensely happy and at peace. No matter what happens in our world, the story is the same every year :) And regardless of how we may feel about this ever-changing world in which we're challenged to raise Catholic children, our God is always going to save us from our sin!

Is that button not the cutest? Double dipping on my link-ups today for good ol' What I Wore Sunday with Fine Linen & Purple, and Grace & Co. for What I Wore Easter.

I LOVE Easter clothes because the boys can finally break out the seersucker. Andrew told me, very seriously, that he thinks it's JUST STUPID that you're not supposed to wear seersucker until Memorial Day, and that he's making the rule Easter to Labor Day. Rebel.

 Last year, Andrew and John Paul wore seersucker suits and father-son bow ties. Amazing, right?

 

But this year the seersucker coat I wanted went out of stock before it went on sale, so poor John Paul was stuck with pants only.  I spiffed them up with navy suspenders & a plaid tie.  Bad haircut courtesy yours truly - I just don't know what to do with his wild thick hair!

 

Okay what do we do about our front steps?  They used to have awful green turf on them and bare is better but they still look awful...   DIY-ers, got anything for me?

 

Cecilia wore an awesome pink lace dress and too-small pedipeds (on the wrong feet, of course). 

 

 

The kids saw me laying out their clothes the night before and HAD to try them on because John Paul is seriously obsessed with his seersucker pants. So I told them they could try them on and we'd take pictures as long as they didn't get dirty. Then they rolled in the grass and woodchips and freaked out that I wouldn't let them wear the clothes for dinner just because I had to wash them...

 

I wore my Christmas present (and motivation to get skinny or at least skinny enough to fake it with shapewear) from Shabby Apple with red Nine West pumps & the same Easter hat Iwhich you can't see very well) as last year (shh...).  Last Easter we had *just* found out we were pregnant with what we thought was only #3...  Little did we know!

 

 

Andrew's rocking a seersucker suit and madras bow tie, and the twins (like you care) are in hand-me-down dresses. Cecilia insisted on wearing her non-matching pink hat - whatever!

 

A close-up of the hat, later in the day:

 

 

 

The kids did an awesome job at Mass, an Easter miracle!  We hit the 7:45 instead of our usual 9 AM, and it was still almost packed, but I think there were very few of the C&E crowd there.  A friend of mine attended exclusively Extraordinary Form masses in the year after the new translation came out and totally got dirty looks at an English Christmas Mass, so I chose to assume that anyone saying the wrong responses was just used to saying them in Latin :P

 

Hope you all have a wonderfully blessed day! 

 

Check out more well-dressed ladies at Camp Patton & FL&P!

Theme Thursday: Celebration!

Okay, bear with me - the Holy Week theme is "Celebration."  BUT, in Cari's defense, she thought this was going to fall post-Easter.  And if I didn't have all these babies, we'd totally do a seder!  That's a celebration!

 

So while I couldn't plan a celebration this week, I have a little celebration that we encounter every day...  Dad comes home!

 

 

Infectious joy + tummy raspberries.

 

I debated cropping the twins out of this one, but I get a kick out of Elizabeth's pasty little tummy :P

 

 

And that look of love...  Multiply it by about a million and that's the look Jesus is giving you right now, no matter how much you sin.  The love of a Father for his precious child.  When's the last time somebody looked at you like that?

Linking up with Cari & the Clan for Theme Thursday - go check out more celebrations!

Firmoo sponsored post - How do I look in glasses?

Okay folks, I need your opinions:

 

 

Can I pull off the glasses look?

 

Cecilia says I look like a librarian, but that is VERY exciting for her.  Andrew thinks I look stupid.  I'm not sure if they're too big or not...

 

Do I look like maybe not a 16-year-old?  (Or have I passed that point already?  I'm excited to look my age someday!)

 

I received an email from Firmoo.com, an online glasses retailer, inviting me to try a pair of glasses for free in exchange for a blog review.  I was all over it!  After all, they're the "world's most popular online eyeglass store"!

 

Here's the thing though - I don't wear glasses.  But I've always really WANTED to wear glasses because I think they make me look older.  And cooler?  No, just older.

 

So I told them that and they were like, "No prob!  You can get sunglasses tinted to whatever degree you want, or just regular old glasses with glass lenses!"

