State Champs!

‎44-5 Season
17-0 League play
7 tournament wins
20-0 last 20 games including 7 this weekend to become STATE CHAMPS!!








We are SO sad to see the end of basketball season!

March Madness!

WWD and I are finally here at the 6th grade State Basketball Tournament.
They are 4-0 after the first day of play; tomorrow it's on to the finals! All the guys are playing GREAT and I think WWD had his best 4 games of all time today.
Here's a peek at some of the action:










Go Cardinals!!

More Spring Break Fun

...at the Children's Museum.

If only we could have a JPD-sized hamster wheel at our house!

"Mommy, this painting seemed like a good idea but now my hands are messy!"

KLD spent a long time building castles with these magnetic blocks.

Water water everywhere. (This was MPD's favorite--Mom's too!)

My little drummer boy...

Put Us in the Zoo

Spring Break fun...

While still quite cold...

But lots of fun anyway...

And best of all...

The zookeeper didn't adopt any of us!

:)

Quick Takes Friday: Out Like A Lion

Joining Jen at Conversion Diary for Quick Takes Friday!

~ 1 ~
Big big BIG news here at Chez D...MPD's potty training has been, so far, short and sweet! He turned 3, he donned the Bob-the-Builder big-boy underpants, and he hasn't looked back since. As of tonight, both #1 and #2 are strictly in the potty. Woo-hoo MPD!



But you know what this means, of course. I'm within spittin' distance of having a diaper-free household. I don't even know what to think about that. Maybe I should close this laptop right now and go try to get pregnant. On second thought...nah. I'll finish this post first, anyway. :)


~ 2 ~
MPD does sleep in my arms for most of every night still. He's abandoned his crib and happily gets tucked into his bottom bunk bed each evening, then after a couple of hours of alternately playing with JPD, fighting with JPD, sneaking into his sisters' room and making them fuss, and scurrying up and down the stairs and getting re-sent up to bed, he falls asleep with me if he can. Otherwise he always finds his way to my bed before morning. I love it. I know that in the blink of an eye, he'll stop doing this, so I just enjoy having a little snuggler in the crook of my elbow while it lasts. (Bill is more skeptical, however.)

~ 3 ~
This week has been Spring Break for the middle 3 kids around here. I have loved having them home, and especially loved not driving them up to school every morning. I do miss homeschooling, and I would so love to do it again. Who knows, maybe we will again someday. But in any case, this week has been relaxed and fun, despite some very cold and rainy weather! Stay tuned for photos of some of our adventures! :)

~ 4 ~
I'm so proud of MRD! One day this week she went to school with WWD for a middle school "shadow" day, and now she's more excited than ever about her new school for next year. Also, she took the placement tests for her 6th grade classes. Apparently she aced the math test and tested out of 6th and 7th grade math, so she'll be in pre-algebra next year. Go MRD!

~ 5 ~
Lent so far...awesome as ever. It feels quiet this year--no big dramatic giving up of Diet Coke, nothing too newsworthy--just peace. Some things have surprised me--I didn't deliberately give up Facebook or blogging or computer time, but I haven't been too interested in it lately. Same with waking up early--I've been a bit sick and other things (see #2 above--haha!) that have prompted me to just naturally go to bed early and get up early, in spite of myself, which is another thing I really wanted to do this Lent. It really does feel like God is driving and I'm just along for the ride, which is perfect.

~ 6 ~
Bill's job search is going fine; thanks for asking! Nothing much to report on that front. I can't wait to see what God has in store for us next. :) In the meantime, Bill has replaced most of the ceiling light fixtures in our house this week and they look so awesome and updated! I don't have before-and-after pictures (darn!) but you can use your imagination...before=80's brass / after=aged bronze with frosted glass. Very nice.

~ 7 ~
Happy Feast Day of the Annunciation!
I love the Annunciation. It is so sweet and joyful to think about blessed Mary saying her "yes" to the Angel Gabriel, without understanding, without knowing what would happen next, without reservations. Just "yes" to God's will. What an inspiration! And now...Christmas in 9 months! :)
I like this artist's non-traditional take on the Annunciation, don't you?

Happy Spring! Now go back over to Jen's for more great Quick Takes!

He's Got His Game Face On

WWD is famous around here for his "game face" in basketball. No kidding--I've had complete stranger Dads come up to me after games, just to tell me how much they enjoy watching him under the basket.
He's fierce, I tell you!

He's serious about his "D" that's for sure...

And he loves to go up against the other teams' big guys, especially a few favorite rivals in the league...

Back in 3rd and 4th grade, he would sometimes play 1-on-1 with me, but these days--forget it. I can't even move against him!

Actually, in this game against their big rivals, his opposing under-the-basket big guy did get him rattled--lots of blatant fouls that the ref missed.

But this shot went in! Go WWD!

Victory...so sweet!

Undefeated league champs!

Here's my boy!

But don't you just hate it when your little brother steals your trophy?!

Next up...on to STATE!

MPD is 3!

Our two-year-old has left the building! :)
We held our traditional family Chuck-E-Cheese celebration tonight (strategically early on a Tuesday evening), and MPD had a blast.He's very big and proud to be three, and he loved his special day. (If you look closely, you can see Grandma in the background in this one!)

I'm not sure what to do now that my baby is THREE!

