Friday, January 27, 2012

Note to My Big Kids Who are Not Here to Help Move

We're moving out the contents of all the closets and dressers and the stores in the crawl space today, kids.  But the big Moving Day is tomorrow.  Aren't you boys glad you're missing out on this -- Paul, Jon, and Br. Pio?  You, too, Michelley!  (sneersnort)

But, Kevvy -- darlin' -- we're so glad you're coming!  You are our favorite son, you know.  (Just now, anyway...) You others can pray --especially you seminarians --  and that's big, but it don't get the fridge moved. Dangit all anyway.  But if you guys will pray away hernias and snow, we guess we'll give you a break.

But, seriously, we're doing alright; you should see the little Amazon-woman girls lifting and carrying!  They are amazing!  And smile and give us little concerts while they pack and unpack.  They've worked out a two-part rendition of Down in the Valley that is awesome.  Nice to have the free entertainment while we work.

Still, Wish You Were All Here!

Sure you can't drive out real quick?

(Just kidding.)

(No, I'm not, really)



Thursday, January 26, 2012

It's a Brown Box and Silver Tape Kinda Day

But almost all the books are packed and moved over.
This is a big deal.



Wednesday, January 25, 2012


Ordinary acts today:  Moving the kitchen, laundry room and the rest of the barn over to the new place; figuring out how to make a walk-in closet out of the tiny room near the girls' room that has plaster walls that we can't nail into; remembering to eat and feed the children.

Well, maybe not so ordinary -- but all in a day, anyway.

Exactly a week before we have to be all moved over and have the old house cleaned up and ready to go for the new tenants.  Kevvy comes Friday to help with the big stuff, but 'til then, it's me, Dan, and the girls -- with the little boys running around our feet...  But, no worries!

(Sure, we can!)

Tuesday, January 24, 2012

Paul's on his way...

....apparently by a rather circuituous route to Afghanistan via Canada. Nobody knows why -- but, unless he's going to defend Canada now, which would be alrighty by us, we expect he'll eventually get to the predetermined destination.  All's good, though.  He's in God's hands,
as always.


Still, everyone misses him.
This picture of his sweet little guy makes me tear up every time I look at it.
-sniff-
We want a "Daddy Doll" like Gavin's.
But we'd have to call it a "Paul Doll."
And I'm not sure he'd like that.

Sunday, January 22, 2012

Our 1st Lieutenent Deploys Tomorrow

You know I'll be heading out tomorrow, Gavin, buddy.

Some last minute instructions:  The most important -- take good care of Mommy until I get home.

Don't worry, Daddy.  I'll take care of everything.  I love you.

God speed and God bless, Paul!
We love you!
All our prayers are with you.
Show those guys in Afghanistan how it really needs to be done.
(See you soon in e-mail!)

Saturday, January 21, 2012

Car Guy Rube Goldberg Thingamajig



Thanks to good friend, Brian, who fixed Kevvy's car so that it will now -- work.

Friday, January 20, 2012

Friday Update

Old house.  Not ours.
As I mentioned, we painted the girls' room Wednesday.  It looks nice; they love it.  And the little boys' room, we painted blue yesterday -- a shade darker blue than the girls'.  In the southeast corner of the upper floor, the little guys' room has the most "challenged" walls of the old house we're moving into.  (Did I mention it's 109 years old?)  this little room tucked under the eves looks like it was painted in the thirties maybe, and is used to be that unidentifiable shade of beigy-peachy-grey you see sometimes in old houses.  Bleh.  (What were they thinking??)  And this dull color coats particularly old, cracking, falling down plaster.  Double bleh. 

 But now, all the cracks and blemishes in that room are masked by a lovely shade of sky blue.  The trim will be a darker blue by tomorrow afternoon -- and one particularly bad wall will be completely covered in National Geographic maps of the world.  I'm hunting around the internet now looking to add to a little globe collection  to further the world travel theme.  And my satisfaction will be complete if I can find some nice, lined, map-themed curtains for the big picture window. 

Add a dark blue bunkbed, a half dozen or so small bins of toys in a bookcase, two toy pirate ships (complete with pirates and cannons) and one big Noah's ark set (complete with Noah and animals)  -- and, of course, two little boys -- and voila!  presto!  Home.

Safe Haven, by Vladimir Kush
If super-artist, Jon, were home, I'd have him paint this on the ceiling....
* Pictures coming when we're all done.

Just One of a Thousand Decisions Today...

Busy day ahead.  Dressed in work clothes, but have to be decent enough to drop the little girls off at art class later and do some grocery shopping while I wait for class to be over.  Blue jeans and clogs day, definitely.  But, look; check it out:

 I found this old shirt when I was going through bins the other day.  I'd almost forgotten about it.  But isn't it cute?  Nice shades of brown, cute little Disney characters.  There's a Mickey Mouse near the front hem and Pluto peeking out of the pocket....  Looking right. at. my Miraculous Medal.

