Good Friday

Well two out of the three items on my list for today were accomplished. I suppose that's not too bad.

We started the morning off with breakfast, cleaning, and a bit of school before we headed to gym. The kids have been begging to go all week and it hasn't worked out. Nothing says "let's workout" like a mandatory day of fasting. Actually, it was surprisingly easy, first I ran a mile, the I did push-up, bench presses, rows, and some abs before moving to squats. I was feeling surprisingly great until I did my last few squats. Oh, good grief. Calorie tank empty.

The kids and I headed home for our Good Friday Tea. Very simple this year.

Rooster is sad in this picture because he has to wait three minutes before he gets to eat. Instead of picking up the 200 hundred crayons he threw all over the homeschool room he instead colored marker all over himself, King, and the table. Sigh.

Water bowl for washing our hands like Pontius Pilate.

Bean Dip for Kings Crown

  

Balsalmic Glaze for Vinegar. Rooster and King loved this stuff. 

100 Cherry tomatoes for the 100 Centurians.

Crown of thorns. 

Cheese cut in cubes for the lots cast for Jesus' clothing. 

Eggs as "skulls"for Golgotha. 

Napkins to be torn in two. 

I'd be lying if I told you that everything went smoothy on Good Friday. We survived though.  

Holy Triduum

I've tried writing this post at least seven times now. Time is flying by!

Yesterday was Holy Thursday. It started unconventionally with the kids having their first doctors appointments in over a year and a half. (Some, even longer than that) The appointments were at 8:30am. A forty-minute drive away, and it sleeted here the night before and snowed four inches where the clinic is. Oh, brother. I braced myself for the worst. We survived! Even better, the kids are all healthy as suspected. Eyes and ears are great. And every child (other than King who goes in with Mama on Monday) was 90th for height, and 50th for weight. They are truly Daousts.

Late afternoon I started getting ready for our 3rd (?) annual Holy Thursday Tea. This year we were having it for dinner. It worked out really well. I found a great combination of symbols to make dinner easy, yet tasty. In case you have forgotten 95% of what I do I find somewhere on the internet and if its Catholic, I probably found it at showerofroses. Mr. Sloth read an abridged version of the Holy Thursday account from the Bible as we started to eat. Then Demand read all of the cards explaining the symbolism of the food. It was great having the kids join in the conversion and share what they knew about the Passion account.

Here's the layout for dinner. The tablescape just kind of came together on its own and looked lovely if I do say so myself. The green cards and napkins were used because Holy Thursday is also known as "Green Thursday".

Gethsemane Figs. Figs were among the fruits growing the Garden of Gethsemane.

Spinach for Palms.

Chicken salad. Wow that does not photograph well. It was tasty though, especially for improv chicken salad as Mr. Sloth had accidentally told Grandma to feed the kids the chicken deli slices I was saving.

Trail mix of almonds, pumpkin seeds, and sunflower seeds in the shape of tear drops of St. Peter.

Whipped cream for clouds. Note: Do not plate whipped cream too early before dinner or it will be cream soup when it's time to eat.

Strawberries for kisses. Sadly I think the kids like 'Judas' kiss' the most.

30 Rice crackers (yes I counted) for the 30 pieces of silver paid to betray Jesus.

Tortillas for unleavened bread. We made wraps with the tortillas, chicken salad, and spinach. How convenient is that?

Olive oil for costly oil and Mr. of Olives. Um.......I had nothing to put this on. I bought it like the last few years but the last few years we had pieta bread. Oh, well we'll use on Good Friday.

"Sleepytime Tea" for the 12 Apostles that fell asleep. Even though the Apostles most like fell asleep from the copious amounts of wine drank at the Passover meal, we went with tea for the kids. They didn't like it much. But my Grandmothers tea set made a rare appearance and the green in the pattern looked pretty with the rest of the table.

                  

Finally our center piece was our crown of thorns and green votive candle. An hour before dinner I got the idea to rolls the toothpicks on an ink pad to die them. I'd been forgotten to die them all season. It worked very quickly but I had suspiciously black finger tips for Holy Thursday Mass. 

