13 Years Ago Today: A Tribute to our Millennium Baby!

13 years ago today we were blessed when we held you in our arms for the first time.  Here you are with Daddy and Mommy when you were just 2 weeks old.

You were 6 lbs, 1 oz., so very tiny, but big enough to fill our hearts and home with love and wonder!  I remember being admitted into the hospital 2 weeks prior to your due date because of preeclampsia. To make a long story short, I was able to labor on my own without being induced and in about 6 hours with no epidural, you went from your dark, peaceful home into this bright, big world!  Your Daddy and I had tears of joy when we saw you for the first time!

I remember crying myself to sleep one afternoon soon after we got home from the hospital because you were so tiny and I was struggling to get you to latch on so I could nurse  you.  Your Daddy woke me from my nap to tell me that he had made a phone call to our local La Leche League and made an appointment for us to see a consultant.  I remember the feeling of gratitude and relief after our appointment because I was soon able to nurse you.  I remember thinking that you have a wonderful Daddy and I have a supportive and loving husband.

We remember when you were and will always be Daddy's little girl and Dad will never forget his first Father's Day in 2000 when he held you lovingly in his arms and gave you a sweet kiss in the backyard in our "old, old house"...

I remember when we were celebrating your first Christmas when you were 7 months old.  The outfit you are wearing in the photo below has been worn by all your siblings too to celebrate their first Christmas.  Nowadays you are more into what's wrapped in the wrapping paper vs. just laughing at the funny sounds paper can make, like you did as a baby... :) 

I remember when I was 17 weeks pregnant with your brother (although we didn't know if you were a big sister to a brother or sister at the time), and I held you on my first Mother's Day 2001  as you modeled your cute outfit with a hat with your adorable smile that lit up a room...

I remember when I borrowed a watermelon print dress from a friend just so I could take pictures of you beside a watermelon and eating a watermelon with me while my belly was getting as big as a watermelon carrying your sibling. (that's alot of repetition there!)  I wanted the matching watermelon (there's that word again!) dress too so I could make the adorable page for you in your scrapbook....

I remember how you loved peeking into the (pink) bassinet looking at your baby brother sleeping.  You were just 17 months old when he was born. You loved taking care of your little brother and still do!  And now you take care of your little sisters too!

I remember how you loved to dance so much that you would stand in front of the oven and stare at your reflection while you made all your graceful ballerina moves.

 






I remember that even as a little girl you loved learning about our Catholic faith.  I remember for your First Holy Communion five years ago, we went and took a picture at the same church that I received my First Holy Communion.  I remember thinking "Wow! You really do look like me!"

I remember that you loved and continue to love our family traditions and how you light up our lives with your smile and sweet personality and talents each day. 

What a busy weekend we have had celebrating your birthday, watching your brother play in a local soccer tournament, and today we celebrated the birthday of the Church for Pentecost Sunday as we hurried to Mass after your brother's last soccer game this morning.
 

You had fun Friday night as you played miniature golf and arcade games with some friends and then came home and had a cookie cake that I made and decorated.  The cookie cake recipe was delicious and can be found HERE.  I smoothed the "putting green grass" on the cake using the easy paper towel method that I used on your skate cake last year.  

After Mass this morning we took a family photo with your brother still in his soccer uniform (but Dad and him have red on, the liturgical color for Pentecost!) and you have your new outfit on that we gave you for your birthday.

Me with my millennium "baby"!

Happy Birthday to our beautiful TEENAGER inside and out!  I can't believe we have a teen in our family!  :)  We love you and wish you a blessed 13th birthday! 

Happy Mothers' Day 2013

 "The most important person on earth is a mother. She cannot claim the honor of having built Notre Dame Cathedral. She need not. She has built something more magnificent than any cathedral-a dwelling place for an immortal soul, the tiny perfection of her baby's body...Even the angels have not been given such a grace! What is more glorious than this - to be a mother." 
-Joseph Cardinal Mindsze

Today has been a blessed day so far!  My parents came to Mass with us this morning at our parish and then we ate a pancake breakfast at our church.  We took some pictures after Mass in the prayer garden to remember this special day!  

 My mom and me and I'm 28 weeks along in my 5th pregnancy! 

 My Dad and Mom with my children

 My family

Happy Mothers' Day to ALL mothers (our Blessed Mother, Queen of Heaven, biological, adoptive, foster, step-mothers, grandmothers, Godmothers, spiritual mothers) and especially to my Mom and Mother-in-Law!

