Your thoughts on family time...

Last night after dinner my husband and I took turns reading to Lil' Man and then, after his bath, he ran around in his pjs with so much stinkin' energy that I just wanted to plug myself in to him and share some of that same charge!

Paul and I were discussing how nice it is to have family reading time, but Lil' Man want the same 5 books read over and over and it does become slightly monotonous for Paul and I. We were trying to think of other activities we could do together as a family, but its hard because most of the games or ideas we had were just too difficult to get a two year old to go along with. We go hiking and to the park, but evening home are going to become more frequent the bigger I get and the colder Wisconsin becomes! I was thinking about some of the Montessori learning methods, but I am not yet an aficionado on said methods.

After we watched our crazy child "dance" (aka jumping, rolling, bouncing) to a toddler cd, Paul pulled out a remote control helicopter/spaceship thing and let Lil' Man chase that around trying to knock it out of the air. It was fun and cute and I managed to get some fun video footage of my boys playing together.

Soooo, does anyone have any thoughts on evening family activities with a two year old??? I will take any ideas!

In other news, we just discovered that BOTH of our dogs (both of whom my parents have been watching since we can't have them in our apartment) are pregnant!!!! Anyone want a puppy for Christmas (maybe Epiphany)??? Just figured that it couldn't hurt to ask!

Enjoy your Friday and have a wonderful weekend! We are looking forward to our town's Christmas parade on Saturday (who ever heard of a "Christmas" parade before thanksgiving?!?!). :-)

Eternal Song Family in the News

By the way friends, I never posted that an article was run in the Rhode Island Catholic about Paul and I this past summer. Someone mentioned that I should share the link in case anyone wanted to check out the article, so read all about it HERE .

Many thanks to Laura Kilgus from the RI Catholic for this beautiful article and for being such a wonderful and amazing person. I pray that people will find the article inspiring.

A little bit of trucking fun:

This is a picture of me making Christmas dinner (hamburgers with mushrooms) for Paul and I last year at a truck stop in Virginia. It was pouring rain outside, but we were warm, cozy and happy to be together inside. : )

It is so funny to think about how much our lives have changed since last May when we stopped trucking.

This year we will spend our first Christmas at home since we've been married. We will have a loving two year old with us to experience the joy and magic of Christ's birthday. And I will be over 5 months pregnant and waddling around like Mrs. Claus! God is so good!

Good night and God bless, friends!

My Funny Valentine

Recently, my fingers have been itching to do something creative.

The cover of My Life in France inspired me!

I decided to make a St. Valentine's Day pin with Paul and my initals on it.

We have had a slow month of work, so we have been trying to be very careful about our budet.
I looked around Wallyworld and found two sheets of felt for 38 cents each (Each sheet will make at LEAST 10 hearts!), a package of 3 needles and multiple colored thread spools for just under 2 dollars and a package of multi-colored glass seed beads for 1.98. I have pin backs at home.

Not bad, huh?

Here is the finished product. I loved that it only took me minutes to make and cost next to nothing. Big projects overwhelm me sometimes, but this made me feel so good!

My question for you, dear friends, is: do you think that I should add a "C" at the bottom of the heart or would that be overkill?

If so, what color should it be???

TTFN!!!!

How is your New Year?

First order of the day: Many, many thanks to the friends who have recently started reading my lowly little blog!!! Knowing that your reading and receiving your comments really brightens my day. Especially, Merry and B. for reading all my back post and Em for your sweet and much appreciated comment. You all are amazing. Please feel free to let me know if there is any aspect of our crazy truckin' life you are curious about. Or anything else. And feel free to call me out if my ramblings bore you to tears. This post may have just that effect seeing how I just feel like verbalizing my random musings!


Anyhoo, I didn't make any resolutions this year. I figure that the most important resolution in my life is Act of Contrition I make before leaving confession as I "go and sin no more"! Or try my best not to. Did anyone make any resolutions? Anything that wasn't to terribly personal that you'd like to share?


Recently, I have been thinking about all the blessings of this past year and making mental list to remind myself how amazing God is and how even the difficulties are a gift. There are so many things!


When the Blessed Mother appeared to the girls in Garabandal she made a point of expressing that God cares about everything in the girls and villagers lives- even their cows! It seems very child-like, but even adults need to remember how important the little things are.


The headlines today are all about the horrible earthquake that happened in Haiti last night. So many have so little to begin with and then even that little is taken away in the blink of an eye. Please God, bless, protect and strengthen those who are suffering so much!


Who would I be in such circumstances? To those whom much is given much is expected! It is good to ask ourselves often, "Am I doing enough of what is truly important?" I would love to be able to go and do mission work. We will see what God has in store. For now we all must pray, pray, PRAY!