Ha!  How funny!  But... Um, then again....  Hmmm.  Sure makes me smile, the serendipity of it and all.  But, gosh,  is it disrespectful or not properly honoring the Mother of God?  Does Pluto look happy to see the Blessed Mother?  Or does he look manic?  Or does he look more like he wants to jump out and bite off that button over there?  Of all the silly things.... Should I wear my medal showing or tuck it in today?

What do you think?

More Love and Chocolate

*  One little girls' bedroom painted blue yesterday at the new house.  Today I stay home and tackle laundry.

Wednesday, January 18, 2012

Love and Chocolate


* Very, very distracted today...  And likely will be for a bit.  But thought these might be fun to post while we're busy packing and moving and painting the new rental house. When we get closer to St. Valentine's Day, we'd like to share a fun little gift to make that uses these Love and Chocolate images.  Stay stuned!

Monday, January 16, 2012

Monday Again Already?

Outside my window:  It's cloudy, chilly, and kinda bleh.  There's just enough snow left on the ground to be messy looking, but that's ok, because my driveway is finally melted off and dry.  Which is a fair trade-off.

What else is outside my window:  Preparatory to our iminent move, Dan has been driving  back-n-forth, back-n- forth  past the front window with the big truck, pulling a little flatbed trailer, loaded with ever-changing crews of youngins and paraphernalia.  Round and round the driveway he goes, unloading all the storage bins from the barn into the house -- about ten at a time, for me to go through.  Then he loads the approved and labeled bins back onto the truck and trailer and they take it over to the new house to unload into organized paradise.  (I hope.)

What I'm doing:  I am the Queen Arbiter of Fate for all the old saved shoes, clothes, school books, notebooks, reading books, Catholic doctrine books, toy soldiers, saved baseballs with dates and deeds, holiday decorations, craft supplies, and lots of other miscellaneous flotsam and jetsam that defies categorizing...

What I'm thinking:  As much as I'd like to say, "Man, do we have too much junk, or what?!"  I can't help pouring over some of these bins.  Like, I just came across one that's probably been hiding in the deeper caverns of the bin mountain for a while.  In it was a slop- packed collection of the big boys' junk -- things that belonged to them when they were little boys: toy soldiers, special baseballs, about a million Lord of the Rings trading cards, a shirt that used to be Kevin's favorite, Paul's woodworking kit, a green tassel that the boys used to call "Crazy Woman....  Sigh....  I love my big boys, but I miss them as little boys, too.

What else I'm thinking: I can't bear to get rid of most of this junk.  Too many memories come with most of it.  I'm never going to get done with this.

A picture thought and a poem to go with it:

Saturday, January 14, 2012

Inspiration

For the girls' room at the new house.

We (the girls and I) love Cicely Mary Barker's Flower Fairies and were thrilled to find this fabric:

We'll use this for the valances for the two windows in the new room.

One of two panels that we'll back and sew and trim and loop and hang.
This one's "Spring" -- the other one's "Fall."

We're all set to paint the girls' walls with that middle blue there on the paint chip; the trim and ceiling will be crisp white. Their bunk beds match the berries (or are they rose hips?) and they already have either pink or green blankets
and pillowcases that will co-ordinate.  And the bead trim (isn't it the best?) --  we'll use it on the valance and on the lamp shades we're going to customize.
 We'll post pics when we're all done! 

Friday, January 13, 2012

Family Harmony


Over the five years I've been blogging, I've enjoyed posting  pictures of family harmony at our house, but I'm afraid that in-so-doing I might have given the impression that it's all sweetness and light over here, that there's never any fighting.  But, oh, my goodness sakes.  Let me set the record straight: we get our good fair share of squabbling. I just don't generally have the camera in my hand when I'm the on-ice referee throwing players in the penalty box!

It's just this, and no gettin' around it:  any group of two or more people confined to limited space and using the same bathroom is going to wind up disagreeing about things.  Sometimes calmly and politely, sometimes not.  It's a fact of life parents have to come to terms with.  And, while the inevitability of it may make a Mom want to run for the hills (for a quiet little cabin, maybe, with a lock on the door), all the bickering and banging together of heads can also be looked at as a right of passage into adulthood and an opportunity to learn some really important things about human interaction. To wit:

1 There's a right and a wrong way to communicate displeasure.
     a)  Hitting your brother with the butt of a Nerf rifle is the wrong way.
     b) Slamming a caprine syringe through your brother's hand is the wrong way.
     c) Cracking an egg on your sister's head is the wrong way.

2.  No matter how much a person would like to be, no one of us is the center of the universe.
     a)  Just because you got a chocolate orange in your stocking does not mean all chocolate oranges belong to you.
     b)  The world is not going to stop because you're having a bad hair day. (Dangit)
     c)  You are not the only person who ever has a bad hair day.
     d)  It's highly unlikely that anyone but you is going to notice you're having a bad hair day.

3.  Kindness begets kindness; unkindness you get right back on the snoot.
      a) If you had shared your chocolate orange with your sister, she would probably share hers with you now that yours is gone.
       b)  If you French braid your sister's hair for her, she'll tell you how beautiful your bouffant is, even if you don't think so.
      c) If you hit your brother with the butt of a Nerf rifle, don't be surprised if he throws a hard, plastic Noah's Ark elephant at your head.
     d)  If you crack an egg on your sister, well, you better just watch your back from here on out.


