Our Magnum Opus

Our Dating Couples

Kevin and Analisa

Regina and Anselm

Other Summer Things

When you and your godfather are twins!

parish play day

the chickens are laying!!!

Ruthie and Lydia working on their nature sketches at the Nature Center

Dom and Lou, my main source of social interaction these days ... you may pity me
be jealous...

VBS

Near the army base where Kevin J. is stationed, there is a local baker who will bake and deliver a treat for a soldier's birthday, and send the customer a picture.  Here is our very tired soldier with his 25th birthday treat!

 

Our Soldier Graduates

Fort Sill, OK

Our Soldier in Basic Training

Christmas Tree 2017

an over zealous chaperone

the baby cut the tree down :)

Victory!!

Miriya and Shelagh

 

So This Happened...

Happy Birthday Kevin J.!

He celebrated by buying himself a new (used) car and attending his old friend, Chris's, wedding.

Feast of Corpus Christi

Our parish does a wonderful Corpus Christi procession.  This year we were blessed to share it with our two new priests; our pastor Fr. Tom, and a visiting priest, Fr. Joseph.  All our men were on canopy, Dominic served, Blaise sang, and Lydia strewed flowers with the other First Communicants.  (We are an organizer's dream: one phone call and you get all four canopy bearers, roughly the same height. LOL)

The Divine Praises
Blessed be God.
Blessed be His Holy Name.
Blessed be Jesus Christ, true God and true Man.
Blessed be the Name of Jesus.
Blessed be His Most Sacred Heart.
Blessed be His Most Precious Blood.
Blessed be Jesus in the Most Holy Sacrament of the Altar.
Blessed be the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete.
Blessed be the great Mother of God, Mary most Holy.
Blessed be her Holy and Immaculate Conception.
Blessed be her Glorious Assumption.
Blessed be the name of Mary, Virgin and Mother.
Blessed be St. Joseph, her most chaste spouse.
Blessed be God in His Angels and in His Saints. Amen.

Christmas Eve

I changed tradition this year and served lasagnas (one red meat sauce and one seafood) instead of meatballs for our Christmas Eve dinner.  Most of us don't appreciate it when I try to change any tradition, but they liked this change!  After dinner we had the first plate of cookies and exchanged the secret Santa gifts among the children.  After dropping off those who were serving Midnight Mass or in the choir, the rest of us visited grandparents till it was time to return to church for Mass.

Twas the Night Before Christmas....

the stockings were hung by the chimney with care....

you can see a few Advent books are still wrapped, those are really books for a few of the 12 days but I hadn't thought to wrap them in different colored paper

Secret Santas...

Monica knit Kevin a scarf.  You would think at their age I could get a nice smile for the picture!  LOL

my new favorite picture of Alex

Kevin J. gifted us with this beautiful nutcracker!

my new favorite picture of Regina

 

In the stillness before Midnight Mass... All is calm, all is bright...

_{photo credit: Ben Eriksen}

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!

Summer's End

It is still hot but football practices have begun for Dominic, volleyball practices for Regina, and we've gotten a jump on our homeschool school work.  St. Augustine's classes begin in early September.  So summer is over.  But the pool is still up.  And did I mention that it's still hot?  Ugh.  Actually the forecast predicts cooling to begin tomorrow.  Yay!  Out in Wyoming, the temps have already dropped to become quite fallish. Monica is still out in the Wind River Range on the last day of week two of her freshmen COR Expedition with Wyoming Catholic College.  We got a letter from her.  They can get mail in and out once a week when the horse people bring up the re-rations to the mountains.  We have never been so happy to get a letter.  We gathered around to hear it read like a family in the old days.  As in before the internet.  of course, she sent a sketch.

Regina and Lydia

How mom spends her summers

pile of kittens on the tractor seat (the coveted spot for all our cats)

Dad, KJ, and Aunt Kari took a crowd to the water park while Mom was in Wyoming

Regina (not looking at the camera LOL) and friends at the Miles Christi girls camp

the Vacation Bible School helpers on the last day, Regina is on far right.  After the kids age out of VBS, they love to come back as helpers.