Mr. Sloth had wanted one of us to take the older two to Holy Thursday Mass but I wanted all of us to go so I convinced him that I would stay in the back with King so we could all go. Again, we survived, and it wasn't as bad as we thought it would be. I'm assuming it was a nice Mass. I never stepped foot inside the sanctuary and spent some of my time three lobbies away with Mr. Chatterbox. But I got Communion! Yippee! I wouldn't have gotten that if I had stayed home.

Good Friday-Good Friday Symbolic Tea with the kids for lunch. At 2pm I hope do an interactive Stations of the Cross with the kids at home. For bread and Broccoli Cheddar Soup.

Holy Saturday-Cleaning the house, prepping food, etc

 Easter Sunday- 8:30am Mass, home to find Easter baskets, brunch, Easter Egg hunt, naps, fun, dinner at Grandmas. I already have all the Easter Eggs filled and baskets and bikes assembled.  Did I mention the kids were getting bikes for Easter? We've never bought them bikes and they have seriously out grown theirs. Buying and hiding bikes for three kids is quite a tricky business I tell ya. Especially when you have no basement storage or attic.

Have a Blessed Good Friday!

Spring Cleaning

I believe this is my third year during 40 bags in 40 days during Lent. This is by far the best year for actually getting rid of stuff. So many times throughout the year I think, "Oh, I'll totally get rid of this during Lent." Then I either forget or change my mind. Thankfully my motivation to get things out of the house has stayed strong this Lenten season. 

I've been doing so much purging I haven't really been counting but here is what I have done that I can recall. 

4 bags (my bag is a paper bag)  to charity

4 bags of garbage

1 box spring mattress

4 more bags for charity to be dropped off today

1 duvet to be sent to my friend

1 bag of clothes for my nephew

In the garage I have a number of items but we are waiting for warmer weather (if it ever blesses us). 

So in the garage I have, 

1 car seat

1 double sit/stand stroller

2 bikes

1 framed picture

3 Ikea mirrors

I know we have more in the garage as our third stall is full of nonsense we just need to get rid of once it's warmer outside.  But another exciting part of this adventure is the cleaning and organizing I've been doing. Purging is a gateway drug to organizing for me. Get read it's about to get awesome in here! 

While browsing on a few of my favorite organizing/cleaning blogs I became inspired to clean a few appliances around the house.  I have tried everything on our oven door. I can clean the oven no problem but nothing could clean the door. On a whim I mixed up my tried and true solution of baking soda, original Dawn, and enough vinegar to make a paste. Then I thought I would try a spinerette that Mr. Sloth ordered from Norwex. He uses it on his cast iron pans so I never really use it.  Oh. My. Goodness. I am in love.  I am head over heels in love with this spinerette. Look at the results ! 

Before 

After 

Mind. Blown. 

So then I thought what else can this do....hmmm. Turns out it's great amazing wonderful MIRACULOUS for hard water stains. We literally have the highest hard water that is allowed. For years I have felt like less of a homemaker because I just couldn't get rid of hard water stains no matter how hard I tried or what research I did. Vinegar. Nope. Lemon juice. Nope. Salt. Nope. Limeaway. Nope. But this spinerette. Be still my beating heart. 

I apologize. I didn't take any pictures because I was on a scrubbing bender. I did all the faucets in the house (five of them), all the drain plugs and then....and then I did the shower doors. My cleaning nemesis. I felt like David conquering Goliath with one small stone. "VICTORY IS MINE!!"

O.K. Enough of my cleaning love story. On to other projects. If you desire a front load washer and dryer I encourage you just do your research. I won't go into the details but the washer has some problems. If you recall we have really hard water, hence the stains below.  Iheartorganizing has instructions for cleaning appliances. This is also where I learned about "washing soda". Turns out,  little science lesson here,  when baking soda is heated it releases carbon dioxide. Which of course is what make cookies rise, ah-ha! It also changes the chemical make up of the baking soda. If you put baking soda in with your clothes it acts as a fabric softener, but if you add washing soda it acts as a WATER softener. Ah-ha!  You can follow her instructions if you want but basically it involves running the washer a few times with combinations of vinegar and washing soda then wiping it down. 

