The best thing about Fall is college football.  I’d like to say it’s the weather, but I live in Houston.

This morning Goose woke up and the first thing he said was: “I hope Texas wins today.”  He was barely awake, it was a whisper.  That was his first thought.  Tonight he is rooting for LSU, Alabama a sworn enemy unless they’re playing OU.  He just told me he’s sad that it’s already November because there is less than a month of college football.  He already thinks like this!  God help his wife.  Hopefully, she’s cool like me.

We’ve been trying to take Goose to a Longhorn game this season and today has been the only one that fit our schedule.  My father got tickets for us, and overall, our time at the game was a great success.

A success until the end of the third quarter, then Baby Hulk showed his age.

But really, I’m okay, silliness is a good thing in little boys.  I need to remember that.

Yes, Snoopy enjoyed the game too.

For today…November 3, 2011

Outside my window…It’s cold.  Like in the 60’s cold, which I realize sounds kind of lame, but living in Houston, that is cold.  Cold enough for Baby Z to wear some jeans and a long sleeved top.  The boys, of course, argued about wearing jeans today.

I am wearing…a blue workout top and  black shorts.  Need to shower, I can finally wear jeans!

I am listening to…Baby Hulk and No David negotiate candy trades.

I am trying to…live by this quote: Choose peace over productivity.  I think it will make me happier.  Or calmer.  Or nicer.  Or something positive.

I am praying for…patience.  It always comes back to this one.

I am grateful for…my family.

I am really thinking…about Simplicity and what it means in my life.  It’s more than just getting rid of a lot of toys.  It has to be about choosing what matters each day.  To live an intentional life.  Not to race through each day.

I am wondering…why all these bloggers seem to have a great talent for photography and I don’t.  Their pictures are always amazing.  I am kind of jealous.  More than kind of.

I am trying…to become a good dog owner again.  I am starting small, like playing with the dog daily.

To live the liturgy…I need daily mass.  If not, I need to read the readings.

From the kitchen…I’ve had more chicken, noodles and carrots without broth than I care to admit.  Why?  Because Lance has the broth and I can’t waste the rest of the can.  I need to do something about how cheap I am.  Menu for the week will happen.  So will cookies.

Towards rhythm and beauty…I need a rhythm, not necessarily a full on schedule, but I need balance.  With the holidays approaching, something I’m not ready for this year, I need to keep my sanity.

From the learning rooms…BH is about to start writing lowercase letters.  He’s really done well with Handwriting Without Tears, so I’m hoping the transition goes well.  The kid reads nonstop.  I love it.  I can’t find enough books at his level.  I think he might be ready for his first Magic Tree House soon.  I’ve been holding him off because I want to really work on comprehension before we move to something more difficult.

One of my favorite things…my little girl wearing Snoopy.

A few plans for the week…seeing as the week has come and gone, I’d like to say I’m resting tomorrow.

Today the church celebrates the Feast of All Souls.  This perfectly coincides with the Mexican celebration of the Day of the Dead.  I’ve never celebrated Day of the Dead before, but after finding a couple of children’s books, soon to be added to our permanent collection at home, I decided to make a small altar and buy some treats

I set up a small altar with pictures of some of our relatives that have passed away.  Then Lance and I talked about some of them.  The boys only remember Bisa, Uncle Richard, and Uncle Ed.  It’s pretty sweet, they always remember these three in their prayers and are quite positive that they have special angels watching over them in heaven.

In memory: Grandpa, Bisa, Grandpa Zierlein, Grandma May, Grandma Zierlein, Grandpa Stephens, Lili, Felipa, Aunt Julia, Uncle Richard, Uncle Ed, Marlisa Rene

Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord.

I love the Saints.  Love Them.

Honestly, it’s one of the best parts of being Catholic.

Apologetics 101: Catholics don’t worship Saints, they ask for their prayers.  Kind of like asking your friend to pray for you.

Today we look at all the men and women who have gone before us.  Some have been seemingly perfect while others have had similar vices.  We have our favorites.  A couple of years ago, I decided to teach my kids about the Saints.  We look forward to feast days, some celebrations are small, some are bigger.  But we’re always learning.  Today we celebrate all of them.