NEWS FLASH! I just decided on my resolution for 2010. I've done this before, but my ramblings have made me realize that this year will be a good year to declutter my life a little more. Not just of physical and material goods (Which I have way too many of!), but as many impediments to my spiritual life as possible.


"So let it be written. So let it be done." -Pharaoh in The Ten Commandments (1956)


On the complete flip side, I was also thinking about some of the fun pop culture stuff that I enjoyed this past year. My favorite CD of the year was the newest Michael Buble cd Crazy Love with the song Haven't Met You Yet. I also loved the movies Confessions of a Shopaholic and Julie Julia. What were some of yours?


Here are a few fun pics from our New Year's Eve Party. Everyone who was anyone was at our house to ring in the New Year and it was a blast!



Cousin Merry looking very His Girl Friday! Love it! She pulls off the 1920's newspaper woman look better than anyone else I know.

Her boyfriend (And my Brother-In-Law! How fun is that???), enjoying the elegant buffet we supplied. :)

Back Massage Train! Toot! Toot! Woot! Woot! I feel sorry for my youngest cousin at the bottom of the pile. You can't see her face, but I'm sure it has a pained expression.

I can't believe were almost half-way through January!?! Let's make it amazing!

Blessed New Year!

We are finally headed home!!! Almost all of my family, a gaggle of cousins and two brothers in law are there waiting for us. They even waited to open all the Christmas presents until we were there to celebrate with them! My family is too wonderful!



We hope to have three whole days home and we will be celebrating Christmas, the New Year and throwing a bridal shower for my baby brothers bride to be (sshhh!!! It's a secret!). Busy,busy, busy- as always. I'll be lucky if I have the chance to run any of the errands that I need to, but its worth it to celebrate with family.



Anyhoo, I just wanted to wish the world a happy, peaceful, Christ-centered new year!!! Be safe!

Walking in a Winter Wonderland

Sleigh bells ring! Are you listening?
In the lane snow is glistening!

Christmas eve was spent in the little town of Summersville Lake, West Virginia. Hubby used to come here when he was in college and has spoken about moving here and opening a wilderness outfitter/ camp.

It was a beautiful snowy evening. Hubby flew his remote control airplane/boat on the thin sheet of ice that the entire lake was covered with. The dogs caused the entire lake to gurrgle by attempting to catch air bubbles trapped below. They were so hyper and had so much fun running through the snow trying to catch the plane.

It was a glorious evening. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves :)










Hope everyone is enjoying the Christmas Octave!

Secret Santa

Hubby and I spend a lot of our time listening to Dave Ramsey. We actually refer to him as Uncle Dave since he gives advice that a family member would.

If you aren't familiar with him you must go to his website and see if there is a radio station near you that plays his radio show. If there isn't you should download his podcasts. Or check out his books from the library.

Dave Ramsey gives the best and most practical advice on money. He is a good Christian who really helps people, even those who know or think they know a lot about how to handle money, to truly change their lives for the better. He's a ROCKSTAR!

During a recent program he was discussing Secret Santas- millionares and billionares from around the country who go out at Christmas time and hand out money to those who are in need, but who keep their identities secret. The stories were amazing and brought tears to my eyes.

Uncle Dave discussed how anyone can be a Secret Santa like these people. This triggered a great conversation between hubby and I about St. Nicholas of Bari, the REAL Santa. St. Nicholas did what these "secret santas" do. He gave to the people who truly needed help.

Not that there is anything wrong with giving gifts to friends and family, but when you think about it that aspect of gift giving seems kind of silly. The people we love know we love them with or with out our gifts and usually don't NEED the things we give them. The people who need gifts are those who need to be reminded that God loves them and is providing for their earthly needs via us, the body of Christ! What better way to celebrate the life of Christ then to spend at least His birthday working with those who are rejected, suffering or just lonely?

My family used to go and sing Christmas carols at our local nursing home and then visit with the people who didn't have any family to visit. Paul has been trying to see if we can find a kitchen to help out at this year (if we can find somewhere to park our rig since we have to work on Christmas day!). There are so many other amazing things that we could do. Even just buying someone a meal. Something, anything! I pray that I have the wisdom to recognize the opportunities in my life to show Christ to others. We really hope to create a family tradition of service when we have children.

Thanks for the reminder Uncle Dave!

Tender Tennessee Christmas

After our cruise, we drove to Gatlinburg Tennessee. We had spent the first part of our honeymoon at my grandparents timeshare there, so it felt as though we were reliving our honeymoon- in reverse.