 

I ordered my first pair of glasses and something weird happened with the mail.  They decided my address didn't work, and didn't deliver them.  And didn't deliver them.  And then I checked tracking and they were getting shipped back to China!!!  So the awesome folks at Firmoo said, "Hey your glasses that you chose are out of stock but pick a different pair!" 

 

So I picked a different, WAY MORE AWESOME pair! 

 

 

Blue.  And plaid!  Does it get any more exciting?  You can upload your own picture and virtually try on glasses, but it was a bit of a confusing process for me and I ended up just using one of their models who looked most like me.

 

Now here's the awesome thing - you can get a pair of your own!  FOR FREE!!!  All you have to do is pay shipping, which I'm pretty sure is still cheaper than heading into a glasses store and buying glasses there.

 

And can I be selfish and ask for your thoughts on my glasses?  I mostly love them because they're blue & plaid, but if they look stupid on me I don't want to start wearing them.  And I'd pretty much only wear them for work because they're not really practical for home and do I really need to look older for my kids?  I think not.

Holy Week

Today was not a good day, parenting-wise.  I mean, things started out pretty good (aside from ALL the kids waking up way to early) - I got the snow gear together and let the kids play outside for a while.

 

Although to them that really just means lie down in the snow and eat as much of it as possible. They spent the first 20 minutes on the steps just shoveling it into their mouths...

 

 

Cecilia got tired of it once her mittens fell off (seriously, how do we get those things to stay on???), but John Paul wanted to stay out for as long as possible.  And he was doing his stupid potty dance.  Because he likes to hold it for as. long. as. possible. and then RUN to the bathroom to do his thing.

 

But you know what makes that not work?  Being outside in a whole bunch of snow gear.

 

So half an hour later, he was crying outside because he had peed in his snow stuff.  And didn't get to play in the snow anymore, duh.  And of course it was all melted by the time his things got washed and dried.

 

So I was trying to entertain the kids in any other way while also trying to get Mary Claire and Elizabeth to sleep, which they refused to do for more than 20-30 minutes at a time.  And NEVER simultaneously.  And our swing just broke and can't be repaired so I couldn't even put a drowsy baby in that and let it do the work for me.  And it's the first day of spring break.  "Break."  Yeah, this is not a break for me!!!

 

Lack of sleep (my own) + lack of sleep (babies) + toddlers trying to get on my last nerve (refusing to put on underwear, climbing on every table, shrieking in the shrillest voice possible at all times, climbing onto the kitchen counter to get ALL the goldfish, ripping up an entire Curious George book, you get it) = seriously angry parent.  And the yelling starts, and I feel like I have no control over my children and that I'm doing them a huge disservice by having so many of them at once...

 

Somehow things calmed down by the time dinnertime rolled around, and thank goodness.  Because Andrew's got extra rehearsals all week and has to leave early, but we decided to give the big kids a *super* early bath and let them play for a while before bed, which means the babies were swaddled and nursing by 6:15, a full hour earlier than normal (don't worry, they still didn't settle down until 9).

 

With Andrew gone, I decided that I'd find a youtube video of the sorrowful mysteries because the kids have been sort of praying the rosary all day (we just got two new chunky bead rosaries for the twins but John Paul & Cecilia have stolen them for themselves) and they were SO good.  John Paul was his normal obsessive self, trying to mimic Our Lady of Fatima and getting upset that we can't pray the glorious mysteries yet.  But he was still REALLY good (as he always is when we pray the rosary - kid LOVES to pray!), and Cecilia was actually pretty good too - she tried praying for a while and then went off to read quietly by herself and would come back and pray periodically.  And she shoved John Paul away from the computer and yelled at him, but when I explained that when she does that it hurts Jesus, she immediately started hugging John Paul and holding his hand and said that would be so nice for Jesus. 

 

So my discipline may need to take a different turn...  I forget to explain the kids that when they hurt each other, when they disobey, when they are disrespectful that they're hurting Jesus.  Sure they haven't yet reached the age of reason, but they absolutely understand misbehavior in those terms.  And while they don't seem to care how Andrew or I feel, they desperately don't want to hurt Jesus!

 

My Holy Week challenge is going to be to remind myself (and the kids) of this is often as possible.  Because while they don't care yet that they're hurting me or each other, they are so motivated by their love of Jesus that maybe these reminders will help us all have a better week!