Before

After

Ta-da!

Next while I was purging through my kitchen, I decided to go through and reorganizing the spice drawer as I was throwing out old spices. 

Before

After

I even had a rare splash of creativity and decided to add a decrative bowl to hold our garlic. 

Here are two bonus pictures for you! I needed to take Demands picture for a First Communion project. For the first time EVER she looked at the camera!! Yeah!!

If I want Rooster to go down for a nap peacefully I usually lay down with him. I'm usually asleep first but I wake up and sneak out to get some afternoon school work done while he's still asleep. I woke up and found he had fallen asleep like this. Isn't he cute?  It's not the first time he's fallen asleep like this either, just like his grandpa. 

Next post I'll continue with our spring cleaning and fill you in on our Holy Week and Easter plans!

Mardi Gras & Ash Wednesday

Since we weren't doing a Mardi Gras party this year I thought I would surprise the kids with strawberry crepes for breakfast in honor of "Pancake Tuesday". My efforts were under-apprecitated. The boys turned their noses up. At one point Happy said, "I don't want to eat the tortilla". 

Sigh. 

Demand and Mr. Sloth enjoyed the crepes though.

The boys did enjoy the strawberries and whipped cream. 

I didn't realize how packed out day would be. After breakfast we dashed to get ready for Good Shepard. With the kids at class I had the perfect amount of time to head to our favorite religious goods store and look for some Lenten books. I found the Lenten equivalent of my favorite Fulton Sheen Advent book. I can't wait to read it. Plus I found two more I've been meaning to read.

In honor of Fat Tuesday I treated the kids to Panera for lunch. I can't remember the last time we had take out for lunch. 

This first picture is more for the background shot of Rooster. 

Ah. That's better. 

Happy always has a silly face to share. 

King thinks his siblings are silly. 

So he joins in on the fun. 

After lunch and nap time it was time to get ready for date night.  I had to pick up our babysitters on the other side of town before heading to fundraiser banquet with a number of friends.  After dinner we were able to head out on our own. I tried taking a picture of us but Mr. Sloth doesn't do pictures but here is his handsome shoulder. 

When the clock struck 10pm I remembered how sick I was. I kicked off my glass slippers and went to bed only to wake up feeling like this. 

Just kidding. That's King throwing a fit because I wont play "What does the fox say?" for the billionth time in a row.  I did wake up rather ill though. Two steps back from the previous days.  Today was all about getting to the end of the day. At one point in the morning I needed to sit on the couch for a while. I needed the kids to be highly entertained for at least a few minutes. 

Hotwheels + gravity= hours of fun

I called Mr. Sloth and canceled dinner. He's picking up frozen pizza for him and the kids and then I'll head to the 7pm Tridentine Mass for Ash Wednesday and then I have every intention of taking some Nyquil and heading to bed in hopes of having this illness over with tomorrow morning. 

I did have time to get one project done today. Our Lenten calendar. Thankfully my procrastination along with my cold paid off. As I was about to start working on the calendar Jessica at Shower of Roses posted hers with all the downloads she made to go with it. What a life saver! So much nicer than I would have done. Mine probably would have been blank with "Long time" scribbles in purple marker at the top. This is more on target I think. 

40 Bags

Mr. Sloth's Silent Retreat has taught us something. We function better without each other.  Mr. Sloth was perfectly content on his silent retreat. It was not a problem for him to be without company or distractions. In fact he opted out of all scheduled social time.

On my end. The house was perfectly clean, we were well scheduled and organized and for the most part the children were happy.

If we could only find a way to have him live as a hermit while earning an income we'd be all set. Until then we are stuck with each other.

I have a little bit of a cold still but I'm trying to stay focused. It's a big week with Lent starting! Today is Mardi Gras and while I have done a lot in the past it's going to be low key today. Maybe a few treats along the way. We are having strawberry crepes for breakfast to start. Kids can't be too disappointed, right?


Yesterday I started  40 bags for 40 days. I'd like to be done before Holy Week so we can spend time doing other activities/projects then.  I'm going to start with closets  but here's my list of places to purge.

