The Big Announcement

No, I don't have a big announcement. But today, March 25th, the Catholic Church celebrates the Feast of the Annunciation - the big announcement that the Angel Gabriel had for Mary that God had chosen her to be the mother of Jesus.

I wish I had woken up today aware that we celebrate the Annunciation, but I am humbled that I had to be reminded of this by my 10 year old son. We have been attending morning weekday Mass for Lent this year, so I was at Mass this morning with Zack and Michael. I was a little groggy and had not had my morning coffee yet, so my mind was not very clear. I thought it was a little unusual that the Gospel reading from Luke was about Gabriel and Mary and that the homily was about Mary's immediate acceptance God's will, since we are in the middle of Lent, but didn't think much of it. When we got in the car Zack asked if this was a special day since the priest was wearing white since he normally wears purple during Lent (something else I hadn't paid any attention to). Before I could answer he said "Oh yeah, I remember a long time ago Deacon Dennis said that March 25th is 9 months before December 25th when Jesus was born." Then the light bulb finally went off in my head and I realized that it was the Annunciation.

Our devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary is something that our Protestant brothers and sisters just don't get and often misunderstand. Catholics do not worship Mary, we honor and revere her as the mother of our Savior, the vessel through which God chose to send His Son to earth. She is the perfect example of what it means to do whatever God asks and to be a follower of Christ.

One of the songs on a CD about the Bread of Life that we listen to has a line in that says "Salvation began when Mary said yes". Happy Feast of the Annunciation!

Spring Fever

Spring is in the air! Trees are blooming, the weather is warm, we are all anxious to get our last 8 weeks of school finished, soccer season starts next weekend, and Michael and Luke will both have birthdays soon. It's been great to be able to send the boys outside to play. Last week the pear tree in our front yard had white flowers on it, and this week it is full of green leaves.

All of the boys had their first soccer practices last week. It was great to see their team out on the field running around and kicking the ball. We are even training Luke to kick the soccer ball, and he loves it! Corey is coaching Michael's team, and I am helping with Zack's. Many will agree that I tend to be a little overcompetive when it comes to the kids' teams. I can't really disagree, although I try not to let that get in the way of all the kids getting to play a lot and having fun. After all, we play at the YMCA where everyone should get his or her fair share of playing time regardless of experience or ability. My goals are to play everyone fairly, make sure the kids have a fun season, help them all to improve their soccer skills, teach them good sportsmanship, and for our team to do the best we can with the kids we have. That's quite a balancing act! Luckily I'm coaching with my good friend, and we can help each other to achieve those goals.

We have finished 28 of our 36 weeks of school! I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. We are all ready for our summer break to begin. We have gotten through enough of our school work that I am planning on 4 day school weeks for the rest of the year. Normally Friday's are a half day for us, but I would like to have a whole day during the week to run errands and catch up on chores. I'm thinking about taking off Wednesdays for the rest of the school year. It might be nice to have a mid-week break, so we are going to try it. One of my goals for this year was to have Michael reading, and it is finally happening!!! He is certainly a late reader, as far as public schools are concerned, but now it is like a lightbulb has turned on, and he is trying to read everything. He is even asking to go to the library to get books that HE can read instead of books that we can read to him.

I can't believe it is already time to plan for birthdays again. Michael, who was the baby for so long will be 8, and Luke will have his first birthday. It goes by too fast!

Photo Fever

It's no secret that I love to take lots of pictures. I also like to scrapbook my photos and use them to make DVD slideshows with music. I've been working on two big picture projects this week. The first one is a DVD slideshow of our Disney photos and videos from our trip in September. I used Windows Live Movie Maker to organize everything - our Disney Photopass photos, 100's of our pictures, and lots of Flipshare videos. I ended up with a 37 minute slideshow, set to some great Disney music. We all watched it today. It was fun to relive those memories, and now we are talking about our next trip. Maybe in the new camper. We will be looking for some good deals to be announced with the rising gas prices.

My other venture is my new 365 project. I am going to take one picture every day for the next year. I started on Tuesday, so I've done 6 days so far. I take SO many pictures of the kids - birthdays, soccer games, baseball games, basketball games, piano recitals, Pinewood Derbies, vacations, holidays. I don't miss capturing any of those big moments, but I don't photograph many of the little everyday things. Our house, cars, my morning cup of coffee, doing school in our pj's. So my 365 project is going to be more for me and taking pictures of little things that are important to me. I'm excited about what this project will teach me and about learning some new photography techniques! I've got lots of ideas that I can't wait to try.

Room Makeovers

We have spent the last couple of weeks painting, moving, cleaning out, and rearranging the boys' bedrooms. My goal was to have everything done in one week, but by the time we got everything cleaned up and put on the finishing touches it actually took two.

What used to be the office/guest room/Uncle Todd's room is now Zack's room. The new wall color is "hazy skies", a blue-gray. We hung 3 framed posters (Toy Story 3, Manchester United, and Messi), put up a baseball shelf for his sports trophies, and organized all his books on a the bookshelf we made under his loft bed. Nick moved into what was Zack's room/the play room. We also painted it "hazy skies". He got 3 new posters - Mario Kart Wii, Star Wars, and a classic Disney. He organized his Legos in the cubes of the bookshelf that we put horizontally next to his bed. It will be a great room for him as he approaches the teen years. Michael and Luke got what was the room Michael shared. Michael wanted a jungle room, so we painted the bottom half a darker brown ("Toffee Bar") and the top half a tan ("Kenya") and put up removable, repositionable wall decals of jungle animals. We put the full size bed from the guest room under Michael's loft bed. He loves it since he can make a fort under his bed.

I am really happy with the paint colors and overall results. It feels great to have everything decluttered and organized (at least for now). And we needed to get it done before soccer season starts as we will have 3 kids playing on 3 different teams. It was exhausting painting and moving 3 rooms of furniture, but I'm so glad it is done.