Bedtime Prayers

He has already been shaken
off and Joseph has been refocused

When Dominic started to stand independently, it happened during our evening decade of the Rosary. But we made the mistake of breaking off our praying to encourage him, which has led to a bad habit.




While you might see seven people kneeling reverently in prayer, Dominic sees a human bowling alley. We make the Sign of the Cross and up go his arms over his head to elicit a "hooray" from the encouraging crowd. Then he unsteadily walks over toward the group and wham! slams himself into his brother, knocking him over. The other pins are usually fairly eager to wrestle rather than reset themselves. And I cannot help but laugh, a rare commodity these days which is why I haven't worked too hard to train him out of it yet.

There he goes again!

James

James recently decided to email his godmother Jodie Francis whom he has never met in person. I wanted to save his email to her because he typed and formatted it completely on his own and so so sweet:

dear micas francis I love you more then you thought please say you love me.

maybe I can visit you

               love!

                JAMES. 

May The 4th Be With You

The weather cooled down to a breezy 98 yesterday so we could celebrate our country's birthday in relative comfort.


To start the day out right, the twins marched in the 4th of July parade in Pinehurst with their Boy Scout troop while the rest of the family marched with American Heritage Girls.     Sadly, the Boy Scouts didn't have a camera.

It felt a little funny to be marching right behind the Girls Scouts....
And the choice to hand out patriotic glow in the dark fake tattoos
turned out to be ironic since many of the families, including those
who helped pick the tattoos, do not let their girls wear them!

Cecilia enjoyed handing out invitations to girls
more than carrying the banner.               

Halfway through the parade Joseph went missing. Within 10 minutes he was found
several blocks back on the parade route, hands full of candy he had found on the side of the road.
Thank you, Guardian Angel.

The girls passed out invitations to an AHG info brunch. Charles and the little boys
enjoyed giving out fake tattoos to brothers as we walked along.

Even Dominic wore spirit-wear to celebrate the day. His attitude was less spirited at this point.

                             
Sweating and tired at the end of the parade, we gratefully accepted an invitation to swim with our neighbors at their pool. If it weren't for the severe thunderstorm warning, we might be there still.


Both Cecilia and Charles whipped up special holiday treats for dinner. Cecilia made Ribbon Jello from Grandma's recipe. And Charles finally had a chance to make an American flag cake he had seen in the Tiger Cub Handbook several years ago.

And finally, for the first time since we moved to North Carolina, we went to watch a firework display. All the kids loved it, even Dominic, and watching the beautiful explosions of color was uplifting and made us proud of Bill's sacrifice for our great country.