Happy First Sunday in Lent!  I hope you are eating as much candy as I am!  I may or may not have taken some candy from an event yesterday and put it in my purse so I could eat it immediately after Mass today...

And since it's Sunday, that means it's time to link up with Fine Linen and Purple for...

I wore one of my very favorite black dresses from Target with half-sleeves and a fabulous nursing-friendly top.  The cut of this dress is perfect so it camouflages my pooch pretty effectively!  I've also got my good old Forever 21 square scarf to help with the discreet nursing, tights from college, and my trusty brown boots because it's too cold to wear any other shoes...

PS Prayer request - we're moving on Saturday, please send prayers our way for smooth packing, moving, and managing the kids while the movers are here!

 

The pole sticking out of my head is part of a basketball hoop that hangs on our basement door.  Classy, eh?

 

It has been an interesting morning, to say the least.  Some highlights:

 

1.  John Paul sobbing because the coins I gave him for the poor box weren't correct.  He wanted a quarter, four dimes, and two pennies.  Because a month ago he found that combination of coins in our house.  Yes.

2.  Andrew's car not starting.

3.  John Paul freaking out because we sang the Kyrie in Greek instead of English.

4.  John Paul freaking out because he wanted a different Gospel acclamation.

5.  John Paul freaking out because he didn't want the Gospel to be from Luke.

6.  The babies puking all over themselves, necessitating one outfit change, one outfit that SHOULD have been changed, and a lot of pew clean-up...  (I love that they sleep so much at night, but then when they wake up in the morning they're probably eating like, 4-5 ounces at once since I'm so full, and it's too much for their tiny tummies and they end up puking a lot!)

7.  Cecilia freaking out that John Paul is sitting next to me on the left and SHE wants to be sitting there.  Twice.  No, three times.  VERY loudly.

8.  John Paul collapsing to his knees while lunging for the altar holding my hand while I received Communion.

9.  John Paul loudly proclaiming, "A******* He is risen!!!  It's not Lent anymore!  It's Eastertide!"   Thank you, Captain Liturgically Inappropriate...

 

But on the plus side, Elizabeth fell asleep nursing and I put her down to switch babies with Andrew and she just totally stayed asleep lying flat on the wooden pew!  So Andrew stayed in the pew with both babies while I took the big kids to communion (which was really exciting for them - Andrew sings at a Latin Mass after our 9 AM, so he doesn't receive until then and usually stays with a baby and a big kid when they both want to go to communion with me).  And she stayed asleep for the rest of Mass, so I got some good snuggle time with the big kids.

 

Check out more Sunday outfits here!

John Paul's Wisdom

JP, trying to get a mini keg of Newcastle off the counter:  Ohhh thaaaat's?
Me:  That's Dad's beer.  You don't want it.
JP:  Ohhhh I want it!
Me:  No, it's for grown-ups.  It kind of tastes like pee.
JP:  Ohhh I want pee! 
Me:  No you don't...
JP:  I like pee!  I want to drink beer that's made of pee!  I want to drink veggie beer. 

And now John Paul is reading this aloud while I type, so Cecilia is chanting, "I wike pee!  I wike pee!!!"

Reminds me of the time I told him brownies were poop...  "OH I WANT POOP!  I WANT A WITTLE PIECE OF POOP!  I WIKE POOP!!!"

---

JP, pretending to give himself communion during a quiet part of Mass:  Body of Chwist.  Amen.  I'm eating BLOOD!!!

---

JP, kissing Elizabeth's ear:  MMMMMMMmmmm baby!!! ...  Yum!  Baby!  It tastes good!  Spicy baby.  Sweet baby!!!  Candy baby!

---

JP, finishing his pizza:  Peppers and onions taste good together!
Me:  I know, I really like them.
JP, excitedly:  I like them TOO!!!

Okay, this may seem boring, but he actually initiated a conversation that wasn't about numbers, or rhyming words, or Latin.  I think we're getting closer to normal here!

---

And did I ever tell you that sometimes the big kids run around chanting, "Catechism of the Catholic Church" over and over?  And sometimes they get silly and start chanting, "Ca-te-chi-sm of the MUF. FIN. CHURCH!" (quarter rest, 6 8th notes, 3 quarters and a quarter rest, if you were wondering.  2-and-3-and-4-and 1 2 3!)  Think that puts him out of the running for Pope after this next one?

7 Quick Takes: Quatro!

 

Linking up for the 4th time for an excuse to tell you a bunch of random things you don't care about!

 

--1--

 

We've been crafting up a storm this week!  I actually let the kids paint on Saturday and they were SO excited (although they painted during each other's naps to minimize on crazy)!

 

 

John Paul spent his time mixing the various colors and seeing what combinations he could make.

 

Within minutes she managed to get paint on her forehead AND her eyebrow. 

 

Do you see?  It's because she dipped the wrong end in her purple paint...