This picture of me with my mother-in-law was taken at the end of April when we threw a surprise party for her 70th Birthday! 

I wanted to end this Mothers' Day post by sharing the BEST commercial EVER!  Just beautiful! Don't you agree?

 

Fresh Raspberry Vinaigrette Recipe

Life is getting a bit busy as I am now 26 weeks pregnant and reality is setting in that soon our family will welcome a new baby into our home!  I'm trying to find enough time and energy to prepare for the wee one and continue homeschooling and think about next year's curriculum.

Part of the busyness is also finding ways for our family to eat healthier, which is a lifelong goal for sure!

I love eating salads and preparing salads for my family.  I stumbled upon a homemade raspberry vinaigrette recipe from All You magazine, July 2012 edition that I want to share.  I wanted to try it out because I was tired of paying for the vinaigrette dressings at the store. It's really quite tasty and delicious!  Along with this dressing, I love putting various veggies on my salad, along with cut up strawberries and sprinkle various types of sweetened granola cereal on top.  Lately, I've been using the Pumpkin Flax Granola cereal from Costco to top my salads.  Yum! :)

Here's the FRESH RASPBERRY VINAIGRETTE recipe:

Prep: 5 min.
Yield: 3/4 cup
Cost per serving: 49 cents

1/2 cup fresh or frozen (thawed) raspberries
2 Tbsp. lemon juice
2 Tbsp. red wine vinegar
1 tsp. sugar
Pinch of salt
1/4 cup canola oil

Place raspberries in a bowl and crush with a fork.  Whisk in remaining ingredients until will blended. (I used my Vitamix blender to make the mixture smoother.) Cover and chill.  Whisk just before using. 

Enjoy!

This week I'm linking up with Lisa's Recipe Link at Home to 4 Kiddos where others link up to share their recipes also:

Big Hearted: Inspiring Stories From Everyday Families... Book Review

I first became a fan of the talented Catholic mothers and authors,  Patti Armstrong and Theresa Thomas, when I wrote a review HERE for their first book titled, Stories for the Homeschool Heart.

Fast forward a few years and these ladies have teamed up once again to continue to fill our hearts, minds, souls, families, and bookshelves with an endless supply of wisdom, faith, honesty and life-affirming beauty.

I had the incredible honor and privilege to read their soon-to-be released book, Big Hearted: Inspiring Stories for Everyday Families. Like their first book, this project includes many contributors as they each tell their stories of how God opened their hearts to become bigger and better than they could ever have imagined.

I sat down one quiet evening while my husband took my four children out and read Big Hearted...all.in.one.sitting!  Yes, it was that good!

I knew I was about to read a treasure as soon as I read Armstrong's and Thomas' words in their introduction:  "The families in this book are just like ours, and probably just like yours, too. The similarity is not necessarily the outer details-every family is unique; it's the goal of striving to put God first, of trying to love well."   That line drew me in immediately and I couldn't wait to see how Big Hearted would inspire me to love my family even more!

In the 22 different stories that were collected from various authors, I enjoyed not only peeking into another family's life filled with triumphs and struggles, but I went away from each story inspired to apply their life lessons into my own family's life.

I enjoyed reading the story contributions from Armstrong and Thomas themselves as they made me smile and grateful for my own little answered prayers and miracles that God has given my family. 

I loved how each contributor in Big Hearted spoke from their hearts and their real and transparent feelings came through with many of their struggles. What a blessing it is to know that I can relate to parts of families' stories without knowing them personally! I realized with each story that no family is perfect, including mine, but each family in the story was perfectly blessed by being open to God's will and ways. I found myself anxiously turning each page as I smiled, chuckled, sobbed and was in awe not knowing how each family's real life adventure would end by the last line.

As a busy mom of four children and one due in early August 2013, I find it difficult to find time to read for pleasure. However, Big Hearted not only had stories to keep my attention, but their short lengths kept me wanting to read the next story until I finished the book.

I love the fact that Big Hearted is a great book for moms and dads that have big responsibilities and often find it challenging to get a little time for themselves.  But, since you don't necessarily have to read the book cover to cover since each story has its on plot and lesson, you will easily be able to read one or two stories at a time when you get 5 or 10 minutes and want to be blessed knowing how God works in big ways in others' hearts.

I encourage all families to read Big Hearted  because while all our families are special and unique, we can all be inspired to put God and love first. 

Big Hearted would make a great Mother's Day gift or a gift for someone you know that wants to be inspired to read the blessings and miracles that can come from having a generous heart!
 