 

P.S. The day wasn't totally awful...  I remembered my old tummy time strategy with John Paul and Cecilia and tried it out with the twins - Elizabeth LOVED it!  And while I hate giving her tummy time because I don't want her to get mobile ever, it was the only thing that calmed her down.

 

 

 

Mary Claire, on the other hand...  Well, let's just say we'll be steering her away from any frat parties, since she seems to be a little too ready for them right now...

WIW PALM Sunday!

Happy Palm Sunday!  The day on which we recall just how quickly the crowds can turn...  Waving palm branches and shouting "Hosanna!" and turning around and shouting, "Crucify him!"  If you're not going to the Easter Vigil, this is probably the longest Mass you'll go to all year. 

Don't forget to return your palms or find out when to bring them back to church so they can burn them for next Ash Wednesday.  We ALWAYS miss the boat and have a rather large ziploc bag with years of palms in it that we need to take somewhere...  Maybe next year!

I took these pictures pre-spit up.  A warning:  Whenever you are dressed and ready to go out the door, letting an infant lie on your lap with no burp cloth to shield you is a bad idea.  All that smiling and cooing is just a ruse to make you comfortable before they PUKE ALL OVER YOU!

I wore a Forever XXI turtleneck over a J.Crew skirt/dress thing that I've never worn as a dress (because no way am I wearing a strapless dress) with leggings and black boots.

 Not super-in love with the outfit, though - I feel like the sweater is too long (although that turned out to be a good thing, because it hid the spit up.  Ain't nobody got time to change clothes!), the boots aren't right with the length of the skirt...  Really I will get a full-length mirror one of these days!

The children's mass behavior was abysmal.   Just abysmal.  The babies were fantastic, but John Paul decided to loudly act out the stations of the cross in the pew AND on the way to communion (Complete with Jesus' falls.  All of them.) and Cecilia was her usual loud loud loud self.

At least they looked cute, right?

I was really expecting them to be excited about the Gospel, especially considering they made a cardboard box into Jesus' tomb this week.  John Paul keeps crawling inside, closing the flaps, and bursting out saying, "I rose from the dead!  Now I'm not sick anymore!!!"

Yeah, we may need to work on their understanding of the Resurrection...

Anyway, have a restful Holy Week!  Check out other Sunday fashion at Fine Linen & Purple.

Because all the cool kids are doing it

Now I understand why everybody's been posting these...  Apparently I have to "claim" my blog through bloglovin'

Follow my blog with Bloglovin

You know...  If you want to.  Since my mom's not the only one who reads this anymore!

7 Quick Takes - Conversation Edition

This week, I bring you 7 short conversations with the big kids.  They never stop cracking me up!  But first, a smiling picture of the babies because they're just too cute not to share again:

--1--

Cecilia, sitting on the potty:  May I pweez have a square?
*I hand her a square of toilet paper*
Cecilia:  It has a fwower.  I wike dis toiwet paper.  I WUV DIS TOIWET PAPER!!!

--2--

Cecilia:  Ummm what ammopeace?
Me:  What?
Cecilia:  What ammopeace?
Me:  What ammo peace?
Cecilia:  What AM-mal PEES?
Me:  Oh, what animal pees?  Um...  All of them?
Cecilia:  Wiiiike?
Me:  A dog pees.
Cecilia:  And a cat pees!  And a enephant pees!  And a baby pees AND poops!  A baby a animal?
Me:  Is a baby an animal?
Cecilia, giggling:  No!!!

--3--



John Paul, reading a link from his prayer chain:  Say an extra Hail Mary for those who are depressed.  *gleefully*  I'm depressed!!!
Me:  No you're not.
John Paul:  I'm depressing!  I need to get a tongue depressor!

--4--

Cecilia, to Aunt Sister:  Oh, I WUV your boots!  And your head is VEWWY beautiful!

From Little Miss Fashion, who chose to accessorize her peach Easter dress with a purple shirt, Minnie Mouse socks, and John Paul's red basketball shorts.  So you KNOW that a compliment from her really means something!

--5--

*I walk into the kitchen to discover Cecilia about to drink a container of Papa John's dipping sauce and John Paul trying to open the babysitter's protein shake*
Me:  John Paul, would you like a little bowl of Cheez-its as a snack?
John Paul, in a very small voice:  Maaaybe that would be awesome...

