The Mac and Cheese Chronicles

Gone Fishing

April 25, 2011
Lorri
One Comment
Blogging Away

Boo is home.

We have house guests (6 children and a mom!!).

We all attended the Easter Vigil mass where it snowed on our Paschal fire. The next day we woke to about an inch of snow on the ground and later it snowed during dinner. We had an indoor egg hunt (9 children running amok!!) and gorged on yummy baked goods, ham and scalloped potatoes. The children played board games and Wii. Our guests talked to their dad via Skype from Afghanistan. A good time was had by all. We are blessed to have such good friends.

So while I enjoy our company, I’m on a bloggy break. See you soon…

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H is for

Hat! Soccer hat, specifically.

I have actually managed to squeeze in a little knitting here and there. It took me 2 weeks, but I made a hat for Boo that matches his soccer uniform. He plays in a club that has the same uniforms every year, so no need to make him a new one every season.

Spring soccer in Colorado is a chilly affair. As I type it is 52 degrees and falling, and soccer practice is still an hour away. Last year we had a game canceled because the snow from earlier in the week had made the field too wet. I think that was in April.

I send the boys to their games and practices with hats, sweatshirts, and even gloves. I keep telling them that suffering breeds character.

This is another hat from The Knitter’s Handy Book of Patterns. Just a basic K2P2 rib for 2 inches, knit until it fits, decrease evenly and finish. I like to reference the book for the exact numbers to cast on based on the yarn I’m using, the needles I have available and my gauge.

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There Goes My Baby

April 15, 2011
Lorri
One Comment
Adventures

Boo is on this ship, sailing out of Pearl Harbor. They left about an hour ago. He’s just gotten so out of hand with his adolescent self that we made him join the Navy. I’ll miss him.

Actually, he’s on a tiger cruise, courtesy of my friend Shanti, who commands said vessel. I figured that since the Navy trusts her with a ship, I can trust her with my boy. Even though he’ll probably talk her ear off.

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Naughty

April 12, 2011
Lorri
2 Comments
All About Me

Yesterday I bought new sunglasses.

Aren’t I cute?

I wore them out of the store since my old ones were broken. When I got to my car I realized that the little vinyl sticker with the brand name was still on the lens. I peeled it off and stuck it to the window of the car next to me.

(click on the picture to see it better.)

I wonder how long it’ll take them to find it.

I also wonder what gets into me sometimes.

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G is for…

Games!

This one is Carcassonne.

Our family enjoys playing board/card games together. Candy Land, Settlers of Catan, Uno, Blink, Clue and Right, Left, Center are some of our favorites, along with Carcassonne. We just started playing Apples to Apples, too. We found a Disney edition for our RV trip and we all had fun with it. Oh, Disney Scene It, too. Pumpkin Girl and I are almost unbeatable on a team together with Disney Scene It.

We try make sure we play games for Bip’s age level as often as we play games for older children. He loves the Pooh Bear Uno game our Aunt Peggy gave him! When we play games that are a bit too old for him, we let him be on a “team” with someone else, usually a parent. That way he gets to play with the family and he’s also learning to play the game in question, too.

What are the games that your family enjoys?

——
Do you have a “G” picture? Post a link in the comments in this post! Haven’t joined me in the Alphabet Project yet? No worries, jump in any time.

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Lookout Rock

I’m always thinking of a ton of things to blog about, but I’m a little sleep deprived these days, so I keep forgetting what they are.

“What are you saying, exactly?”

But when Pumpkin Girl and Bip took me to see “lookout rock”, I remembered to take my camera along.

This hangout of theirs is on the bluff the rises behind the park across the street from our house.

It’s not a difficult climb if you’re young and spry and fairly close to the ground and don’t have a camera banging around your neck. But I did my best, encouraged by Bip saying, “Come on, Mama, it’s easy!”

Here it is, lookout rock.

Perched upon this rock, you can spy on the whole neighborhood and see a good portion of the city.

The rock has fun hiding places, too.

Another close-by rock, in the “spy zone” as the children call it, has a little cave.

You can see our house from up there. I think I should go back and retake this picture with the depth of field reversed. Look at me with my photography jargon! It means with the house in focus and the tree branches blurred.

We think it’s a perfect place to play!

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One of Those Days

March 31, 2011
Lorri
One Comment
Family Life

Yesterday was just one of those days.