Yesterday the Baby Hulk and I picked out Special Saints for each member of the family.  We read about each of them tonight at dinner and asked them to pray for us all year long.  Then tonight before we went to bed, Goose and I went through his book of Saint coloring sheets from the past few years and did our own Litany of Saints.  It was beautiful.

The funny thing about Halloween is that I hate dressing up.  I would avoid a costume party at all costs.  Thankfully, Lance feels the same way.  As for our kids, they love dressing up.  And Lance loves to dress them.  He does it to impress Chris.  Really, that’s it.  In fact, twice we’ve gone straight to his place for candy knowing that people might not appreciate our kids.  After last year’s Party City costumes, I’ve been on Lance to get moving.  I knew we only had one year left to control No David’s costume.  Plus, he started saying he was going to be a cat.  Nothing against cats, but no chance in hell was my son going to be a cat for Halloween.  So Meth dealer it was.

I think Lance did a great job this year.

As we walked through the neighborhood, Goose was told over and over how awesome his costume was.  I worried a bit about Baby Hulk’s feelings, but he stood firm in his decision to stay away from his father’s antics.  He was my proud Bumblebee.  He was happy that Goose didn’t received rocks in his bag.

Earlier he asked Lance if he would want to have a bald head as a little boy.  How can you argue with that?  Besides, Lance knew Goose was his man for the night.

Overall, a successful evening.  I know it won’t be easy to convince any of the boys to do what we want next year, but thankfully, we’ve still got Baby Z.

Lance had surgery yesterday to wipe out his acid reflux.  He’s been pretty miserable with the whole thing so I’m hoping this works.  It does make menu planning pretty easy for the next six weeks.  Can you say cheap and easy for the kids?  Sandwiches for me.  Maybe we’ll lose some weight around here.

I finally came up with a plan for Baby Z’s first birthday party.  SO. FREAKING. EXCITED.  Now to figure out a time and invitations and something for the kids to do.  Plus, I need a way to make this affordable considering that Christmas is a week after her birthday.  Am I really going to be able to have people at my house with all of my nativity scenes out?!

Goose has a project due on November 1st.  He’s known about it for three weeks.  He is supposed to read a book and summarize it by making a mask and diorama of a scene from the book.  Thus far, he has drawn a circle on a green piece of card-stock.  As for me, I  have spent $60 at Michael’s on this project.  I admit I got really angry about his lack of progress tonight.  And last night.  Then I read something about words lifting your kids up.

Insert a lot of guilt my way.  So while it still pains me to no end, I am going to back off.  This is his project.  He knows when it is due.  He knows there is football to watch this weekend and that there is trick or treating on Monday night.  If the work isn’t done, he will miss out on a lot.  And I won’t yell.  I will assist IF asked, but will not intrude unless he shows me a really bad project.  In that case, he does it over, but I feel like I’m making progress.  I’ve been doing this same routine with Squirt for years with no change.  I always assumed Goose would be different once he was at school.  And he is, in many ways, but it appears he isn’t a worker bee when it comes to projects either.  My goal is to teach him logical consequences now rather than later in life and keep my sanity at the same time.   Who thinks I can really back off?

Oh Nutella.  I have fallen in love again.  I used to eat this by the spoonfuls in college and law school.  But then I stopped buying it.  I figured it couldn’t be that good for me.  Then I started finding all these recipes on Pinterest and found myself buying a nice two-pack from Costco.  Forget the recipes, I am back to eating this stuff by the spoon.  The best part of Lance’s surgery is that I don’t even have to share.

It’s that time again..I need to start shopping and coming up with ideas for people to buy gifts for my kids.  But before I do that, I have to get this off my chest, tacky or not.  First, I’m all about SIMPLICITY this year.  (Simplicity needs to become a way of life for me, not just in gifts, but in everything I do.)  Last year was totally and completely out of control.  No other way to put it.  As recently as this month, we brought out gifts we had put away from last Christmas.  And that doesn’t include the stuff I had already donated that was never opened.  Personally I would love to go the “Jesus got 3 gifts” route, but I know that won’t happen just yet.  Until then, I am begging for moderation this year, in fact a family gift is a great option.