--6--

John Paul:  I'm a BFF!
Me:  You're a best friend forever?
John Paul:  Yes!  And I'm an OB!
Me:  You're an obstetrician?
John Paul:  AND I'm an obligation.
Me:  What?
John Paul:  I'm a holy day of obligation. 
Me:  Uh...  What holy day of obligation are you?
John Paul:  August 15th.
Me:  Oh.  So what does that make you?
John Paul:  I'm the Assumption!!!

--7--

John Paul, spinning around in circles and then hugging Cecilia:  Oh, I have found my dancing partner for life!

Happy Friday!  Go check out more Quick Takes over at Jen's.  Thanks for hosting!

Mud!

Mud.  We have it in abundance, as is shown on the kids' shoes every time they come in from playing outside:

 

Side note:  He clicked this pin and wanted to make nature shadow boxes, so I told him to go on a nature scavenger hunt.  30 minutes later, he returned with a bin full of crocuses with a rock and a leaf.  BUT we found out last week that the crocuses pop right back up in a couple of days, so I let the kids pick 'em now!

But hands-down, my favorite kind of mud?

 

 

These are SO. GOOD.  An entire stick of butter goes into one 8x8 pan, that's how good.  For some reason, I've only ever found them at Target.

 

So I figured I owed it to the Theme Thursday participants to strap a baby on my back, bake these, and show you a couple real-life pictures.

 

 

Minus 3 that had already been eaten...

 

Close-up of the crumb crust, gooey marshmallow & fudginess.

 

Playing with perspective, a la Cari.

 

 

You're welcome.

 

Now go check out other takes on the theme - Mud should be a fun one!  Thanks for hosting, Cari :)

Five Favorites

 Linking up my five favorites for this week:

--1--

 

Catwalk Curl Creme

Source:  overstock.com

When I finally decided to embrace my newly-curly-ish hair (texture changed after I had John Paul, finally gave in 2.5 years later!), this is the product the woman at the salon recommended.  Scrunch into damp hair and TADA!  Non-frizzy curls!

 

--2--

 

 Trader Joe's Highbrow Chocolate Chip Cookies

 

I don't *really* like chocolate chip cookies.  And when I do, I like them chewy,  And I don't really want the chocolate chips.  So I *should* hate these, but they're so delicious!  Crispy, buttery, with DELICIOUS chocolate chips that I look forward to with every bite.  These are dipping cookies - perfect with a tall glass of milk.  And while they aren't a *great* price ($4 for 14 cookies), they're so delicious that they're a constant cupboard staple in our house (but I hide them from the kids and get kind of annoyed when anyone else eats them.  Have I mentioned I hate sharing?).

 

--3--

 

This mobile:

 

Source:  Amazon

We bought one of these off of Craigslist when John Paul was born, but he never had a crib...  So we would hold it above him and he was mesmerized!

 

Fast forward to Cecilia...  She rarely slept in her crib, but we could put her in there awake for long periods of time as she stared at these friendly animals.

 

And now the twins are LOVING it!!!  So much so that I actually got a picture of them smiling at the same time!!!

 

 

Plus it buys me 10-20 minutes of cooking, washing dishes, doing laundry, etc.

 

--4--

 

Source:  Amazon
 

This swing is magical.  Seriously, magical.  You bet that with twins at home, I need a little help sometimes.  And when one of the babies is ready to take a nap and I just don't have time to bounce/rock/nurse/whatever it takes to get her to sleep, she goes in the swing with lights and music on.  It put Cecilia straight to sleep, and it works exactly the same way on Mary Claire & Elizabeth. 

 

They decide they don't want to go back to sleep after a late-night nursing session?  Into the swing they go!  It lives in our room so we don't even have to walk all the way to the babies' room to put them back...  And it's a lifesaver for me, since I like co-sleeping to a point.  There comes a time when I JUST WANT THAT BABY OUT OF MY BED for a few hours, at least.

 

Thank you, swing.

 

--5--

 

My mom!

 

 

Andrew sings professionally at a local Catholic church, so his Holy Week schedule is obviously NUTS.  My mom offered to come help out while he's gone, which is a serious life saver!  We've figured out how to do bedtime when he has rehearsals at 7 or 7:30, since it's not that hard for me to get the kids down once they're all bathed and in jammies.  But trying to bathe the big kids, get the twins diapered & changed, get jammies on the big kids, read a bedtime story, keep John Paul from running aroung the house during prayers, and tuck in the big kids while balancing the nursing twins on the giant twin pillow? 

