The Perfect Load

As some of you know, Chris was a Marine logistician in a former life.  Among other things, he was responsible for loading the very large ship he lived on for six months at a time.  These days, he puts his talents to work loading our car in the most amazing way possible.  He not only manages to fit in a miraculous amount of girl crap, he also makes it look good.

One of the more annoying things about Chris' attention to detail in the area of loading things is the way he re-loads our dishwasher.  Whenever he finds it in the process of being loaded, he feels compelled to pull things out and rearrange them in his quest for the perfect fit, the maximum number of dishes loaded.  Tonight, he reached nirvana.  We had dinner guests and an unusually large number of dishes.  Chris went to work and I am certain that our dishwasher has never been quite this efficient.  Look for future tutorials by Chris coming soon to youtube.

Wow--color me impressed :)

Look What Sophie Made

It's an earthworm habitat complete with decorative outer curtain

The Wee Saints, Sophie's class at Holy House, made these today.  Yes, there are real worms inside.  Lots of them.  Sophie is so excited about her new pets.  She learned all about how to care for them and has insisted that I not feed them meat or anything that has to be cooked.  When I expressed concern about the whole apple she was about to put in with the dirt and worms, she said, "but Mom, worms always eat through apples".  Good point.  For now though, our worms are eating grass.  

Grace helped Sophie decorate the outside of her habitat after school today.  They pulled out a slew of craft supplies and went at it working together the whole time.  I was so busy basking in the peace of children loving each other so well that I didn't notice the glitter and glue all over the floor and table until later.  The final product was a perfect decoration for Sophie's dresser.  Worm art.  Who knew?

It's Monday...

...and I have quite a bit of ground to cover since my last montage post.

FIRST--Casa Doyle's makeover

Chris and I spent about two months researching and deciding on carpet.  We considered all different kinds and colors and spoke with sales people at several places.  I brought home panel after panel of carpet swatches before we finally made a decision.  

BEFORE:

AFTER

The carpet is a low pile frieze.  I've never had frieze and it's definitely a different look than your standard plush carpet.  It's more broken-in looking and makes more of a statement.  We all really like it.  AND, it's comfortable to get down, roll around and play on--a very important feature of any bedroom floor for our gang.

We had our first Doyle dame piano concert of the year.  After dinner Friday night, the girls got gussied up, chose two songs each and performed.  Mia started us off with America before she played her two other pieces.  Sophie is new to piano lessons but has already stolen Miss Lita's heart for being so quick to pick things up.  As for me, I'm trying to take a page out of Tiger Mom's book and raise the bar in terms of practice times and mastery of songs.  I am also enjoying the beautiful live music I hear daily.  Piano has definitely been one of the best investments we've made as a family.

In other activity news--Grace took her first horseback riding lesson

I wasn't sure what to expect but Grace's instructor Kim is terrific and if Grace sticks with it, she will be learning to saddle and care for the horse before and after her lesson as well as riding.  She loved it and I came home wanting to find a way to pay for lessons for all the girls.  And buy a horse or two some day.  I'm still thinking....

Jes gave us this CD right before we made the trip back from VA.  We had only packed about five other CDs so Wicked got a lot of play.  Or a few special songs got played.  Or maybe just two songs.  I know every word to Popular and Defying Gravity.  I mention this because, back home, we moved on to other musicals.  We watched The Sound of Music and then listened to the sound track, and Mommy singing the sound track, and Madeleine singing the sound track, over and over.  Even better, I brought the Camelot sound track along on a long car ride a week ago and told the girls the story between songs.  I was truly in heaven.  The only thing I love more than musicals is sharing them with my babes.

It's been fun going to the mailbox lately.  These are some of the post cards we've received from my mom and dad who are off camping across country braving bears and bandits and having a ball.  I love it.  I think they are very cool and quite a bit braver than I am.  I would enjoy driving from one rather nice hotel to the next....Actually, we will be camping with them for a few days when we meet in Kansas in October.  I have been a bit stressed because the timing is not very convenient.  So many things to do.  I think this is a time to be a Mary instead of a Martha though.  I want to share a bit of their adventure and see them out of their roles as dueños of Camp Kreitzer.  (You should have seen them in Spain :)

One of the children who shall remain nameless spoke disrespectfully to me in front of her dad.  He issued sentences.  I got a bit scared when I saw them later.  What do you think a "resect-ion" feels like?

