Alleluia! He Is Risen Indeed!

Decorating Easter Eggs

Best Easter eggs ever, this year!


We had lots of sports-themed eggs this year. In addition to this Badger egg, we had a GB Packer egg (of course!), a Longhorn egg, a basketball, and a football egg. (Who knew that brown egg dye would come in so handy?!)





JPD opted out--too early in the morning for him, apparently...



We're getting ready for a very blessed Easter! Same to you and yours!

The Last Supper

On Thursday, KLD's 2nd/3rd grade class presented a sweet play about the Last Supper. It was adorable--and, of course, so was she!
How perfect that their play about the Last Supper was just a few hours before we celebrated the Holy Thursday liturgy, commemorating Jesus' institution of the Eucharist at his Passover dinner with his Apostles.

The Catholic Church claims that Christ is really present in the Eucharist, that the sacrifice of calvary is repeated at every Mass, and that he gives Himself to us in Holy Communion as food unto eternal life. ...

Let's turn to John 6 and see the context in which he says that. John 6, verse 4 tells us, "Now the Passover, the feast of the Jews was at hand." So everything that transpires within John 6 is within the context of the Passover. Jesus is talking to them now. At the time of the Passover, after multiplying these loaves, ending up filling twelve baskets with the fragments from the five barley loaves, He uses that as his point of departure for one of the most important sermons that He ever preaches and also one of the most disastrous from a human perspective.
...
He goes on talking about this bread and He goes on talking about Moses in context with that bread. For instance, in verse 32, "Jesus then said to them, 'Truly, truly, I say to you it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven. My Father gives you the true bread from heaven, for the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.' They said to him, 'Lord, give us this bread always.'" Welfare state! "Jesus said to them, 'I am the bread of life. He who comes to me shall not hunger and he who believes in me shall not thirst.'" And He goes on talking about this some more. The Jews would then murmur at him in verse 41 because He said, "I am the bread which came down from heaven."
...
"He said to them, 'Truly, truly, I say to you unless you eat the flesh of the son of man and drink his blood,' which Leviticus condemns, the drinking of blood, 'unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood, you have no life in you. He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life and I will raise him up on the last day. For my flesh is food indeed and my blood is drink indeed. He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me and I in him.'"

~ From a talk by Scott Hahn / Full text here.

Thanks be to God for His most precious gift of the Holy Eucharist within the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass! How beautifully the Easter Triduum begins!

Hot Cross Buns

I foresee a new Lenten tradition at our house!
They were SO good! Here's the recipe.

Big Brother Little Brother

MPD loves having his hero brother home for Spring Break!

Making bunny and chick cookies for Easter...



And coloring Easter eggs...

My dad was the oldest of four brothers, and his youngest brother is 9 years younger than my dad. My Uncle Andy--the youngest uncle--always says that, growing up, my dad was absolutely his hero. WWD is 9 years older than MPD too. Since I have only one younger brother myself, I can hardly even imagine how big WWD must seem to MPD, and JPD also. How cool to have such a giant, smart, basketball-and-football-playing, Mass-serving(!), brother! I'm so proud of my boys!

Game On

Well, I couldn't resist taking my girls down into the big city today to see the most influential woman in American politics today. It was so cool. Sarah's speech was historic, and it was fun to feel like a part of the incredible things that are going on in our state and in our country these days. Wisconsin is certainly the place to be!

We had a great time standing in the sleet and snow for a few hours, watching the crowds and checking out all the protest signs!

My friend's daughter sang the opening national anthem, and she was amazing.

Since we got there early, we were right up front next to the press' camera stand, and MRD was able to sneak up onto the platform and snap a few great pics of Sarah!



What a blustery day--and I bet the girls will never forget it, even if their most vivid memory is how cold their toes were!!



(Meanwhile, the 4 men in our family were--you guessed it--at a basketball tournament.)

He's at it again!

You gotta love that C.S. Lewis...

"There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, ‘Thy will be done,’ and those to whom God says, in the end, ‘Thy will be done.’"