And with that statement, I get tacky.  Lance is all “we need to tell people not to get our children gifts because we have too many.  And definitely don’t buy us gifts.”  I’m fine with not getting gifts, I’m not a fan of gift baskets which seems to be the gift of choice for a married couple.  But that said, I don’t have any interest in telling someone not to get me or my kids gifts just because there are a lot of us.  I figure at this point in time, people can decide on their own whether they want to buy gifts or not.  Why make things awkward by telling them not to buy gifts.  And really, nobody cares, not even the kids, they don’t notice.  (I’m also a fan of birthday gifts rather than Christmas gifts for extended family, but again nobody seems to agree with me…)  Anyway, I don’t see why I’m left to come up with gifts for people that I think they will enjoy only to have my husband tell others not to buy my kids gifts.

I know, it’s pretty tacky for me to say that, but my blog, my thoughts.  And to make up for me being me, I’ll post some really cute pictures of Baby Z later today.

Is there a curse on my house?  I have a broken dishwasher, (yes, I am still washing dishes by hand), a leak in my disposal, an entryway that needs new windows, and now our television went bust.

Lance came home ready to watch Sunday night’s football game only to find that the television wasn’t working.  Interesting enough, (to me at least), he managed to get the thing into the car and to a repair shop by himself.  Our dishwasher has been broken for almost two months.

Yesterday I was bragging about my kids’ behavior at mass.  I was mother extraordinaire with how awesome they were.  Today we went to Costco.  I’m relatively lax in my parenting at Costco much to their dismay.  In fact, I consider Costco to be like a playground for my kids.  While I was searching for several bottles of cheap wine and they were checking out toys, I ran into someone I hadn’t seen in probably two years.  And of course, that’s when my kids decided to act like kids.  Really bad kids.  No David started with his crap of yelling at me.  So I immediately put him in the cart, “no more running wild in the store for you”.  And there went the little catch up session with me leaving feeling like a big loser.

Lance has decided that Baby Hulk is going as Walter White from Breaking Bad for Halloween with No David going as Jesse Pinkman.  He just came home with a bald cap and goatee from Frankels, meaning overpriced.  Baby Hulk is about to lose it.  He has had two really awesome costumes via Lance: The Hulk and Don Draper.  He is now at the age where he has no interest in dressing up for Lance’s whims.  I get this, I thought it was No David’s turn.  Not sure how this is going to turn out.  The bribes are already starting.

Speaking of Halloween, am I the worst mother if I don’t dress Baby Z up in a costume?  I realize it’s only 20 bucks, but really?  I can spend the money so many better ways, including another bottle of wine for myself.  I am thinking of putting a message on Twitter to see if anyone wants me to borrow the costume they bought for their baby girl years ago.

Instead of waiting on inter-library loan, I went to the Oak Forest branch today since online it appeared they had the majority of the books I needed for Fall.  So glad I went.  Their children’s section is amazing.  Not only did I find the Fall books I wanted, I also  found the living math books I have been seeking for months.  True story- right before I found the books, I said a little prayer to St. Anthony asking that I find any books that might be of use to my little boys.  I then put Baby Z down and she pulled one of the books off the shelf.  Between my Fall books, the living math books and books for BH to read, I have reached the limit of 50 books.

I have found two separate pieces of gum in various places in my house.  The pantry was one.  Gross.  Who does that?  Dare I admit?

Lance tried the Walter White bribe on Goose.  So far it isn’t working.

Squirt went to homecoming with Jessica Saturday evening.  Here are a couple of pictures from that night.

I started this post last night.  Just now finishing up and there is another television in my living room.  It’s nice that I can watch television while doing the dishes.

The countdown is on.  You are about to be a year old.  It seems unreal that you’ve only been here for ten months.  No disrespect to the rest of the family, but I can’t imagine a time when you weren’t a part of this family.  You were meant to be here.  And I’m not just saying that.  Each day it is so clear to me that God really knew what He was doing making us wait for you.