Be sure to visit and "Like" Big Hearted Families Facebook page for even more ways to be encouraged to put God first and "love well!"  

If interested, you can pre-order Big Hearted today, and until 
May 1,  receive 15% off the retail price!  Phone orders only. Click HERE to read a full description.

Cute Caterpillar Snack

My two middle Cupcakes take a wonderful homeschool insect/garden class at our local arboretum and last week it was my turn to bring the snack for the class.  Since they were going to be talking about insects, I thought I would go with the theme and bring an insect snack.   

I needed some creative inspiration so I went to Pinterest, typed in "insect snacks" and found THIS board.  After searching, I then came up with my cute caterpillar critters that was a variation of what I found on the Pinterest board.  

Slice some banana, spread some peanut butter between the slices, break off pretzel sticks and push into the top of each grape and then stick a toothpick into the grape and banana.  Break off pretzel sticks for the legs.  

It's a good thing there are only 12 students in the class because it took me about 45 minutes to make these 12.  They were enjoyed by all along with the bags of Veggie Straws and pretzel sticks my daughter packed for each of her classmates to go with the caterpillar treat :)

We enjoy the classes offered at the arboretum and we especially enjoy the beautiful gardens there that I blogged about HERE back in May 2011.

After one of the recent classes, we took advantage of the wonderful weather and had a picnic at the arboretum and I tried to once again capture the beautiful scenery and memories with my camera...

 

Eastertide 2013

After not singing "Alleluia!" during Lent, it's now time to sing this song of praise during the Easter season!  Did you know that Easter is not just a day, but a season called Eastertide?  Eastertide begins on Easter Sunday and ends on the day of Pentecost, 50 days after Easter Sunday.  Pentecost commemorates the giving of the Holy Spirit to the apostles, the beginnings of the Church and its mission to every tongue and people and nation.

So since we are still celebrating the joyous resurrection of Jesus Christ, it's still not too late to post some of our family's Easter fun!

After Good Friday service, our family went to see the Harlem Globe Trotters play at a local university.  It was great family fun!  My pictures aren't the best since I used my phone and we were up in the balcony.

On Holy Saturday afternoon/evening we did our annual Easter family traditions of making Easter story cookies, resurrection rolls, dying Easter eggs, and painting our salt dough crown of thorns gold and glued jewels on the crown as blogged about HERE. 

Here are a few pictures of my cupcakes "sealing" the "tomb" with tape after we put the Easter story cookies in our warm oven.  The yummy cookies are hollow when we open our oven on Easter morning just as Jesus' tomb was empty after he rose from the dead.  Alleluia!  

After going to 7:30 AM Mass Easter morning (yes, we like going to the early one to beat the crowds that usually attend the later masses), we hosted a lunch at my house and unfortunately my Dad was sick, so only my Mom was able to join us for lunch.

I turned my deviled eggs into angelic colorful chicks thanks to Lacy at Catholic Icing sharing how she dyed the hard boiled egg.  In the center of my egg platter, I have a little chick figurine that I've had for many years.  To make the colorful eggs even more festive, I made them into chicks using a black bean cut in half for the eyes (but, I've heard pieces of black olives work well too) and a sliver of a carrot for the beaks.

This was the first year my oldest cupcake did not search for eggs.  Rather, she was the "egg hider" for her siblings and she did a fabulous job!  It was a gorgeous day to run around outside! 

It was such a beautiful, bright, sunny day that my Mom and I sat outside on our backyard bench swing for hours and the sun was in our eyes as my hubby snapped pictures of us.  It was such a special way to spend time with my beautiful Mommy!

In the evening on Easter, we went to my in-laws home for Easter dinner where my cupcakes decorated the annual bunny cake.

Easter afternoon and on Easter Monday, my brother, his girlfriend, and my sweet niece visited from NY.   My children LOVED seeing their cousin, who they haven't seen since my sister's wedding back in October 2012. Below are few pictures we snapped during their visit.
My 5 year old enjoyed her little cousin so much that she cried when they left and she kept saying I miss her so much!  My cupcakes were very sweet with her and loved playing with her, which gave me so much joy and hope for our baby who will be making his/her arrival late July/early August!

And last, but not least, I just have to share this lovely water garden arrangement my 8 year daughter made using things in our backyard.  We used it as part of our Easter table decoration.  So clever and beautiful, don't you think?

May you have a blessed Eastertide season!