The House, the Kids

Things have been busy around here.  Taking care of the kids is taking up a lot of my time...we still haven't quite hit our groove after the newest addition.  And any spare moment I get is spent working on some sort of "project" in our new house, or running out for yet another trip to a "home improvement store" for supplies.  Tom's been pointing out that we keep starting new projects without actually finishing all the "open" ones.  I realized that he's right, because lo and behold, I don't have any completed project pictures to show on here yet!  Soon, hopefully :-)

Here's one sneak peek, though.

 The off-white/green combo is the "before" and the white/teal is the "after"...

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I set up a sandbox in the backyard for the kids.  Well technically, I set up the empty box, and my husband handled the sand.  I could not lift those 50 pound bags!  We've been lugging this dang thing from house to house since Sly was a baby - my mom gave it to him as a gift when he was much too young for it.  And then we didn't have a yard for a long time.  It's good to finally get some use out of it. 

The first time the kids played in it was while Tom was watching them on his own.  I went out with friends one evening, and suggested playing in the sandbox as a fun activity for them while I was away.  I got a text from Tom a little later saying, "this sandbox sucks.  There's sand everywhere!!".  Teehee. 

The kids enjoy it, but I'm not sure how long it will last.  We already forgot to put the lid on one day, and now it's filled with pine needles and rain water...

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We attended a friend's wedding last weekend.  It was a Ukrainian Catholic wedding, and by far the most beautiful wedding I've ever attended.  And that's including my own, which was the traditional Mass, and also quite beautiful!  The prayers, rituals, and symbolism were so edifying.  During the ceremony, the bride and groom are each crowned by the priest.  As my friend's program explained:

The bride and groom are crowned as "king and queen" of their own home, a new Christian kingdom, which they will guide with wisdom and love as an extension of the Kingdom of God.

The crowns also recall the victorious crown of martyrdom, since every true marriage involves self-sacrifice from each spouse.  The word martyr means 'witness,' and the couple will bear witness to Christ's presence in their lives, which requires both to die to themselves and to give their own lives for the other.

What a powerful symbol!  It definitely inspired me to commit myself more strongly to my own wedding vows.

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This little man has been growing like crazy.  He's my biggest baby by far, hitting the 97th percentile for length, and almost as high for weight!  At seven weeks old, he started wearing six-month clothes, and I would not be surprised if he's up to the next size soon. 

It's actually kind of nice, because it means Sly's hand-me-downs might actually be the right sizes for the right seasons now.

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And my Stella is turning into quite a troublesome toddler.  Her obsession with toothbrushes (which is really gross, because she carries and uses everyone's toothbrushes all over the house) is finally being re-directed.  But now she's become interested in my makeup.

First she found my eye liner, and decided to put some on herself.  She watches me very intently every time I'm applying makeup - and actually hands me the next item, in the proper order.  I don't usually wear eye liner, but when I was dressing up a bit for the aforementioned evening out, she was watching in fascination as I applied it.  So a little later when she sneaked into my makeup and grabbed my eye liner, she knew exactly what to do with it.  Kind of.

Then I caught her applying some very expensive concealer to one of her dolls.

  I think it's time to move my makeup to a safer place!

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By the way, if you're wondering why I'm willing to spend a lot of money on concealer, let me show you this.

This is me at age four (with a terrible haircut, so try not to linger on that).  My eyes already had noticeable dark circles then.  Age and motherhood have not made that problem any better, I assure you.


 

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Yesterday, I was reading through some old e-mails from my mom's sister.  She's the person in the family who is interested in our genealogy, and keeps all the photos and records (every family has one of those, right?).  She had sent a photo of my grandmother as a young woman along with her siblings and parents.  This picture was taken right after they'd received the news that her brother had been killed in the war (WWII).

my grandmother is on the far left

Look how stricken everyone is.  I thought it was fitting that I found this on Memorial Day.  It's so easy to think of it as just a fun day to have a cookout, but sometimes it's good to be reminded of what it's really about.