Madeleine and Mia are taking photography at our home school schools (oxymoron?) this fall.  Madeleine has been playing with the aperture priority mode.  We like this pic.

And last but not least--we saw Toy Story 3 outside in the middle of Kingwood Saturday night. It had been a long day for all of us.  I went to a women's day of reflection downtown with a friend of mine arriving home at 5:00 PM, Chris escorted the girls to a three hour birthday party and Madeleine worked for Grandpa Doyle all afternoon.  I would have been happy to stay home.  The kids would not and were looking forward to seeing Woody on the big big screen so off we went.

Wrapping up another Monday.....

Goodbye for now from five Doyle dolls and one very smily dude named Alex!

She's Got the Whole World

Grace's homework last week was to make an earth with a figure of herself standing on Texas. I brushed up on my paper maché skills and Chris helped with the painting.  The finished product was out of this world :)

More news of the seven Doyles coming soon!

Children Are God's Greatest Gift

What a week.  So many firsts.  Wednesday was our first day at Holy House, the home school academy we have partnered with for the year.  Friday, Chris and I experienced new carpet installation for the first time.  And this morning, Sophie sang in the choir for the very first time.  She insisted she didn't want to do it, wouldn't do it, no way.  But--she loved it.  And has been singing her choir songs all day.
A blogging friend of mine wrote a post recently about babies and the painful experience of the winding down of child bearing years.  I loved the post for the value it placed on babies.  Really--under what circumstances wouldn't we want more of something good?  And what could be better than another baby?  Nothing.  Absolutely nothing.
On a related note, I purchased Christmas cards the other day.  It's been a long time since I bought a real folding card with a picture and a message but I liked this one a lot.  The cover has a beautiful church on it and toward the bottom of the card, three children are playing in the snow.  Later, as I was showing the cards to Chris, I turned them over to see a phrase in italics on the back cover "Children Are God's Greatest Gift".  Perfect.


A few pics of our gifts:

At Our Lady of Walsingham

SRD First day of Kindergarten

 the pose was Mia's idea

 Grace wanted to try it

Sister love

Have a great week everyone!

American

In my last post, I mentioned an interesting conversation I had with Sherrie, my hairdresser of several years.  First though, I have to say, I hate getting my hair done.  Way back in my twenties, I started getting it highlighted.  In all its natural glory, my hair is a very dull and unflattering shade of brown.  Some might call it "mousy" but I think mice are cute and my hair color definitely isn't that.  So coloring it is a necessary evil on the way to that elusive thing called "beauty".  Getting my hair highlighted, cut and blow-dried takes at least two and a half hours.  The results are nice but the chair time is pure torture, worse if the stylist is either not fun to talk to or uses me as a therapist as one short-lived stylist did.  I truly felt like she was a guest on Jerry Springer and, while I tried to give helpful advice, I could see right away that it was a lost cause.  The clincher was when she dribbled hair gunk on my shirt that bleached the color out of the sleeve.
So--I moved on to Sherrie who is cheerful, attractive, nice to talk to and does a consistently good job on my hair.  She is also from Iran.  That comes up occasionally.  I find her stories about life in Iran fascinating.  One time she told me that the penalties for crimes like stealing are so stiff that shops are left wide open in the middle of the day as people go to pray.  Alcohol is illegal.  If a person is caught with it, the consequence is serious jail time.  Even so, citizens, including her brother, make their own wine at home.  Last week, we talked about 9/11.  I asked her if it had a big impact on her.  She shot me a look and said that people here called her and her family "murderers".  She said that it was hard to explain to her son but as an adult, she managed to cope.  She mentioned Timothy McVeigh and said that the fact that he did the unthinkable, didn't make Americans in general murderers.  Of course, the unfortunate thing is that Timothy McVeigh's actions did bring shame on all of America just as the pilots on 9/11 put all Muslims under a cloud of suspicion.  It's unfair in some ways but is understandable all the same.
I next asked Sherrie about the capture of Osama Bin Laden.  She said, "killing was too good for him.  They should have tortured him first.  Men like that, it's like they have a devil in them."  I didn't know quite what to say to that.
In a related conversation a few days later, Mia asked me, "Mom, why is September 11th sad?"  Mia, like the babies of many killed that day, was on the way when it happened.  So I told her and her younger sisters about the planes, the three that hit the towers and the Pentagon and the one that went down in the field.  They asked a few questions and we moved on with our day.  That night, Grace said to Chris, "Daddy, the people on that plane were really nice"--she meant Flight 93.  "Nice".  Not quite adequate.  But it wasn't lost on me that the girls focused on the "nice", the good, the heroic.  The very things that won the day.  How very American of them.