We needed to be four places at once and with only two drivers, that just wasn’t going to happen. We blew off one activity this week – next time that will be the one we go to- and packed up dinner to go and loaded a ballerina, a soccer player, a baby and mom in one car, and another soccer player and dad in another. Away we went, waving to each other as we all pulled out of the driveway.

Soccer practice was cold. 53 degrees is actually fairly mild after a long winter, except the sun was going down and the wind was howling. Pumpkin Girl and I managed to get a blanket laid out on the very dead grass and anchored it with bags and water bottles. She attempted to eat her dinner but ended up taking refuge under a tree to prevent dry grass from blowing into her meal. Little Pipsqueak was not happy with the wind in his face so I stood up and turned my back to the wind. He was in my sling and I pulled my coat around him as best I could. Even with my back to the wind my hair was all over my face. I turned my head to look up and then I saw Bip.

His soccer ball had rolled down the hill and into the parking lot and was heading right towards an oncoming car. And Bip was heading right for the ball. I yelled his name.

“Bip! BIP! STOP!”

The driver of the car saw him, or actually probably saw the ball, and stopped. Bip kept right on going and picked up his ball which had come to rest at the car’s bumper.

When he came back, he was sobbing and kept saying, “I’m sorry, Mommy,” over and over again. I held him as best I could with the baby in the sling. Poor Bip wanted to leave. We shoved everything into his soccer bag, told the coach what had happened and left practice 10 minutes early. Bip cried the whole long walk back to the car. He did hear me calling, but thought his ball would be smashed and he’d never see it again. I told him that I was afraid that HE’D be smashed and I’d never see him again.

On the road to the ballet studio, he and I talked about what had happened and what to do next time. I emphasized the importance of obeying. We thanked his guardian angel.

The rest of the evening went without a hitch. Bip sat on my bed to watch “Curious George” until the rest of the family came home. We’re going to learn our lesson and move on.

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A Few Magical Moments

March 26, 2011
Lorri
Adventures
Disney

I still haven’t figured out how to sum up a Disney Cruise in just a couple of posts. I could talk and talk, but I’d probably bore you. So I’ll show you a ton of pictures instead. I hope you don’t mind. I think I’ll split the pictures up into a couple of different posts, though. And now I’m just kind of babbling to make the text line up nicely with that picture on the left. It’s one of the ship’s stacks.

Here’s Bip, with his friends Patches and Whee, looking out of the porthole in our room.

We enjoyed having a porthole this time around. Some of the things we saw (besides the Cubans) included…

this neat boat as the sun set over Key West.

And Mexico…

Every night after dinner we attended the show. Sometimes it was a musical, as only Disney can do them. Other nights it was a variety show. One night it was movie night and we saw “Tangled” in 3D. We hadn’t seen it yet, so we were excited about that. We loved it! Then after the show we’d usually head off to bed. Waiting for us was a towel animal sitting on our bed.

Or just hanging around.

Our room attendant often staged the children’s stuffed animals, too.

Of course, most of the magic happened outside of our room. There were plenty of opportunities to meet our favorite Disney characters, get their autographs and have pictures taken. Everyone has the opportunity to attend one character breakfast during the cruise. Here’s the children with Chip.

Other characters at breakfast were Mickey, Pluto, Goofy and Dale.

The waiters kept us entertained by making hats out of the napkins.

But the best moments happened during chance encounters around the ship. One of our favorite memories from our first cruise was finding Belle sitting and reading by herself in a quiet corner of the ship. This time we found her just walking along. Pumpkin Girl and I were headed to the gift store when we found her. She stopped to chat with Pumpkin, and posed for a picture.

Bip and Philip were meeting up with us at the store, and I was thinking it was too bad they’d missed Belle, when Bip came running in, telling me that Belle was right there in the hallway! She spent a long time talking with him and showed him the book she’d been reading.

He was completely enchanted.

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Perspective

March 24, 2011
Lorri
3 Comments
Faith

Yesterday a homeschooling mom I know online lost her only child in a car accident.

Today a friend of mine, another homeschooling mom, waits as her infant son undergoes 7 hours of open heart surgery.

Somehow, whatever aggravations pop up today will just pale in comparison.

Please pray for these two families. And hug your children, and thank God for the blessings that they are.

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F is for

Fake Flowers

Fake Gerbera daisies, 50% off at Michaels

I’m pretty happy with this picture because I put the camera on manual, set the aperture and got a narrow depth of field. All by myself! After repeating “small number, small depth of field” multiple times, I think I finally got it!

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