 

Yeah, it's tough.

 

So my mom's going to do it all FOR me!

 

Well, some of it.  Enough to keep me from going insane :)  Sometimes I think all these children are my Lenten penance.  Then I remember that they'll still be here when Easter comes :P

 

That's all!  Go check out more at Hallie's!

 

A Conversation with John Paul

Me:  John Paul, do you want to be a priest when you grow up?
John Paul:  Yes.

Me:  Would you rather be a daddy or a priest?
John Paul:  Or a mommy?
Me:  Well, you can't be a mommy because you're a boy.  Just like girls can't be daddies.
John Paul:  I don't want to be a daddy.
Me:  You don't want to be a daddy?
John Paul:  I don't want to be a priest.
Me:  Then what do you want to be?
John Paul:  Ohhh I want to be a mommy!

Me:  You don't want to go to seminary and become a priest?
John Paul:  ...
Me:  After college, you could go to seminary.  Where do you want to go to college?  It could be Notre Dame, or Northwestern like mom and dad, or you could go to another Catholic school.  Where do you think you want to go?
John Paul:  A Catholic school.
Me:  And then seminary?
John Paul:  Yes.
Me:  And then you can be ordained a deacon.
John Paul:  Ordained a priest!

Me:  First a deacon, then you get ordained a priest.
John Paul:  And then you get ordained a seminarian!   (he's reading this now and says, "And then a bishop.)

Me:  No, you're a seminarian while you're in seminary.
John Paul:  And then a deacon and then a priest! 

Me:  But you don't want to be a daddy?
John Paul:  YES!

Me:  Well if you're a priest, you can't be a daddy.  So which do you want?
John Paul:  Uh...  Ordained in college!!!  *runs off to play with toys*

WIWS - So done with this cold weather

I loved the Psalm response today - "The Lord has done great things for us; we are filled with joy."  I get stressed on Sundays - it always seems like we're in a huge rush to get out the door because there's only one morning Mass we can make (Andrew sings at an Extraordinary Form Mass at noon, so he has to run out the door for rehearsal as soon as we get home), and then we're rushing home from Mass so that Andrew can leave, and we spend all of Mass trying to wrangle the kids and wipe up spit-up and maybe pay attention in between the shushing and the puking...

But we are so blessed.  And I know it, but I forget to be thankful.  So having that reminder, "The Lord has done great things for us; we are filled with joy" really brought a smile to my face, because our lives are so filled with joy all thanks to the Lord.  If it weren't Lent, you know I'd be saying the A-word all over the place!

Anyway, we also wore some stuff to Mass today - hey there, Fine Linen & Purple!

You know what?  It's March.  And that means SPRING clothes to me!  Even though it's still winter...

 

So Cecilia wore her new green seersucker dress, because she's really the only one of us who has anything green...  Ok, it was 40 degrees when we left the house.  She was wearing leggings and 2 sweaters, but she shed both sweaters at Mass and took them off immediately at home, too.

 

You can tell she did a great job (sarcasm) at Mass because even before we left the house she started crying that she wanted to wear a ponytail instead of her chapel veil.  Not an argument worth having with a 2-year-old.  It only went downhill from there.

 

John Paul, however, did a great job!  Just sat there reading the hymnal getting VERY excited every time he found a Latin chant that he knows.

 

Top:  Mudd via Kohl's super-clearance

Tank: Yummie Tummie nursing cami via Zulily (NO I did not pay $68 for a tank top!)

Skirt:  H&M

Belt:  Hijacked from my new pink pants

Shoes:  Marshall's sometime in college

Baby:  Mary Claire

Veiled saint statues:  Purple fabric via Joann's Fabric

 

Not pictured:  Elizabeth, green scarf

 

 

Close-up on the shoes (and the stockings that make me look like a ghost...)

 

And for fun, this is how I changed to make the outfit more home-appropriate:

 

 

Hmm...  A darker tank is probably necessary, but I'm too lazy to change now.  This week's assignment:  Buy a full-length mirror so I don't have to take a picture to figure out if the oufit works or not!

 

 

Check out some other ladies & their fine styles!