As a Christmas present to my parents, we had arranged a family getaway at the timeshare. Two of my brothers, two sisters and Paul and I joined my parents. The first morning together there was a pillow fight and plenty of sibling fun. It was so nice to relax and hang out the way we had as kids.

As we left to go to breakfast very early on our first morning together, it began snowing!!! It was so crazy to have a sunburn from laying on the beach one day and then be freezing in the snow the next!

Cutest diner ever! Notice the snow scene painted on the windows? They even had a working jukebox! When I buy my vintage rv this is what I want the dining area to look like!



Pidgeon Forge has a hotel and shopping area called Christmas Place.
The shop filled with Christmas decorations and nativity scenes was amazing. They had a ceiling covered with starlight and a sleigh with santa and the reindeer that was flying through the sky. Around the end of the ceiling there was also a model train chugging along.



Aren't my sisters and husband too cute for words???



My sisters and I love taking silly pictures like this. The fun thing is getting my Dad to get in the picture with us. He's very silly, but he tries to hide it as best he can.

Mom makes the best cookies. I'm sure that she's the real Mrs. Claus!

The view from our balcony at the timeshare was amazing. Mom had mentioned to the woman who checked us in that she was so excited because we haven't had a family vacation like this since before my brother had been deployed and now he and his bride-to-be are going to stay there at the timeshare on their honeymoon! The woman upgraded us as a thank you for my brother protecting our country. Wasn't that sweet?

During my brother's deployment, while Bush was still president, my brother recieved a phone call from the president on Christmas eve thanking him and all the members of the Coast Guard for defending our country. A few weeks later he was invited to have breakfast with President Bush while he was doing a troop tour. Our family is very proud of him!

A funny thing happened on my way to the post office...

Today, two days after THE snow storm, Paul and I walked from a truck stop in New Jersey to a post office to drop of some Christmas cards and to buy more stamps. The snow was up past my knees! We waded through the piles of snow until we made it out to the main road. As we walked along Paul yelled out "LOOK!" and excitedly started following a little field mouse who had popped out from a plowed corner. Poor little thing was desperately trying to find somewhere safe to hide, but couldn't penetrate to wall of snow.

We decided his name is Herald, as in "Hark, the herald," and that he is most definately a Christmas mouse!

He reminded me of the little mouse in the book, If You Take a Mouse to the Movies... a book that I have on our coffee table at home. I know I'm a Dork, but I'm okay with that.

Even though Paul didn't say it out loud, I'm pretty sure that Paul wanted to make Herald his very own pet just to shock people. He's funny that way. But, he bit his tongue and kept silent remembering what happened last time he tried to bring home a mouse.

I know you are saying, "Last time he did WHAT?!?!"

Yes, my husband found a baby mouse in our kayak and put it in his pocket to bring home and show me. He got in the truck and the mouse got out of his pocket. For the next month, despite the fact that I never SAW the little mouse, I found nibbled packets of food and knew Paul's little friend was still with us.

Luckily, we soon traded our truck in for a new one.

As we walked back to the truck stop, my dearest, ever-loving husband decided to push me into a mountain of snow. I must say that it was very fun. I pushed him in and he made a lovely snow angel.

Aaahhh, my very own snow baby! :) He probably won't like me calling him that out on the world wide web for everyone to read- not manly enough and all that. Lucky for me, this post will be published by the time he reads it. Heee, heee!!!! Merry Christmas, Little Herald!

Advent on an Island

Time out for Advent!

Advent is supposed to be a time of preparation, reflection and quality time with loved ones. The liturgical calendar, like the advent wreath, breaks us out of our normal routine reminding us to be ever ready and anxious with joyful anticipation!


While hubby and I were on our honeymoon cruise to Nassau, we won a cruise and hotel stay in Freeport on Grand Bahama Island. We planned to go for our one year anniversary, but my brother got married the day before our anniversary. We decided to go a few days after Thanksgiving and it was a perfect decision.

The weather was beautiful, but since hurricane season had just ended, there were few other tourist.

I have never, in all my many travels through out the US, Canada, Mexico and Europe, met locals as friendly as those in Freeport. Near the markets there were those who just wanted to sell you stuff, but we rented a moped and drove around the island meeting gas station attendants, waiters and people on the street. Everyone was smiling, happy and ready to say hello! I guess living in such a beautiful place must help people have a sunny outlook :) Their economy has been badly hit and the people are hurting because of it, yet they are still smiling and trying to make the best of things.


This trip was a wondeful way to begin Advent. We enjoyed driving to Florida without the dogs and it was such a treat to be able to stop anywhere we wanted without having to worry about parking an 18-wheeler! Plus, our car has a bench seat! I love riding next to my baby with his arm over my shoulders :) Quality time with my loved one was going to be the first thing checked off my Christmas to-do list!!!