These are all hard lessons to learn; it takes years for them to finally take hold in most children -- and as too many of us in the adult world know, some people never do learn them!  Either they never got the memo, or they figured it wasn't for them.  We might finally have true peace to earth -- or at least in our own living rooms -- if babies were born with the capacity for perfect self control, the maturity of tactful expression, and the angelic perfection of patience and charity.  But, alas!  The little buggers almost always come into the world with the wrong ideas about just about everything.  After about six months of sweet goohs and gahs (if we're lucky enough not to have a colicky baby), the infant version of the will rears its head and the real work of a parent begins.

One-year-olds must be told they can't say "no" to Mommy and Daddy.  Two-year-olds have to learn that they can't have everything they see.  Four-year-olds need to know that the world doesn't revolve around them.  Though you try to break it to them gently, six-year-olds usually find out the hard way about an eye-for-an-eye.  And, then, when you think you've finally drummed it all  into their sweet curly little heads, the little darlings turn twelve and forget everything you ever taught them.   -sigh-  It's the life of a parent: our life's work. And it's exhausting, no kidding!  But it's important.

Because, ya know, tiresome as they are, those daily little kafoffles -- the scuffles, arguments, grudges, miscommunication, and stupidity -- are the training ground where parents do some of our most vital work. It's our job to catch the flying fists and steer the kids out of the boxing ring, or at least referee them safely to a peaceful solution -- for however many times a day we need to do it, for however many years it takes.  It's possible, I guess, for children to learn how to live in peace with their fellow human beings on their own or just by the school of hard knocks, but the lessons will be more surely honed if guided by the loving hands of parental referees.  And, though, our main aim is always going to be to be peace in the home, it's also with a parent's loving care that a child should learn what really is worth fighting for.

It was one of my proudest moments as a mother when I heard how my oldest son had flattened a friend at a party when he was in college.  It may have been in jest, or under the influence of a beer too many, but it seems a young man Paul knew made a scurrilous remark about the Catholic Church, and the next thing he knew -- without even thinking, he told us later -- Paul had socked the guy on the jaw so hard he knocked him on the floor.

That's my boy.

 I love that it was totally instinctual for him to defend his Faith.  There are few things really worth fighting for, but that one is at the top of the list.  That, and defending his wife or sisters or other women -- and maybe if someone has the gall to insult Tim Tebow in their hearing.

Yes, admittedly, it's true that in most situations, a carefully worded and gentlemanly debate would be preferable, but every once in a while, a sock in the jaw is just the ticket.

Of course, don't tell my six and seven-year-olds I said that. We'll spring the notion on them later when they're past the throwing toy elephants stage.  Uh. Maybe.

Wednesday, January 11, 2012

Family Week: Wednesday

The Mother-child relationship is paradoxical and, in a sense, a tragic. It requires the most intense love on the mother's side, yet this very love must help the child to grow away from the mother, and to become fully independent.


~ Erich Fromm (1955)

On that Theme:

Congratulations to our son, Paul, on his recent promotion to the rank of 1st Lieutenant, United States Marine Corps!

1st Lieutenant Paul J. Davis, his beautiful wife, Nicole, and precious son, Gavin.
(Pardon me.  Is my grandma bias showing a bit.?  ;)
Our son who has exceeded our every prayer and desire for him in character and accomplishments!  We love you so much, Paul, and are so proud of you!

Paul is preparing for deployment to Afghanistan at the end of this month.  He will most likely be serving at a relatively safe base, but we beg your prayers for his safety and well-being, as well as that of the family who will be missing him at home!

Prayer for Those in Active Service
O God, we beseech Thee,
watch over those exposed to the horrors of war
and to the spiritual dangers of a soldier's, a sailor's, or an airman's life.
Give them such a strong faith
that no human respect
may ever lead them to deny it,
or fear to practice it.
Do Thou by Thy grace fortify them
against the contagion of bad example,
that, being preserved from vice,
and serving Thee faithfully,
they may be ready to meet death
wherever and whenever it may happen,
through Christ Our Lord.
Amen.

Sacred Heart,
inspire them with sorrow for sin,
and grant them pardon.
Mother of God,
be with them on the battlefield,
and, if they should be called to make the supreme sacrifice,
obraine for them
that they may die in tghe grace of Thy Divine Son.

St. Joseph, pray for them.
May their Guardian Angels protect them.

Tuesday, January 10, 2012

Family Week: Tuesday

"I think the family is the place where the most ridiculous and least respectable things in the world go on."

~ Ugo Betti (1945)

"Especially if you're a kitty."
~ Gigi

Sunday, January 8, 2012

Family Week: Monday

There's no vocabulary
For love within a family, love that's lived in,
But not looked at, love within the light of which
All else is seen, the love within which
All other love finds speech.
This love is silent.

~ T.S. Eliot

Or maybe not so much.