{p,h,f,r} & Theme Thursday: Crack (me up)--My Boys

Oh these boys. How I love them.

And I also love when they are running around the yard, expending all their energy, playing happily together, totally entertained... for all of, you know, three minutes.

But this week we received an especially wonderful hand-me-down from my brother- and sister-in-law. And playtime in the yard has reached a whole new level of awesomeness. Which is to say, we are actually playing in the yard. Multiple days in a row. For hours at a time.

{pretty} / {funny}

As I was taking this picture, Michael was yelling: "Mama! Come back! You're in GREAT DANGER! You went away from us and you're going to get a BIG OWIE!" Obviously the long talks about how it's important to listen to Mama and Daddy and stay close to us when we say so have made an impression. The gift of Hilaire Belloc's Cautionary Tales for Children to the boys from Liam's godfather may have helped as well... 

Also linking this one up with Cari for Theme Thursday because that totally cracked me up. 

{happy}

John Paul was loving the outside playtime as well. I was all set to take a picture of him sitting up, because this week he hit my all-time favorite stage of development: sitting up by himself with enough balance to play happily for extended periods of time, not losing his balance and falling over, but also not getting back down onto his stomach on purpose yet (and scooting away to chew on things he shouldn't)... but as I was taking pictures of him sitting up he very gracefully and deliberately leaned over and started scooting off the blanket. 

*sigh* 

I guess I should be grateful I got two whole days of stable-stationary-sitting.

{real}

Very real. Also real? Baby now awake and wanting his post-bedtime-pre-midnight snack.

7 Quick Takes (vol. 39): In which I have even less to say than I thought I did...

--- 1 ---

I am sorry to report that John Paul's uninterrupted 6 hours of sleep on Wednesday night was apparently just a feast day miracle and not the beginning of a new trend. But last night was still better than most of the previous two weeks, so... maybe we are moving in the right direction?

--- 2 ---

I certainly hope so. Going on 4 years of sleep deprivation is not working out particularly well for me. I don't know how many times in the past few weeks I've reminded Michael to "flush your hands and wash the toilet" after he uses the bathroom. Thankfully he hasn't seemed to notice... I don't even want to think about the resulting mess if he took me at my word.

Don't even think about it.

--- 3 ---

We took some family pictures a few weeks ago, and they turned out fantastic. Here are a few more I shot while Alex's mom took the official shots :) I'm so excited for our Christmas cards this year!

--- 4 ---

Only #4? Really? I'm sure I had so much more to say when I started this over 12 hours ago...

--- 5 ---

Hey look, another picture!

Liam wants to do everything Michael does. It's pretty darn adorable... most of the time. It also results in Michael yelling something along the lines of "No Liam! You can't do that! I'm doing that!" fairly often. But they play well together more often than not. Michael often reads books to Liam and helps him fix his toys when they aren't cooperation. And this week they played together--happily--in the basement without my direct supervision for some pretty significant stretches. It was glorious.

--- 6 ---

Of course, Michael still takes toys away from Liam at least once a day. His reason every.single.time? "But I like {insert Liam's toy here}." *facepalm*

Almost halfway to the age of reason... we can do this...

--- 7 ---

Finally, I need some help. I've been spending a lot more time on my feet since my back issues started in July. My back is feeling MUCH better, but now my right heel is killing me. I'm 98% sure it's plantar fasciitis, and I think I've finally reached the point where I can admit that I need to stop going barefoot all the time. It makes me sad just to type that... I don't particularly like wearing shoes in the house. On the other hand, I strongly dislike shooting pain in my heel.

So. Please help me make this transition (just ask my mom--I need all the help I can get when it comes to any kind of change!). What shoes do you love for comfort and really good support when you're on your feet all day?

Check out Jen and the rest for more Quick Takes

Liturgical Living: John Paul's Name Day

I love the idea of celebrating the liturgical year as a family. Christmas is an easy one. We're working on celebrating Easter in a way that acknowledges how important that feast is, too. We've done some things for Advent and Lent that worked really well, and some other things that need tweaking.

