Maria on taxes

Maria: "I think everyone should have lots and lots of babies so they wouldn't have to pay so much in taxes and then the world would be very nice. And have homebirths. With midwives."

Christmas!

Carmen gives to Monica

Alan L. gives to Stephen

Victoria gives to Maria

Marc gives to Juliana

Chrysostom gives to Theresa

Catherine gives to Cecilia

Michele gives to Laurence

Doug gives to Rachel

Jonathan gives to Dominic

Monica gives to Carmen

Patrick gives to Isabel

John gives to Bill

Theresa gives to Chrysostom

Alan C. gives to Anthony

Isabel gives to Patrick

Gregory gives to Charles

Juliana gives to Marc

Stephen gives to Alan L.

Laurence gives to Michele

Paula gives to Thomas

Naomi gives to James

Veronica gives to Joseph

Rachel gives to Doug

Bill gives to John

Thomas gives to Paula

Anthony gives to Alan C.

Maria gives to Victoria

Charles gives to Gregory

Cecilia gives to Catherine

James gives to Naomi

Joseph gives to Veronica

Dominic gives to Jonathan

Please send any suggestions for gifts to your assigned giver.  For example, I know that Marc needs new Scotch tape to hold his phone together (or even a new phone) but maybe what he wants is the new Taylor Swift CD.  To know for certain, he must send me his ideas.  You, also, go and do likewise.

Anthonyisms

Anthony and I were talking today about his vocation to the priesthood and his feelings about girls. I told him that he would have to learn to be able to friends with women while getting used to being chaste. 

He looked at me with confusion. 

"I have to get used to being chased?"

***********************************************

Anthony came up to me and asked if I could have 4 more kids by the time I am 47 because then we would have a chance at becoming a big family. 

**********************************************
(PG-13)

Watching Jim Gaffigan's "Mr. Universe" we were all laughing at his piece on babies. He starts by describing the miraculous nature of a woman's body: it grows a baby, it births a baby, it feeds a baby. His next comment is that the man's brief contribution to the miracle is spending a few minutes actually doing what he thinks about all day. 

Anthony looked at me and said, "Eating?"

OLYMPICS!

The boys have lately been watching the olympics and have been inspired to create their very own.

Anthony (in red) won 6 out of 8. "May" the best man win!

Fencing!

 That's about it though ping-pong has also been popular.

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.