Not too much has changed in the past month, although maybe that’s because I wrote your last letter a bit late!  You do have your first tooth.  And you are content to chit chat nonstop.  Earlier today, I heard you say something that sounded like ‘bottle’.  Even your dad who doesn’t always understand the little ones understood.

Sweet girl, you have everyone wrapped around your little finger.  The ladies at the gym love taking care of you when I workout.  They bring their cameras to take pictures and fuss over who gets to take care of you.  They switch off days.  I’m not kidding, they have a little schedule for you.  This week you teased with them and wouldn’t come to me.  They were in heaven.

That’s how you make all of us feel.  Like we have a little bit of heaven.  When No David starts fussing, loudly, you yell at him.  I hate to make fun of him, but it infuriates him.  But oh little girl, he loves you so.  Sometimes he will ask you “what you thinking about”.  He wants to hold you and play with you.

Your biggest brother was a bit annoyed to find that he wasn’t the first one to discover your tooth.  (He has done that with all the other babies.)  When I joked that he wasn’t paying enough attention to you, he was not happy.

The boys still sing songs to you when we drive or when you start to get upset.  And you like it.  Me, I’m not a singer, but those boys can sing you a lullaby like no other.  When I see the love they have for you, I know the best gift I have ever given any of you is each other.  I pray you guys always have this love.

My little girl, I have less than two months to plan your party.  In two months you will be a year old.  I don’t see it, but we are almost there.  What a great year so far.  Thank you for being the happiest baby I know.  Thank you for loving me so much and bringing so much to this family.  I love you, sunshine!!

For Today…October 23, 2011

Outside my window…there are about a million mosquitoes.  We can’t get into the car without the damn things flying inside.  

I am listening to…Goose and Lance analyze the Texans game.

I am wearing…my red and gray dress.  I think this must be my “after mass outfit”.

I am pondering…education and our goals.

I am grateful for…failed robbery attempts and a safe teen, Thank you GOD!  Date night, field trips with friends, my camera and the chance to make memories with my family.

I am praying for…my friend’s sister who has been recently diagnosed with cancer and patience.

I love it…when my children behave in mass.  Sometimes they really make me look good.  Like I’m this kick ass mom because I’m in mass without my husband, but with five kids who stand, sit and kneel at the proper times as well as say all the prayers.  Of course, as soon as we got to the car, they all started fighting.  But for one hour, we all rocked.

To live the liturgy…I have an exciting idea that I am hoping to implement for the Feast of All Saints and All Souls.  Praying for time to get this accomplished or at the very least, getting a small start to implement a new tradition that we can add to each year.

From the learning rooms…I love the library.  I love the fact that you can put a book on hold and they transfer it to the library near your home.  Except when the book doesn’t arrive for the week you need it.  We are studying eggs this week, and the book I am dying for, as well as a few others, never arrived, which means I am not satisfied with how the week ended for us.  We’re onto F for fall, football and family.  We’ll spend two weeks discussing the seasons and hopefully, taking advantage of nice fall weather.

In the kitchen…Lance has his reflex surgery this Thursday.  For six weeks afterwards, he won’t be eating regular food.  In fact, his diet will closely resemble Baby Z’s diet.  With that in mind, we’ll be having some of his favorites.  As well as pumpkin bread.  A lot of pumpkin bread.

Around the house…getting new glass near my front door, thanks for that added expense wanna be robber.

I am reading…Simplicity Parenting.

A few of my favorite things…jeans, Whataburger’s Honey BBQ Chicken Strip Sandwich, a new haircut and OU losing to Tech.  Goose had fallen asleep last night watching football.  We tried to wake him up to watch the Hail Mary in the MSU/Wisconsin game.  No luck.  He did however wake up to hear that OU was losing.  He was pretty happy this morning.

A few plans for the week…learning, learning, learning.  Finding some Halloween costumes, (I decorated on Friday, finally), Miller’s Outdoor Theatre, taking care of Lance.

A picture thought I am sharing…

This is exactly what it looks like. I can always depend on a great shot from this child.