--1--

The thing is, every time I get the itch to blog in the middle of the day, it's the middle of the day and everybody's awake. Naps don't coincide anymore, and if I DO get anyone napping, there's so much other stuff to be done that blogging takes the back seat!

Like yesterday... I plopped Peter in his high chair and laughed at the fact that I was throwing goldfish at him so that I could make French Onion Soup for a dinner party that evening - homemade stock for us, Costco crackers for him!

And cooking is one of my default things I do when I have a free minute - I automatically think, "What can I bake?" or "What can I get started for dinner?"

Which is probably why this week I baked 4 loaves of bread, made a couple gallons of chicken stock, and canned several quarts of applesauce. But blog posts?

Nada.

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Meanwhile when I'm trying to cook all the things, I turn a blind eye when the twins dump the crumbs from a bag of goldfish on the floor so they can have a "goldfish picnic" because hey, at least they were including the baby!

Let's Up the Crunch Factor {An Essential Oils Giveaway}

I feel like I don't mention it on the blog a ton, but we're pretty darned crunchy at our house... Like, bake my own bread, cloth diaper, haven't bought a roll of paper towels in 5+ years, even make my own granola-type crunchy. So it kind of seemed inevitable to me that eventually I'd hop on the essential oils bandwagon - I mean, all my crunchy friends are doing it which basically means I'm going to avoid it for as long as possible.

Don't ask me why. I just like adding a little extra counter-cultural to my counter-cultural lifestyle.

I *did* make our own bug spray out of an essential oils blend + witch hazel this past summer, but I've kind of just let it go at that because there are so many types of oils, and I was kind of overwhelmed.

So when Haley asked me if I'd like to try some out, I was a little skeptical... But also kind of excited to try something out, particularly since she was just as skeptical as I was! Cold & flu season is starting out here, and it seems like we've had a constant stream of runny noses since we moved, so I jumped at the chance to try out some Thieves Oil, which I've heard is great for preventing illness (Fun fact: the name comes from the legend that a group of robbers used this particular blend of oils to protect themselves while robbing the dying in 15th century France).

Catchlights and Quotations {Theme Thursday}

So this week's photography challenge is to capture "Catchlights" in my photography, whatever those are. Well, actually, Micaela explained it really nicely in her post and I realized that I actually already do a pretty good job getting catchlights in my photography, solely because I always try pretty hard to make sure I'm not photographing into the light because everything ends up grainy that way. So I guess inadvertently, I was already doing something right!

Anyway, a certain 2-year-old was climbing on the banister, which she is very specifically not allowed to do but she was facing the window so I was a bad disciplinarian and took pictures instead of getting her down:

This is her posed smile... She cracks me up with those chubby little cheeks!

All Saints & Halloween: Better Late than Never?

Pardon me while I mom-blog it up in here... I made the horrible faux pas of not taking ANY Halloween/All Saints pictures except this one:

And my sister was about ready to have my head, so I washed the costumes and we did a recap photo shoot this morning!

When you have a bunch of girls and you don't want to think about *making* them anything to wear for Halloween/All Saints' Day, you just buy a few princess dresses and tell them they can be any princess saint they want!!!

There are a lot of princess saints.

So Elizabeth chose St. Elizabeth of Hungary/Sleeping Beauty, Mary Claire chose St. Adelaide (or St. Clare pre-vocation)/Cinderella, and Cecilia chose St. Ursula/Ariel. 

Well, she chose St. Ursula like, a year ago... But then on Halloween she decided that she was NOT going to be a saint, JUST Ariel when she marries the prince.

She's never seen The Little Mermaid, but there are enough pictures in library books that she's figured it out. I even read the original story to her, death and all, and she's still obsessed. What can you do, she's 4! 

St. Adelaide is, of course, carrying the traditional badminton racket.

Just kidding. There IS no patron saint of badminton, I looked it up. Mary Claire just really wanted to hold it for pictures.

I think you'll agree with me that Elizabeth wins any posing contest, right?

And the dresses are wrinkled from going through the wash - we went to a part on Halloween and Mary Claire helped us cement our status as that family by peeing herself not once, but twice! Both times were outdoors, luckily... And Elizabeth insisted on staying inside and having ME inside with her, so really I'm sure we greatly endeared ourselves to our hosts?

John Paul was devastated when he didn't win the costume contest - I'm thinking next year I'm gonna have to shave him a tonsure to give him a fighting chance ;) Although if I had found Peter's cow costume in time, maybe that would've clinched a victory!

Although no way would Peter have tolerated it for an entire day on Saturday!

As you can see, he was not real enamored of the whole idea...

But St. Isidore probably had to deal with similar issues with his animals, right? So I think it's in keeping with the theme...

Using the Internet for Good: Pick Up That Bible!

Time and again I read articles about "putting down the smart phone" and "treasuring every moment" and the like - which I get. We're all a little bit tied down by our own distractions, particularly those that present themselves in the mindless scrolling of this negative facebook post and that negative article posted on twitter...

But for every negative image, post, article I see, there's the positive too - the tragedies that bring communities together through the power of social media, the prayer requests that receive floods of responses, the fruitful discussion that leads to greater understanding we might not achieve in person, our thoughts muddled and emotions guarded by walls that come down on facebook.

It can suck you in, that's for sure. But when you take the temptation and harness it for good it can be a powerful, powerful thing. It's why I never give up facebook for Lent, which seems to be a popular sacrifice; I've got such an awesome faith-filled community that encourages and reminds me to pray, to love, and that provides the fellowship we all so desperately need.

Nell, Laura, and Nancy are some of the most uplifting ladies I know, and we've never even met! I'll admit to being kind of a stereotypical Catholic when it comes to actually reading my Bible (although I do read scripture every day, just on my phone because it's easier), and these women have created a wonderful Advent devotional that I'm so excited about! I'd never heard of Lectio Divina before they introduced their project, and I'm so excited to have something concrete to focus on for prayer this Advent.

Are you like me? Do you need to just pick up that Bible? Laura's got a great guide on how to pray Lectio Divina with kids, and you can preorder your digital copy of Waiting in the Word right here for a discounted price.



Join the facebook group, pray it on your own, or maybe start your own prayer group with a few local friends - but get that Bible off the shelf, dust it off, and let your kids see you reading it!