All my babies are growing up so fast!

Happy Birthday, dearest MPD! Thanks for keeping the rest of us from growing up too fast!

Welcoming Lent

"And Jesus rebuked him, and the devil went out of him, and the child was cured from that hour. Then came the disciples to Jesus secretly, and said: Why could not we cast him out? Jesus said to them: Because of your unbelief. For, amen I say to you, if you have faith as a grain of mustard seed, you shall say to this mountain: Remove from hence hither, and it shall remove: and nothing shall be impossible to you. But this kind is not cast out but by prayer and fasting."

~ Matthew 17:17-20

At spin class yesterday, the spin teacher had us start with our bikes set to a flat road. After a few hills, and resistance re-sets, she said to go back to the flat road--but to add two gears, and that would be our new flat road for the rest of the class.

Lent is like that, I think. Each year, Lent turns out to be such a powerful experience that by Easter I find that my faith is forever raised to a whole new level.

Two years ago, I went to Confession once a week during Lent, which was hard to schedule, but awesome and so worth it. Last year, I think I gave up Diet Coke (right?), and now I don't even need it at all (usually). This year, in addition to fasting from desserts, I'm not going to sleep later than 6a.m. on weekdays. This is something I've been struggling with for--well, forever, and it's quite apparent that I cannot do it on my own. No wonder St. Josemaria calls that moment of rising "the heroic moment;" it's certainly the hardest thing I try to do on most days! So this Lent I'm praying for God's help in a big way for this one.

Wishing you all a holy and blessed Lent!

Quick Takes Friday: In Like A Lamb

Joining Jen at Conversion Diary for Quick Takes Friday!

~ 1 ~
Whoa! Long time no blog! I must admit that I've been spending most of my free time (and then some, unfortunately) for the past couple of weeks Facebooking and obsessively following current events at our state capitol. It's like that expression about watching a car accident; I just can't look away. It's pretty wild down there, with news unfolding daily. Democracy--and lots of other crazy stuff--in action, I tell you. Tonight they've convinced all the round-the-clock hobos to sleep somewhere other than the capitol building, which is nice because apparently it is quite in need of a good cleaning in there.

~ 2 ~
You know, sometimes I think I can get just the tiniest glimpse of what it must have been like to live in our country in the mid-nineteenth century. I'm no civil-war historian, but I understand that neighbors and family members came out on opposing sides of the states' rights and slavery issues that divided the country, and even ended up shooting at each other as the war progressed.

To me, living in the early 21st century feels a bit like this. Sometimes in the past few years, my friends and neighbors' political views have really shocked me. I find it helpful to remind myself that none of this political stuff matters, really, in the big scheme of things. And by "big scheme of things," I mean eternity. Our individual souls matter. All the other stuff...not so much.

~ 3 ~
So another distraction from blogging recently has been The Hunger Games. When I heard the book's premise, I was curious, but not all that excited about it--sounded way too dark. It's dark, for sure, but OMG, it was so good! Now I'm on the waiting list to get Book 2 and 3 from the library (instead of click-click ordering them from Amazon and getting them by this weekend). Waiting is a great sacrifice, that's for sure! In fact, I'm not totally sure that I won't break down and click-click download the kindle-for-pc version of Book 2 tonight, and stay up all night reading it.

Anyone want to share their thoughts on the book, and whether it's appropriate for middle-schoolers? You may know that when it comes to my kids and media of all kinds, including books, I lean towards caution. I figure I can't go wrong with saving things (e.g., Harry Potter, Star Wars, what-have-you) for later, whereas I can go quite wrong with introducing things too early. (Example: 5-year-old JPD thinking Battlestar Galactica was real--yikes!!) Also, there are more great books than anyone can read in a lifetime, so there's no point in wasting time on non-great books. But I'm looking forward to talking about the Hunger Games with WWD! I told him not until high school; do you think I'm being too uptight?

~ 4 ~
So...in like a lamb...we've been having great weather this week. So I guess that means that we'll have huge snowstorms at the end of the month? We'll see, I suppose...either way, I'm so glad March is finally here! What a nice winter, and it went by so quickly this year.

~ 5 ~
After a few slow weeks due to winter colds (mine and MPDs), I'm back to a respectable workout schedule. It's a long road back to fitness after a few years of slacking, I tell you! Stay tuned for those "before-and-after" pictures...

~ 6 ~
We made an early Mardi Gras dinner last weekend...New Orleans Jambalaya. SO yummy! Here's the recipe if you want to check it out. Happy Mardi Gras!

~ 7 ~
Which means, of course, that Lent is finally here! I'm so excited for it this year; Lent has been so amazing the past couple of years that I'm really expecting great things. I'm giving up Facebook (whew!), desserts, sleeping in...we'll see which of those actually sticks. In any case, it's going to be great.

I think I like how much Easter has been jumping around--this year is really late--because it makes things just a bit different each year. In 2008, MPD's birthday on March 15 was just a few days before Easter, which was so perfect. (I've always wanted an Easter baby!) This year, Easter is over a month later, which makes a big difference in our Wisconsin spring weather! The girls will actually be able to wear summery dresses at Easter, which is unusual. (Attn Texas readers: Not that summery!). And after Easter, it will be almost summer. And that's all good, right?

Now go see Jen for everyone else's great Quick Takes posts!