Beyond the obvious major feast days, we try to celebrate baptismal anniversaries and the feast days of our family's patron saints. I say "try," because despite each of those dates being marked on my Google calendar, I invariably fail to realize a feast day is coming up until the night before... or sometimes the day after.

I'm usually not too good with baby steps. I want all or nothing. There are dozens of better blogs out there with incredible ideas and tips for liturgical living, and so I need to do all the things too! And when I take that approach it usually results in a whole lot of nothing. But in this case I think I'm actually doing a pretty good job taking baby steps. I have high hopes that we'll move on eventually, but for now I'm quite happy if we manage to note each passing feast day in a timely manner.

And so yesterday we celebrated the feast day of St. John Paul II, patron saint and namesake of our little John Paul.

who me?

Because we are definitely in an extended season of survival mode, the thought of crafting a celebratory meal and dessert in the middle of the week was totally overwhelming. The fact that I realized Wednesday was such an important feast day after our weekend meal planning and shopping trip may have contributed to the seemingly impossible nature of the task.

So we decided to celebrate with Polish sausages at Costco. Clever, no? It was Alex's idea. Actually, I think he was mostly joking when he suggested it... but I thought it was brilliant, and he gets the credit whether he likes it or not.

Michael and Liam thoroughly enjoyed the outing. Polish sausage and lemonade, followed by 1/5 of a (giant) frozen yogurt? High point of their week, easily. And it was a hit with John Paul as well. He got his first taste of frozen yogurt (because Costco doesn't sell Pope cakes), and he definitely prefers it to the regular stuff he tried over the weekend.

perk of being the 3rd child--I NEVER would have given M a taste of
sweetened anything at 7 months old

We thoroughly enjoyed our celebration. And to top it all off, John Paul slept better than he has in 4+ months last night. A fitting tribute, as JPII has been our family's patron saint of sleep.

Theme Thursday: Good Job

One of the most affirming things in my life right now is when Liam is eating something and tells me, unprompted, "Ashishus!" (that's "delicious," for those of you who don't speak two-weeks-shy-of-two-years-old).

I know as a parent I'm just setting myself up for problems if I consistently (or exclusively) look to my kids for affirmation... like a few weeks ago in Mass when Michael pushed me away with a whisper-shout of "No! I don't want to sit with you" and promptly scooted over to sit with Papa. It's hard to compete with Papa and Cici, I get it. And I'm okay with it. Really :)

So I try to seek affirmation in healthier ways. Like asking Alex multiple times in the course of a few minutes if my outfit looks okay, or posting tons of pictures of the boys on social media and basking in the attention as the likes pile up...

But I can't help but feel a huge amount of satisfaction when the boys clearly enjoy what they are eating--especially since that generally means they finish their meal on their own with little or no prompting/cajoling on my part. Definite parenting win, in my book.

So here's my "good job" from the boys for today. Peanut butter waffles for breakfast. Ashishus.

Linking up with Cari @ Clan Donaldson for Theme Thursday

According to Alex

on our way to last weekend's soccer game date
Ash: Ooh! I could be following the Rapids on Instagram!

Alex: What? All I heard was crazy.

...

Alex:What are you smiling about?

Ash: It's just so fun to get to hold your hand. We never get to hold hands with each other any more. ... Hey, we could take off our rings and pretend we're just dating again!

Alex: We could. And then we could pretend to have a fight and break up. And you can find your own ride home.
fine, it was a silly idea--I wasn't serious anyway!








...
as I start to brush my teeth

Alex: So, I'll see you in half an hour?
I may brush longer than he does, but I don't brush that long

...
driving past the hospital where Liam and JP were delivered, which was under construction for some kind of expansion
Ash: I wonder if that's the expansion on the labor and delivery unit they were telling us about... regardless, those are some huge cranes
Alex: Thanks! I don't even work out.