~ C. S. Lewis

Quick Takes Friday

Joining Jen at Conversion Diary for Quick Takes Friday!

~ 1 ~
These Wisconsin politics...man, you cannot make this stuff up. I thought we'd seen the last of the drama when the 14 senators-on-the-run came back from their flight to Illinois. But this Supreme Court election is a whole new chapter. Who ever heard of a Supreme Court race being so exciting and too close to call at midnight on election day? Now, after we thought the democrat (oh, right, it's a nonpartisan position--yeah right) won by 204 votes last night, 10K more votes showed up, which flipped the election back to the incumbent. I couldn't ask for a better government lesson for the kids than living in Wisconsin in 2011!

And I must share with you Bill's master creation election flyer:







~ 2 ~
Remember my bad experience back in January with discovering that I weighed 15 pounds more than I thought? Well, guess what...I lost at least 10 of them. (A few more than 10, but I'm not admitting those were ever really there.) Really! Go me! And that was before...

~ 3 ~
I started doing Atkins on April 1. I love Atkins. It's so easy. You do have to be really committed, which is why I've been putting it off for way too long. But I've been having all these awesome omelettes for breakfast and filets for dinner. Yum!

~ 4 ~
As if anything could be overshadowing our wild Wisconsin politics in the news, now we have an impending federal government shutdown. I think it's imperative that we take care of our armed forces, but apart from that, I say bring on the shutdown. I agree with this post from Pat Archbold, that so much of this is really all coming down to the defunding of Planned Parenthood. What surprises me is that so many people have the misperception that Planned Parenthood is actually good for women. Ugh.

~ 5 ~
The girls started a new program called Girls on the Run, which involves a group of about 20 girls meeting with coaches to practice running and play games and hear about self-esteem for girls and nutrition and stuff. I like the running part, and so do the girls, and I think they're having fun with their friends. So far, they're running about 2 miles at a time, which is awesome!

~ 6 ~
And just when we thought basketball was over...we decided to sign WWD up for summer AAU ball. It turns out that his would-be team is going to have a really amazing coach, and I'm super excited about this opportunity for WWD. Can't wait to see him play with a whole new team!

~ 7 ~
MPD's potty training is pretty much a done deal. We can even go out of the house now, and he'll go potty almost anywhere. I'm so glad I waited until he was 3 and really ready. It has been so easy (can't believe I'm saying that) and he is so proud of being a big boy! Maybe by child #5, I've got it all figured out. (ha!) But seriously--the best advice I've read on this--and I've read a lot over the years--is to regard potty training as similar to learning to walk. Don't get stressed when they fall down, don't argue with them about it or insist on anything, try not to cry when dealing with poopy underpants(!), just cheer for them and make sure they know how excited you are that they are growing up. It's a big achievement--his, not mine, of course! :)

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Happy Spring--it's finally here!
Do head over to Jen's place for more fun Quick Takes!

Soccer Girl

MRD has been playing indoor soccer this past couple of months, and she's having a blast.

Tonight she scored 3 goals in the game, which is a career record for her!

I like watching indoor soccer; the artificial turf makes it faster than outdoor grass, and the walls provide a barrier so the ball (almost) never goes out of bounds.

It's amazing how tough the girls are--they fight for the ball and slam up against the boards in a way that is reminiscent of hockey! But they're still girls--tonight one of MRD's teammates knocked an opponent over, then turned and apologized before going after the ball.

Here's MRD, kicking one of her goals tonight:

Go MRD go!

Lenten Musings

I love this one:

"What is the point of a retreat? I should put it like this--that God means to do something in and to your soul. It may be something quite little; almost certainly it will seem quite little. But then, of course, that little may be the thin end of a wedge. He wants to do a sort of tidying up, a sort of spring cleaning in your life. Perhaps He will open your eyes to some fault; perhaps He will begin to wean you away from some bad habit; some dangerous friendship, perhaps He will give you a glimpse of some way (you hadn't thought about before) in which, later on, He means you to serve Him."

~ Msgr. Ronald Knox