God bless the USA!

Montage Monday

It's Monday.  Time for some random photos, including a couple from my phone.  I'm starting to appreciate the wonder of the phone camera to truly have 24/7 coverage for those once in a lifetime, unexpected moments.

Like corralling Ella in a shopping bag at Ikea

Or catching Grace hugging on "Mocha" at the music school (she's rarely been without her since she got her)

Photo by Sophie's Super Friday teacher.  Here, Sophie is pretending to be a sloth.  We were so proud of our girl--the only girl in the class who could do it without a helper holding her up.  

Big girl Ella ready to join the "Terrifc Threes" at Super Friday.

Mia is taking photography at Super Friday and has jurisdiction over my Nikon for the morning.  This is one of about 25 car photos she shot on the way home.

We hosted a TEAMS meeting Friday night.  Chris set the girls up in Mia and Grace's room with a TV and a few movies.  So cozy, no?

New boots for Grace

From Grandpa Doyle

He's as excited as she is about her upcoming lessons.

Grace chose this Dolly and me dress set on her outing with me.  She chose McDonald's for lunch.  I remember when I would have chosen exactly the same thing.

Photo of the whole gang at the afternoon tea the Credeur girls gave Grace as her birthday gift.  It was more like an elaborate party and she loved every minute.

And finally, I got a haircut this week.  It keeps getting shorter.  This may be my limit though.  I had a wonderful conversation with Sherrie, my hairdresser.  More on that later.

That's a wrap.  All in all, a pretty fine week.  

Hope yours is off to a good start.

Bragging on my Guy

So this is a kind of a brag post.  Consider this your warning to stop reading now if those kinds of things make you choke on your coffee.
First off, for the last month or so, more or less since we've been back from Virginia, I've been down, bummed, depressed, you name it.  It probably has something to do with all of the people we know who are in a lot of pain.  We've heard about everything from job losses and all kinds of financial sufferings to illnesses to the loss of homes in fire.  Then there are the visual reminders of our state's desperate need for something we cannot ourselves provide as our water is rationed and the trees die all around us.  Everywhere, people seem to be standing, hands raised, yearning for drops of blessing from above.  As I wait though, it is Chris who is a blessing.  He loves me in a very tangible way and I couldn't write one more word tonight without thanking him and reminding myself to be a blessing right back to him.

Things Chris has done for me lately:

*Took the kids to and from Super Friday so that I'd have a nice chunk of uninterrupted time
*Spent a Saturday cleaning out a long joint closet in our room, including organizing all of my shoes while I enjoyed time with Grace, the recent birthday girl
*Did not give me a hard time for the very large number of shoes I own that take up a very large amount of our joint closet (Mia gleefully counted 49 pairs--excessive for sure)
*Told me I look fine (he does that a lot really but I never get tired of it--and I try not to let it go to my head :)
*Spent an evening helping me with a Frodo Seven IT issue.  It was something I'd been trying to fix for awhile and couldn't have done without him.
*Encouraged me to buy my own domain name for a new blog dedicated to my writing projects.  He sat and participated in the whole exciting process.
*Read the girls an article about a firefighter, father of five, who lost his life on 9-11.  His voice wobbled and though the younger girls didn't notice, I was truly inspired by this guy I married.  Chris is solid.  He too would have gone back out at the end of his shift humping 75 pounds of gear, willing to lose his life.  I know him.