...after playing a soccer game with some friends
Alex: I think I watch too much soccer and don't play enough. I argued with the ref about a call he made... against a player on the other team...

7 Quick Takes (vol. 38) -- Lots of Random, Lots of Pictures

--- 1 ---

Now? Is it finally Friday? Promise? It should have been Friday, like, three days ago. Such a long week. Wednesday especially was just... blech. No patience. Very little napping. Much neediness. So dramatic. Lots of crying.

And the boys had a rough day too.

So. Rather than recounting the Woe That Was the First Wednesday in October 2014, here are some completely random things from the last few weeks.

--- 2 ---

I think I've probably mentioned it before, but I'm only teaching one class for the Biblical School this year instead of three. This makes my weeks much less hectic, but it also means 1/3 of the income I had last school year. To make up for it I've been trying for the last few months to make some money by writing. I'm sure anyone who has done freelance anything will laugh, but I thought "Freelance Writer" had a kind of glamorous ring to it. Well. Since I wasn't willing to spend 30 hours a week writing content for sites that sell custom-crafted essays to students (I didn't know they even existed... I guess I shouldn't be surprised?) the endeavor wasn't proving to be terribly successful. I did feel that I finally mastered the (torturous) art of writing a cover letter, and I did land a couple small projects, but overall I was feeling fairly discouraged.

Then, totally out of the blue, I got an email asking if I was available to work on a Bible study project. I'll share more about it once the first one is published, but this was an absolute dream come true. So I've been super busy with that project for the last three weeks, and I have two more (probably crazy) weeks of work on it, then a break before expecting another load in a month or two. I'm thrilled. I'm also exhausted and kind of shell-shocked. I thought it would be no big deal to put in 20+ hours of work from home each week, but as if on cue the boys have adopted a totally staggered and shortened nap schedule, and night sleep--which wasn't great all summer--has totally fallen apart for JP. So... it's like college, but with fewer friends and more diapers.

Did that make sense? No? Hmmm... Maybe that actually demonstrates my point better than a well-constructed simile would.

--- 3 ---

Okay, #2 was not quick at all. In apology, here are totally unrelated pictures of the boys:

before loooooong overdue haircuts last week

being superheroes

obviously superheroes cannot stand still long enough to get a non-blurry pictures

--- 4 ---

Within 24 hours of receiving the aforementioned writing assignments, a friend emailed to say that her youngest son needed a couple more service hours for the summer, and would I like for him to come over and play with the boys for a while? Um, yes please! I'm not sure who was more thrilled with the arrangement, Michael or me. I'm hoping John enjoyed the adoring attention of two smaller boys even half as much as those two little boys enjoyed his company!

--- 5 ---

On the topic of being so blessed with generous friends, Alex often comes home from work with a few hand-me-downs from coworkers with older boys. We are so blessed with secondhand clothes, toys, etc., and I cannot even begin to describe how thankful I am for this. Anyway, within just a couple days Alex came home with a big box of clothes AND a big tub of Legos. Liam is thrilled with all his new dinosaur and truck shirts, I'm thrilled with a plethora of polo shirts for both boys, and Michael and Alex are both in heaven over their new Legos. We're just facing the challenge of finding a time and place for them to play with them without Liam putting them up his nose (he's just waiting for his chance, I know it) or JP eating them.

--- 6 ---

Because guess who is scooting/rolling all over the place? If there is a book, he will eat it. If there is a train, he will eat it. If there is half a string cheese left on the floor by a careless older brother, he will eat it (caught that one just in time yesterday). So. Much. Teething.

Curious George was rescued immediately after the taking of this picture. No irreparable damage was done.

--- 7 ---

And finally, I'm now on Instagram after reading this post from Kendra at Catholic All Year. So if you're on Instagram please let me know so I can follow you! Because I'm kind of really loving it, but it's really sad when I check it every 10 minutes and there isn't anything new...

Check out Jen and the rest for more Quick Takes