--2--

 

Then this happened.  Elizabeth in Cecilia's hat.  Mary Claire was probably sleeping, because she spend much of this week (except yesterday afternoon) sleeping.  Seriously, like 20 hours a day.  God gave me twins, sure, but thankfully He gave me twins who SLEEP!  John Paul and Cecilia were always very awake, alert babies from the get-go.  Not these two, and that's fine by me!  I'm hoping that means they'll take a little longer on their milestones than the older two?  Because chasing around TWO 9-month-old walking babies is not my idea of a good time.

 

--3--

 

We couldn't figure out a way to get to Ash Wednesday Mass as a family and still get to work on time, so the plan was for Andrew to leave early and get to his, and for me to hit one before work and leave the kids with the babysitter.  But then John Paul KNEW it was Ash Wednesday and was SO excited to get ashes on his forehead!  So I took him to Mass with me and he was ecstatic!  It took a while to convince him that he didn't get ashes on his forehead right away, and we spent most of the beginning of Mass talking about how he had to wait until after the homily.

 

Then when we got home he made sure to give all of his sister's their OWN "ashes" using the same words the priest used.

 

Only a minor freak out during Mass - he was upset that Father started the Our Father and that HE didn't get to start it himself.  Because, you know, John Paul is a priest.

 

--4--

 

I had a Valentine's Day craft all prepared for the kids using leftover felt scraps and leftover buttons from Christmas presents.  They loved it, but it only took like, 3 minutes of their time because I had everything set up in advance!

 

Cecilia was apparently the only one of us who remembered it was Valentine's Day this morning, as she dressed herself head-to-toe in pink.

 

John Paul wore a Star Wars shirt and his favorite plaid pants.  That's festive, right?

 

--5--

 

I spent like, 20 minutes cutting up a bunch of felt hearts for a little garland and almost all of them ended up flipping upside down on the ribbon because they were too top-heavy!  Next year I'll try sewing them to something...  They're cute anyway, though!

 

--6--

 

In case you didn't like my last suggestion for Valentine's cards, I found more!

 

 

Puritan Valentine's Day cards, if you need some for a belated holiday tribute.  More here.

 

--7--

 

Andrew is blogging again after a long hiatus!  And of course he had to make me tear up with his Valentine's post...  Not fair!  I was going to write a "Why I Love My Husband" post but I thought he would think it was lame...  Oh well, there's still time, maybe I can surprise him!

 

Okay, that's that!  Go read more (seriously there will be over 200 by the end of the day, I'm sure!).

Theme Thursday

Okay, this week I'm taking Cari's challenge and photographing things rather than...  Well, my children.  Because really, we bought the nice camera just to get awesome pictures of them!

I figured I'd just skip this week because normally I take pictures while sitting on the couch and nursing a baby or two (last week I took the picture AND wrote the blog post while nursing both babies!).  Then I got to put both babies down for a couple of minutes, so I opened the window & screen (going outside absolutely would have woken them up...) and tried taking some pictures of our poor bare crepe myrtle:

 First I tried focusing on the branch nearest to the window

 Then I thought I would focus on the tree behind the branch, but that just looked like there was a weird blur in the foreground, and I wasn't getting as much contrast as I wanted.

 So I put the aperture on its lowest setting (f 5.6 I think?) but it was a little too over-exposed.

 

And this was my last try, since the lens wouldn't zoom any more and Cecilia was trying to jump out the window!

The Pope

I tried talking to John Paul about current events yesterday, thinking he would be very concerned about recent developments. The conversation did not go as I expected...

Me: John Paul, do you want to hear some news about the pope?

JP: No.

...

Me: John Paul, I have news for you! Do you know who the pope is?

JP: Yes.

Me: Who is the pope?

JP: Iiiiiit's?

Me: Pope...

JP: John Paul the Second!!!

Me: No. It's Pope B-

JP: NO! JOHN PAUL THE SECOND!!! HE IS HANGING IN YOUR ROOM!

Me: No, that's a picture of Pope Benedict on your wall.

JP: And in the new house we will have a picture of Pope John Paul the Second?

Me: Sure, we can get a picture of him for your room too. But do you want to know what happened today?

JP: Yes?

Me: Pope Benedict is old and sick so he prayed about it and God said that he shouldn't be pope anymore.

JP: ...

Me: So we'll have a new pope.

JP: JOHN PAUL THE SECOND???

Me: No, but every new pope takes a NEW name. Just like St. Peter was named Simon and Jesus told him his new name was Peter! So when John Paul the Second became pope, his name was Karol and he took John Paul the Second as his name. And Pope Benedict's name was Joseph and he took Benedict as his new name.

JP: ...

Me: So what name do you think the new pope should take?

JP: John Paul the Second.

Me: Well that one's already taken. Do you have another idea?

JP: Simon!!!

Then we prayed for the pope and he was very excited. But I'm not entirely sure he understands this beyond the fact that he'll get a new picture on his wall...

 

So there you have it.  A 3.5-year-old's take on current events