There truly is nothing as beautiful as the Texas sky.


- Posted from my iPhone - how did I make it 26 years without this thing??

Cute Girls!

Fixed!

I think my blog app had a bug because it wouldn't let me upload pics anymore, cutting back on my photo blogging tremendously! I upgraded to the paid app and am liking the features, and I'm pleased to announce that I can once again upload pics! (what a scam)


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Sunshine Girl!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

And here's a wonderful post from Creative Minority Report.

Makes me want to have another. And another. And another.

Jenna Speaks on Abortion & Fetal Pain

Well, I'd blog about fetal pain, but Jenna beat me to it. Thank God I have the market cornered on Catholicism, or I'd just have to hire her as my full-time brain.
Jenna wrote this last night and hit the nail on the head. She also wrote a follow-up up, which can be found here.

More on abortion later - someday this country will sit back and say, "Wow. This country has aided a Holocaust far greater than the Nazis could have ever imagined."
The Nazi holocaust killed 6 million innocent Jews. To date, the abortion holocaust kills approximately 2 million innocent babies PER YEAR.

"The greatest destroyer of peace today is abortion. It is a war against the child. . . . If we accept that a mother can kill even her own child, how can we tell other people not to kill each other?" - Mother Teresa at at a National Prayer Breakfast in Washington, DC

This Thursday is the National Day of Prayer. Will you pray for the innocent and defenseless?

Authenticity

Andrew is back from TOBET. He seems energized by it. It's hard to gauge what effects a group like that has on a man until it starts to play out in your daily marriage. He has suggestions and ideas, and we're going to start putting them into action together. I am truly, truly excited about the role he's taking as the spiritual leader of our home.
And me? I'm working hard to be authentic. There are people in my life who seem to show up every so often, just as I start to grow spiritually. They bend and twist my priorities and my true self and get me so out of whack.
I am also about to embark on a few posts of a deeper nature here on my blog. There are issues out there that need to be addressed. I'm warning you all in advance because these are hot-button topics. They're my own thoughts and the thoughts of the truly brilliant people who challenge me to be a better person. If they strike a nerve, good! Explore that, learn something, find out why. Or stop reading. It's your choice and I respect that fully.
I'll continue with my irreverent and silly posts about the girls. Shoesday will stay in place and I'll continue to repost my conversations with that ridiculous husband of mine.

A taste of what you can continue to expect within the walls of my blog...I'm unwavering in my stance on human life. I'm a conservative at heart but hate the title. I was homeschooled and will probably homeschool my own little geniuses. I'm a Roman Catholic. I believe in classical education. I believe in an organized and healthy home. I feed my children simple carbs before ten am. I practice Natural Family Planning and cannot fathom using artificial birth control. I breastfeed and believe it's the best nutrition for a child. I think families should grow vegetables. I am against children receiving an allowance for menial housework and commonplace chores. I believe that all children should say, "Yes Sir" and "Yes Ma'am." I think that all kids should value their relationships with their siblings and treat them as nothing less than sacred.

My opinions differ from the mainstream. My close friends know that I've always believed the things I believe and I do my best to keep from pushing my life onto others. (they also know I curse far too often and talk too much when I drink) However, this is my blog and these are important issues. I'll do my best to provide informational links to everything I discuss and will not pass judgement on those who disagree with my views. I love comments and I will publish them, but as the moderator of this blog I do reserve the right to delete any comments that hinder conversation or are too snarky or trollish.
I'm excited about taking my writing to the next level. You can look forward to lots of guest posts, cute shoes and bloggy fun in the months to come!

Shoesday Cuties!

Let's just get right to it. Hello, gorgeous. They may be out of my price range, but they're far from out of my mind! Jimmy Choo, you little devil!

LOVE these. They make me want to go skirt shopping and buy lots of scarves to tie around my neck. And no, you can't afford them.

Seriously?? Ribbons?? Coach thinks you need more of them. I think these would make me wear heels on a sailboat. Maybe even board a sailboat.

Well if these don't get me a third baby, I don't know what will. I think these fall into the "always permissible" shopping category.

And these?? GOOD NIGHT. These make me feel like putting my hair in pigtails and carrying a backpack. Just love them.

Next week, white shoes you'll want to keep clean!

Shoesday Meet & Greet

Have you met TOM?

TOMS Shoes aren't just cute canvas shoes- they're shoes made for a great cause. TOMS donates a pair of shoes to a child in need for EVERY SINGLE pair bought. That's a lot of shoes. And when you're the mother of four adorable little feet, you feel like every child out there should have a good pair of shoes.


Now, hold on for high fashion, y'all!

Rollin' The Hay!

Well, straw. This could be wordy.

So we decided to stop at Russell Feed on the way home. I'm going to try my hand at straw bale gardening, feeling absurdly inspired after a MckMama post and some covert googling. Andrew rolled his eyes a bit, but I think he'd like to see me succeed at gardening without spending a fortune on raised beds, soil, seeds, greenhouses, lawn services, stakes and twine, knee pads, watercans...you get the idea. This makes it difficult to overspend on supplies before my plants meet their eventual demise in the backyard.

We got there and I pleaded with several strapping young men to make 5 bales of straw fit in/on my car. As they were chatting about how best to reach straw-squeezing success, a man walked by. Lucy was bouncing around at the front of the store and looked up as he walked by. Her eyes lit up and as she threw her arms around his legs, she screamed, "DADDY!!"

As the nice man with the toddler wrapped around his legs untangled himself, he laughed and said, "Well, I can't be positive, but I don't think you're mine."

As Lucy looked on in confusion, they made the straw fit just fine.

Spring Fun!

