Dinner This Week

The Beat Train and Dancing with Daddy

During our school day we do the Beat Train: We turn on music and dance. We also get common household items such as pots, pans, plates, cups, utensils, keys, bags from chips, oatmeal canisters etc...and use those to play the beat and make different sounds. We create our own music. The kids love it and so do I. We have a lot of fun with it.





Dancing in the living room. When daddy is home this is where we dance. We love dancing around here.

ahhh....life

This is an email from my wonderful mother in law. I thought it was great! She is the mom of 8 with my husband being the oldest and the youngest is 7. I was talking to her recently and telling her about my days to get advice. She sent me this a few days later. It is always nice to know you are not the only one!
The email was entitled ahhh...life

Today (Monday)

Have to leave for the March for life by 8am….

Breakfast?… yes, you have to eat breakfast…no we cannot stop somewhere along the way… you know that…why do you ask every time even though you get the SAME answer???...

Still cleaning up from Saturday’s party… slow and steady wins the race right?? trying to do a little before we left for the March

Cleaning the big coffee pot …. Spilled the coffee grounds (a lot) all over the kitchen floor… great, this was supposed to go fast so I could get dressed and ready

i am cleaning up the coffee grounds and Peyton yells…. “gross!!” “what iiiiis THIS??” ohhhhh she says, “someone barfed!” what? Who barfed??

Yuck….. the dog barfed… I am still not ready, I moved from the coffee grounds to the barf…. As I am barking orders…. Clean up after yourself…. Get dressed, brush your teeth… I don’t know where your shoes are… you should! You wear them!... get coats…yes you DO need a coat!! It’s rainy and cold… and yes you DO need socks …get off the couch…ect..ect…


Wrangle the kids… ok really?.... just kidding…more like herding cats… seriously!... we were supposed to LEAVE at 8…not sit down to START eating breakfast (hmm guess who that was?) the wonderful dog throws up in the TV room… again


We leave at 8:27…. Mass starts at 9am at St Bens… yep…we were late… on a bright note, God blessed us with unusually light traffic even with the crazy weather.

Got to mass 10 minutes late…just in time to catch the last of the Gospel… we gathered with the other families for the rosary. Went to lunch with everyone and headed down to the March traffic was horrible due to the rain… (we decided that God must figure “well they are doing it, let’s make it REALLY count” and He turned up the rain…so the graces would be multiplied!)…but, true to form… God saw fit to stop the rain right as the rally and march began

All in all the March went well… not as many hecklers as in years past … powerful, as always to see the huge number of people, primarily Catholics, gathered for the same cause… the music concluded with an amazing rendition of a song I wish I knew the name of!! Then as always… they broadcast a real recording of the heartbeat of a baby in utero…. Then it stops abruptly…. And the trumpeters play “Taps”…. And I cry

We climb back in the car… tired, satisfied and changed… now … back to the same life… how can we make a greater impact though?... how can we be a bigger voice for those sweet babies?.... all within our state in life? how?


Home again…. More barf… thanks Nikki… I offer up the cleaning of the carpets for an end to the killing of babies and for anyone affected by it. I can do that… it’s what I am being called to do right now … it is my state in life …right?

Several hours later… carpets clean (as much as possible) … house is still in disarray but ….dinner was made, I finished planning the school week for Cameron which got put off because of the busy weekend… the little people are in bed, the big guys are at hockey… off I go now to plan for Landen and Peyton’s school week…

God Bless you my sweet daughter in-law!...

Count on my prayers as you fight the good fight!!

Much love,

Ruth

DISNEY!

We were Blessed with an opportunity to go to Disney for the first time! There is an older couple at our church (we didn't know them) that had booked a week at a resort in Disney and could not use the week. It was a non-refundable trip. Our family was attending the Advent mission at church and they were as well. On Tuesday the 6th of December Branden was running around the Parish Hall like a crazy man playing with our kids (he does this often and some times gets in trouble - he is a big kid himself). The man and his wife see him and they say I wonder if that guy in the plaid shirt over there running around with all of those kids would like to go to Disney. SOOOOOO Long story short....we said yes and left for Disney on Saturday the 10th!! We stayed for a week and had the best time ever! Disney is the happy place. It just makes you smile and for some reason we all seemed to have an odd amount of energy that propelled us from the wee hours of the morning to very late into the night without naps. Yes that is right we park hopped and would wake up to take the first bus to the park. We would get there as it was opening and stayed until they kicked us out. If the parked closed at 6 or 7pm we would hop on the tram and go to Epcot or Disney until they closed at 9:30pm and then after that we would come back to the resort at 10pm and swim. Then around llpm we would sit in the hot tub drinking wine while the kids continued swimming. Then we would start all over again the next morning! We did all of this with all of our five children. I know it sounds crazy, but it is true and it was a lot of fun! We unfortunately do not have many pictures, but we have a few. The more kids we have had the less pictures we get and slowly I am learning to detach from having pictures of everything all the time. It is a major stress to stop and get pictures of everyone when the moment is good and the attitudes are positive so we keep going in the good moments and stop in the bad moments, but in the bad moments I don't want pics either!! Can't win either way so I just let go of pics and enjoy the moments. Also in Disney to keep up with five kids with two adults is a lot of work. Adding pictures into the mix was at many moment just too much!

and he noticed....

We were in Disney at MGM Studios on The Great Movie Ride. We were on the ride and at the end of the ride they pull you up to a big screen that shows you clips of a bunch of movies. One of the clips was of a woman dressed in a one piece bathing suit with a low neck line. She is walking from the water in a provocative way with a look on her face that compliments the walk and everything about the image from her hair to her toes screams sexy and screams objectify me. And He Noticed...Our son (7) for the very first time noticed. In a loud voice he said ewww and turned his eyes from the image. His innocence was attacked. It was a knife to his soul and he felt it and he turned from the pain that it caused his innocence. I was obviously saddened by the opportunity for that to happen, but then I gave thanks that we were able to be there with him for that moment. I was so thankful that he gets to be with me at home during these early years to protect him and guard his innocence, so when it is attacked it can be known rather than go unnoticed. I was glad because that attack could be guided by his parents rather than his peers. I can limit how often it is seen by guarding him, but the fact is it will be seen at some point whether it is on a billboard or at a grocery store, but the part that I can change is how we shape what is seen. I can control being there I can help form his heart and his mind in a way that is pleasing to God and in a way that respects and loves women rather than objectifies them. I feel such a strong commitment especially to my boys to protect their purity to teach them how to love women and not objectify them. I want them to cherish and protect women. I want them to feel a responsibility for protecting the dignity of every woman.