Marriage is such a funny thing.  You never master it.  It's like a circle spreading constantly outward.  The more you progress and learn, the greater the surface area, the more unknown, the more work there is to do.  I think that Chris and I are like most couples.  We have the ups and downs and ins and outs of life.  At our core though is the seriousness with which we took--and take--our vows.  Embracing the whole ideal of Catholic marriage is an awesome task and yet so very worth it.  God keeps His promises to those who are faithful to theirs.  I consider Chris a gift I don't humanly deserve but his goodness to me, his love, is a tangible proof of God's unconditional love.  Sometimes I feel like God is winking at me saying, "you never dreamed this did you?"  I really didn't.

More Adventures in Potty Training

Yes--Ella is officially potty trained.  I have given away all of the diapers and re-purposed all of the wet wipes.  She is even pull-up free at bedtime and is almost always dry in the AM (good thing since she is often in bed next to her mama).   It was slow going at first and we fought through a few nights of wet sheets because I was determined to avoid the crutch of the night-time diaper and knew Ella could do it.  Since being trained, Ella has been found wearing bloomers as panties, going sans panty and once, wearing Mia's panties (Mia was not happy but loves Ella enough not to fuss too much).
Congratulations to Ella and welcome to club big girl!!

Celebrate Good Times: The Rest of the Story

Here she is, radiant in rainbow*

So, Grace has been planning her big day for awhile now.  At least since VA when we had a little pre-birthday, throw-her-in-the-pool party with cousin/ triplet Zack.  Back in Texas, Grandpa Doyle made her a birthday countdown sheet.  Chris made her another when that one got wet or lost or something.

"Take 1" of the birthday pic.  Forever the comedian.

preparing for the big surprise

someone put Ella under the pillows ("No one puts Baby in the corner")

her cry for help

get ready....

The big moment--check out Grace's response:

The poor guests had been hiding and waiting fifteen + minutes when Chris and Grace finally pulled up. Fortunately we had a very fun next activity ready to go.

So, I cheated and bought an online ready-made treasure hunt.  It was well worth the bucks because the clues were more like riddles--something the girls really got into this summer.  It was fun and had them thinking a lot too.  They found a package with pretty necklaces to wear to dinner.

It's a wonder Ella can walk

almost to victory

we played charades after a lasagna dinner

"sounds like"

prepping the cake

a "G" for our "G"

 I had a really hard time with Grace's gift this year.  For awhile, an American Girl Doll was high on the list but that didn't seem like a good fit.  Then one morning, Grace turned to me and said, "I know what I want for my birthday.  Horseback riding lessons."  I thought that was a sensible thing to ask for--an experience rather than another thing to clutter up their floor.  So, I called around and we have a plan.  I am very excited to be there with her, camera in hand, enjoying the horses and the country feel.

The next day--enjoying some of the loot

one gift is still to come--our neighbors invited her to a tea party this Saturday

They asked me to play Alice.  Shouldn't be too difficult though I am in need of a blue dress....

Is this not amazing artwork?  It's courtesy of neighbor brother, Matthew C, grade six

Whew!  Another birthday down.  And, guess what I found out today.....Grace does like chocolate cake she just wasn't in the mood last night.  I felt much better when I saw all the chocolate around her mouth and on her shirt after dinner tonight!  Doyle Dame number five knows she's next and is already planning....   :)

Happy celebrations to all!

*rainbows remind me so much of Grace.  They are cheerful like her and they are symbolic.  Whenever we see a rainbow, I try to remind the kids that "God keeps His promises".  The word "promise" is important to me for many reasons when it comes to G.  I loved her rainbow party.