On Friday evening, we heard Molly crying from somewhere in the house. Upon searching for her, we found her stuck on top of a little dresser unit in Lucy's room. When we started laughing at her, the look of panic turned into a charming "Please don't send me to time-out" grin.

We brought the sprinkler out yesterday and the girls had a blast running around and getting wet.

And Molly climbed.

And climbed. And climbed. And climbed.

Preschool Begins For Lucy!

Well, Lucy has been begging me for weeks to start "special school." I have no idea what she means by that, but I decided that maybe it's time to start preschool. She's a tad young, but she's a very smart kid and pretty ambitious, so we're giving it a go.
I bought a laminator yesterday morning, and a three ring binder. I spent the moving printing off preschool tracing sheets and laminating two to a sleeve. We could do workbooks, sure. But we're planning to have a bunch of kids and completing a page in a workbook once isn't enough. It's nowhere near enough.
For instance, this week we're working on tracing lines, to prepare for writing numbers and letters. Lucy doesn't need to trace 3 lines per page. She needs to trace, and trace, and trace and trace. She needs to trace diagonal lines until the dashes behind her marker disappear and she's drawing diagonal lines in her sleep. I could makes copies, but it made more sense to me to laminate them and let her use dry-erase markers to do it over and over again.

These aren't just pictures. They're documentation of the beginning of a lifelong learning partnership. Boy, is that sweet. :-)

Sleeping Beauty

Poppers just laughed at me when I tried to get her to munch on a green pepper after her nap...

So, we snacked on birthday cake ice cream together :-)

dad.

Happy Shoesday!

At the request of a possibly crazy pregnant woman, Shoesday is back! Hooray! Insert happy dance.
Pull out your wallets, friends!

For someone who spends most of her time inside her four walls, I'm a shopper extraordinaire. Shoes, handbags and home decor top my list of must-buys. I subscribe to Lucky, which is a problem in itself, and my inbox is littered with dozens of designer outlet sites and up-to-the-minute shopping news. I can't help myself. I just adore fashion. And someday, I'll afford it. You know, when my blogging really takes off.

About two or three years ago, I started sending the Shoesday Email every Tuesday and was charged with many counts of foul play when it ended. Well today Katie demanded better treatment, and you'll all thank her for many Shoesdays to come.

So, let's get on with the shoes!

Where does my current shoe obsession lie? Metallics. These petite little peep-toe Franco Sartos just sang to my feminine wiles.

Well you know what Born would say about peep-toes. Cover them up and add more shine! And let's face it. Every foot looks prettier in gold.

Yes. You're seeing them right. Glittery little flowers on your toes. Can you even imagine the number of comments you'd get from these perfectly darling and so classy flats? Beverly Feldman, thank you for this WIN.

When it comes to wedges, I'm all business. Make 'em high and make 'em red. See By Chloe didn't just get these right. They're spot on. I just want to touch them. Maybe skip in them.

What's that? Any little black dress would be honored to sit atop these cute little wedges. If Andrew's going to bring me roses, I dearly hope they're from Sofft.

And these? Don't even get me started. I have a very good feeling that the very dark jeans in my closet are still single because they haven't met these grey lace wedges from Seychelles.

I thought this would help my shoe obsession. It's not going to help at all.

San Antonio!

What a fabulous trip! The girls were perfect, we laughed for 3 days straight and we made it home in one piece.
On the way down, we stopped for custard at the best custard stand "on the planet." Imagine, it's just down the road in Waco!

I've never met a kid who loves ice cream as much as Molly Rose. Seriously. When she hears the words, she freaks. She'll eat until she fairly pops, and when the last bite is gone, she folds herself in half and screams into her feet. It's not pretty.

The aftermath.

The minute we got to the hotel, we were in the pool. Lucy was so, so excited to be "simming!" Ok, I'll be honest. The pool lasted for about 10 minutes. These two are definitely their mama's girls! They jumped right in the hot tub and just sat and sighed for the better part of 30 minutes. Nothing like a little pampering to make you forget 5 hours in the car with two toddlers!

On Friday morning, we set off for the San Antonio Children's Museum. The girls had a blast!

Mo and a giant loaf of plastic French bread.

After we were done at the Children's Museum, the rain had cleared and we headed out to the Alamo! (okay, two blocks away. Whatever.) That was super cool and we just loved it. Lucy was afraid of the big tree, but she managed. 2-year-olds and their fears...it's exhausting.

After the Alamo, we stopped for lunch at the Rainforest Cafe. Lucy was also afraid of that.

After lunch, we took some time to wander around Riverwalk. So pretty and unique! It was a little pesky with the strollers, as it's below street level and there are a lot of stairs to manage. Luckily, we each had an umbrella stroller and just sort of grabbed them and jogged up the stairs.

This is aboslutely my favorite picture from Friday. There was a guy playing a panflute and the girls were just speechless!

Oh no. It didn't stop there. After Riverwalk, we trekked over to the Tower of The Americas. It was 876 feet high or something. Gag. But the fountains were gorgeous!

This is me on the observation deck as I realized it was open air. Yack. I used to be SO good with heights, too.

And then...they both fell asleep. Andrew and I walked throughout San Antonio, grinning like newlyweds, pretending we were childless. That lasted about 40 minutes, when Molly's little chicken legs shot straight out in front of her and she sat up like shot, eyebrows raised, wondering where she'd gone wrong.

The highlight of Lucy's "tip" was the elevator.

We checked out of our hotel on Saturday morning and headed northeast to the Natural Bridge Caverns.

Really, two redheads? How on earth did that happen?

The caverns were great, but the holes in the benches? Second to none.

All in all, it was a fantastic weekend with two very cute little road warriors!