Can you tell that we had a great time???

Seriously, think I'm going to have to get one of these! I loved the Vespas in Rome, but never had a chance to ride one. This little thing got us all over the island. It was truly the best way to see everything and have fun. I even got some nice color on my shoulders and face when my sweater was off! Color is a big plus when it's not RED or WHITE. They tend to be my only color variations.


The beaches in the Caribbean are amazingly beautiful. We were going to go snorkeling the day this picture was taken, but the wind and waves were too big to go out to the reef. Instead we settled for sitting under the palm trees and sipping drinks made with yummy coconut! Talk about polar opposite from living in a tractor trailer.

God is so Good!!!

Talkin' Turkey

"If the only prayer you said during your whole life was "thank you," that would suffice." -Meister Eckhart

Thank you, Lord, for all your many blessings!

This was a Thanksgiving of firsts (is that a word? :D) for our family.

Paul and I spent Thanksgiving alone last year, so this was our first Thanksgiving with family since our marriage. It was my brother and his wife's first Thanksgiving together. They are expecting my parent's first grandchild. We were joined by a friend and her children since it was her first Thanksgiving without her father. My brother came home to our farm for the first time since my Grandfather passed away five years ago. Joy, sorrow, laughter and memories... God has blessed us all through all the ups and downs of this year.


I would be interested to do a study on the food shared by people during the celebrations of their life. Each wedding menu, Christmas dinner and family supper is a reflection of tradition, location and personalities. Unique and yet similar. Think about it! Meals say so much about who we are, especially as Catholics who celebrate the sacrafice of the Mass each Sunday when we join our brothers and sisters in Christ at the altar. Spiritually life giving and sustaining food. In the words of my students, "Dude, that rocks!"


So, what did your Thanksgiving meal say about you and your family?


Here was our menu: Turkey, Dressing, Gravy, Mashed Potatoes, Glazed Baby Carrots, Green Bean Casserole, Sweet Potatoes with Marshmallows, Butternut Squash with Brown Sugar and Pecans, Spinach Salad with Bacon, Mushrooms, Hard Boiled Eggs and Tomatoes, Green Jello Salad, Rolls, Blueberry Sparkling Cider, Southern Tea and Hot Spiced Cider and Austrian Beer.

I would say that this reflects my family's simple style, southern roots and the unique blending of new family members.

My new sister in law brought, amongst other things, a jello salad which is a must in her family. Our family only makes jello when the kids are sick, but we all found it surprisingly good!

The Austrian beer that my brother brought was a special reminder to my husband and I of our months living, studying and partying in Austria while we were in college.

We had to have not one, but three types of cranberry! My brother's only eat the canned jell stuff, I always make the cranberry-orange-nut chutney that my Grandmother always made and now have to make a batch without nuts since hubby isn't a fan of nuts and my SIL made her mom's recipe for fresh cranberry sauce. At least we'll have great digestive health with all that cranberry!

Another first this year- my brother and sister-in-law opened a gift shop, petting zoo and Christmas tree farm this year. Black Friday was their Grand Opening! My dad drove people on tractor rides around our spring. People wandered through our woods in search of the perfect tree. Children "oohhed" and "ahhhed" over the Jacob sheep, little Donkey (The lyrics to the song Dominic the Italian Christmas Donkey run through my head every time I think of the little guy!), our horses, chickens and turkeys. A bonfire was set up in the woods. People snapped pictures of their kids by the giant plywood Frosty the Snowman that my brother made and his wife painted. Good times were had by all.

Paul decided we should "adopt" one of the trees. He named it "Earl". Paul and Earl have become very close.

Hope your Thanksgiving was as wonderful as ours!

Better Late than Never

We were invited to celebrate Halloween with dear friends!

Place: Canton, Michigan
Time: October 31, 2009
Theme: Yard Art!


Our friends were going as a nativity scene, so hubby dressed as a shepard. I was a Holly Hobby yard cut out. There were two pink flamingoes, a hitching boy, St. Francis statue, bird bath, election sign and my personal favorite, a gnome!

Most. Fun. Theme. EVER!

Best Part: Seeing my hubby looking like this:


Favorite Men of the Weekend (besides my ever lovin' hubby!): Aaron- I have never drank sooo many mimosas in my ENTIRE life! Thank you for the bubbly! Mike- Thank you for letting me carve the big pumpkin and allowing me to try crazy spices on the pumpkin seeds! Just for the record, your pumpkin was way cuter than mine, but I blame Mary and Kell for encouraging me to have all the mimosa that my little heart desired (hence my pumpkin's lopsided grin ;D).