Master closet
Boys closet
Demands Closet
Coat Closet
Fourth Bedroom closet
Master dressers
Boys dressers
Demands dresser
Kings clothes
Playroom toys
Bedroom toys
Pantry
Kitchen cupboards & drawers
Bathroom Cupboards & drawers
Fourth bedroom (that should take a week)
Homeschool Room
Last but not least the Garage. I'll do that last since it's so incredibly cold outside. But honestly I could easily find 40 items to get rid of in there.

I started with the boys closet.  It's long been on my list to organize this closet and add a few shelves. Plus I have a dresser in the garage that I started painting last spring! All of their shirts get hung up. That tupperware has their pants....until I repaint their dresser in the garage. Then in the white dresser, one drawer has their underwear and the other their jammies. Notice the missing drawer? Obscure is fixing it for me and had been for four years.

I pulled all the shirts out of the closet. Then began the great sort and purge. Three different sizes were to stay. 3T, 4T, and 5T. All 2T clothes got pulled for storage. Although I wouldn't be surprised if I'm digging them out soon for King.  Mr. Sloth helped me with the final purge after dinner. I told asked him to help me do the forty bag challenge this year.  He is more than happy to help get rid of things. 

He's a hermit remember. 

In the end I am only getting rid of one bag of boys shirts but its hard when I have three boys in a row. Probably another two bags were pulled for storage (I did their underwear drawer too)  so the closet should be thinner now. Today I'll do their pants and start in on our closet. That's where I will really need moral support.

Bonus pictures of King in the bathtub. He woke up literally soaking wet all the way to his socks so he took a quick dip when he woke up. 

He seemed to like taking a  bath by himself and not having to box out for play space. 

Today is Mardi Gras. I'm about to make some Strawberry Crepes for this "Pancake Tuesday" then take the kids to Good Shepard and maybe surprise them with take out for lunch for Fat Tuesday. We'll see how I'm feeling though. Hopefully we'll get some purging and school done, as well as some final Lenten preparations done before Mr. Sloth and I head to a banquet tonight. DATE NIGHT!!

Day 4

So after watching the kids for four days and having a fever, I get whatever I want, right?

Na. I can't do it. I can't play cards. Besides when Mr. Sloth came home the house was perfectly clean, the kids were bathed and I was wrestling the boys while we had a movie night.  Even though I had a fever clearly I wasn't that sick.

I do want take out though.

Here is how today played out.

I woke up this morning and realized whoops I put my earplugs in out of habit last night. Well I don't know about the kids but I had a great night sleep. I decided to "sleep in" until 6:30am. My cuddle bug Rooster joined me at 6am.  I turned on Disney Jr. for the older kids while I got ready for Mass. Then I ironed the kids clothes and brought them downstairs for them to dress. Their reward. A granola bar.  I eventually had to wake King up. He was tuckered out last night. Thankfully he wakes up happy all the time. I love that kid.

Things were good. I was patient. Kids were compliant. I thought this Mass thing might just happen.


Not so much.


Our routine is to get to Mass ten minutes early and while I hang coats up Mr. Sloth takes all the kids to bathroom to cut down on bathroom trips during Mass. Clearly I didn't have Mr. Sloth today. As I hung up coats King bolted. I asked Demand to trail him but she just stood there. Turns out he saw his Wednesday night care taker who also happened to be a reader today and therefore a part of the procession so Mr. L brought him back to me.

First embarrassing moment.


I attempted again to hang the coats up. Again King bolted. This time Rooster went after him and when Rooster goes after you, you stop. All I know is I came around the corner to find our pastor who is not so much kid friendly (God Bless him) stopping a fight between King and Rooster and trying to keep King from screaming.  Clearly he doesn't deal with one year olds very much.

Oh, brother this is going to be fun.

So at this point I assume that everyone has used the bathroom and is ready to head into Mass.

Nope.

I may never know what they were doing in the bathroom all that time but it wasn't using apparently using it.  So I spent the next 10 minutes supervising bathroom usage. (Have you done the math yet? Yes Mass has started.)

Finally we were on our way. I'm not ashamed to say that we have quite the relationship with our ushers. They know and expect our needs and we appreciate that.  They may no have known where Mr. Sloth was but when I motioned that we would just head to the cry room they told us they had a spot in back for us. Good call.

I should have taken the cry room.

I didn't realize it at the time but Rooster is having a hard time without Mr. Sloth. He was a naughty thing. Constantly sticking his tongue in peoples faces being squirrely. It was rough. Then there's King. I almost always spend the Mass in the lobby with that guy.  By the end of Mass I had taken away every right a mother could think of it was a rough go. Somehow though everyone got a doughnut however there were consequences when we got home.

Everyone was sent to their bed until breakfast was ready.

That was the only real low point of the weekend though.

Things looked up after that. We had a lovely breakfast and then we cleaned up a bit before nap time. Nap time was glorious. I laid down with Rooster. I realized he needed some parental cuddle time. I love my little cuddle bug.  I was out for two hours. King went to sleep just fine no fight or screaming today. And remember, I have a cold....did I tell you I woke up with a fever. Yeah.......

After naps it was a bit more cleaning up before dinner and then I told the kids they would take baths, get jammies on and we could watch a movie with popcorn.

Almost there!!! Mr. Sloth is almost home!!

Halfway through the movie I realized the boys needed a good old fashioned wrestling.  Then I realized I had missed a call from MR SLOTH! He was done and on his way home. Yippee!!

He came home and put the kids to bed...blah,blah,blah, I don't know I took a bath. Now he is out retrieving take out for me.

Feels good. :)

Day 3-Part 2

Day three is over. At least I think it was day three. I have a head cold remember.

Here was my list of activities I wanted to accomplish yesterday

Morning plan

-breakfast
-everyone dressed, etc
-start laundry (probably Happy's sheets)
-pick up babysitter for the morning.
-continue cleaning/organizing
-lunch
-return babysitter
-head to Sam's club
-home for quiet hour (I might do school with the kids or give the playroom a good cleaning and start in on the fourth bedroom)

Afternoon


-After naps I'm planning on taking the kids to the Science Museum as a treat.
-home for dinner. I'm not sure what we are having but I have a running list of all the items we have that the kids enjoy so we must have some food.
-baths
-lay out clothes for Church
-books
-prayers

Pretty good over all. A few hiccups along the way like the fact that going to Sam's Club at 1pm on a Saturday in -0 temperatures is an inner most ring of hell. Thank goodness I brought the babysitter with me and I'm glad I went but it was miserable. You have to park miles away. I'm actually convinced that they have fake cars just taking up spaces. An apparently retail stores are not allowed to plow their parking lots but instead leave inches of snow to turn to a bump ice obstacle course with a layer of slush for good fun. 

We survived though. After I dropped off the sitter it was time for naps. Or so I thought. King as I mentioned before has suddenly started rejecting his naps. He screamed for over an hour. An hour that was supposed to be my break but I also was trying to get Rooster to sleep as well. It's bad enough that King didn't nap but we were heading out for the Science Museum and pizza after naps. We survived though Obscure came over and helped me take the kids out for pizza and then to the museum. He even bought me fresh squeezed grapefruit juice for my throat. It was so yummy!

Here are some pictures from our evening. 

King enjoying some chocolate milk at our favorite pizza place, Cossetta's

Rooster trying to cut up his large slice of pizza.

Happy showing us how it's done. 

Here's a picture from the Science Museum. King is learning how to wash dishes. No water thankfully. 

Rooster learning about sound waves. 

Demand exploring with light and shadows. 

I'll save my Sunday morning adventure stories for my next post but today my only plans are to survive until 9pm. Keep the house as clean as it has been. Clean the homeschool room and playroom. Plus King dumped a whole bottle of milk on the carpet in the play room so I have to steam clean that up.  I over course plan to nap and if the kids let me I'll cuddle up with two books about keeping a home up and running. I'll start to re-read  "Large Family Logistics" which I own and then start "The Well Ordered Home" which I borrowed from the library.  

Eight and a half more hours to go!