Catholic Schools Week - Our living/balloon rosary!

Happy Catholic Schools Week!

Our school kicked things off on Sunday night with a Taco/Bingo night.  We had a great turnout and I think everyone had fun.  I've got no photos to share but I can tell you the food was really good.  For the last two years, we've had it catered by the sweetest woman named Evelyn.  She works at a local grocery store chain that caters to the Hispanic population.

When you walk into this store, you feel like you are in another country.  It is really cool!  They source their produce locally and it's fresh and cheap.  And the food that they prepare in this store just looks and smells so good! In fact, they make their own tortillas fresh everyday.

So just take my word for it - the food that Evelyn prepared for us was delicious!

Yesterday we had a living/balloon rosary.  We've done the living rosary at our school for several years now but for the last two we've added the balloon portion which I think makes it really neat for the kids. If you are interested in directions on how we created our rosary, please click here.

The PTO spent the morning assembling the rosary and had it all ready by the afternoon:

The whole school assembles in the gym with the older kids taking a spot at each of the beads.

The older kids takes a turn leading each bead with the rest of the school following along.
At the end of the rosary, the entire school proceeds silently outside to the soccer field where the 8th grade releases the rosary to the heavens.

And the smoke of the incense, with the prayers of the saints, went up before God out of the angel's hand. - Revelation 8:4

And just like the smoke of the incense and our prayers, the rosary was released to the heavens....

Tuesday Funny

Remember yesterday how I mentioned that Sarah had made chocolate chip muffins from scratch and cleaned up everything?

Well, last night, after we got home form the basketball game, I noticed there was a rogue chocolate chip on the counter.  Hmmmmm...she must have missed this one, I thought to myself.

And then I did what I always do if there is a random bit of chocolate just hanging out - I popped it into my mouth.

But it wasn't a chocolate chip.  It was a .......

Asian Lady Beetle.

And for the record, it tasted nothing like chocolate.  It actually tasted very bitter and after I crunched into it, the beetle emitted a smell very similar to my other indoor nemesis - the stink bug!

My kids were relieved to learn that at least I didn't swallow it.  But they were even more disgusted when I told them that it was still moving after I spit it out.  

Lesson for the day - think twice before you eat anything that you find laying on my counter! 

It's Monday, so I got you some flowers....

Happy Monday, y'all!  It is cloudy and misty and a little dreary here (although warm so at least there's that!) so I bought these tulips this morning.  They have lifted my spirits and I smile whenever I walk past them.  Totally worth the $4.87 I spent on them.

Tulips are so simple and so pretty and honestly, one of my favorite flowers.  I especially love the white ones. 

This weekend Peter skipped his basketball game and he and Dan headed to Raven Knob with the Boy Scouts.  He earned his Geocaching Merit badge and it sounds like he had a good time.  Although it also sounds like we missed an exciting basketball game.  Peter's team won!

Peter had a boatload of homework this weekend and so did Sarah.  So after the trip he spent a lot of time working on his homework and a lot of time coplaining about having to work on his homework.

Sarah and I had lunch out on Saturday afternoon and ran a few errands.  It's always nice to get to spend time with my girl. 

On Sunday we had to record the Patriots game because Peter had Confirmation Class and we had to attend a parent meeting.  Before we left, I put some chili in the crock pot and when we got back we turned on the game, ate chili and enjoyed fast forwarding through the commercials.

That's a good way to watch the game but I had to avoid all social media and my phone in general to keep from finding out the score.  The Patriots won!  Sorry Billie Jo.  I hope we can still be friends!  ;)

We watched some of the Falcons/Packers game and it looks like the Falcons are going to be tough to beat but we are looking forward to the Super Bowl.  Although no party for us.  If you've been reading here for any length of time, you know my husband's rule - if the Patriots are playing in THE BIG GAME, he will not be attending a party.  He says he can't watch the game with a bunch of people around.  Which is fine with me.  Sometimes, sitting at home with the family and a giant bowl of Queso is exactly what I want to be doing.  :) 

Sarah made a big batch of chocolate chip mini muffins from scratch last night AND - the best part of all?  She cleaned up all the dishes afterwards. They were really yummy but now they are in the kitchen calling my name.  But, too many carbs so I've got to stay away from them!


Sarah has Girl Scouts tonight and Peter has a basketball game so I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the homework load is light tonight. 

And that's all I've got for you today - except a couple of loads of laundry if you want to come over and help me fold!

Words of wisdom by Chip and Jojo.

You guys know I love me some Chip and Joanne.  However, I am woefully behind on my Fixer Upper viewing.  But since HGTV replays all their episodes ad nauseam, I will be able to get caught up in no time.  And I do have On Demand but I save my time-home-alone-watching-On-Demand for The Bachelor and This Is Us.  Priorities, am I right?

Anyway, I did not call you here to discuss my television viewing habits.  I called you here to discuss Chip and Jo.  As you probably know, a few weeks ago, a BuzzFeed article slammed the pastor of the church Chip and Jojo attend because he preached against homosexuality and gay marriage.  And then the article mentioned that a gay couple has never been featured on Fixer Upper.  Sounds like someone is just trying to stir the pot and get my BFF's riled up.

BUT!

My besties were not having it!  This is Chip's response taken from his blog.  I'm sure you've already read it, but if not, please read it.  This is just even more reason to love the Gaines family. 

Also, I recently signed up to receive a daily devotion from Joanna that is based on Psalm 62.  As I was reading the devotion this morning, this stuck out to me:

"..our prayers will become more powerful when our hope is placed in God rather than the answered prayer itself." 

Y'all!  That 's a lot to chew on.

We have to put all of our hope in God - trusting and knowing that he will answer our prayers in His timing, and in His way.  That can be a hard pill to swallow because I think most of us think we know what's best.

But if we put our hope in Him and not the answer (that we want) even we we don't get our way, we can rest in the knowledge that whatever does come will ultimately be the best thing for us.

"May your hope come solely from Him."

Happy Weekend, y'all!

And Go Patriots!!

Tuesday!!

The nice thing about a long weekend (other than the fact that it's long!) is that today is already Tuesday! 

We had a full weekend.  Friday night was the 7th and 8th grade Winter Dance.  I helped the other 8th grade moms set up for the dance on Friday afternoon.  It was an easy set up because the theme was simple - Winter Wonderland. 

One of the moms comes from a family of florists so she brought these three beatuiful flocked fir trees that had lights on them.  We hung twinkle lights from the ceiling and we had silvery white spray painted branches in vases.  The vases were filled with silver, gold, and white Christmas balls and snowflakes were hanging from the branches.  And one of the walls was covered with paper snowflakes that another mother had made.  Each of these snowflakes was absolutely beautiful and each one was totally different than the other. 

And of course I failed to get pictures but the cafeteria looked really nice when we got done.  And I love working with this group of ladies.

Here are my kids before the dance:

They always want to do a goofy one for fun.  Look at Sarah's face!  HA!

After I dropped them off at the dance, I waited for Dan.  He had to work late but he finally got there and off to dinner we went.  I wanted to try a new restaurant.  We arrived there at 7:35 and there were only a few cars in the parking lot.  NOPE!  (I later did a little more research on the restaurant and learned that they only have one seating per night and it's by reservation only and the 5 course menu changes nightly.  So, if I really want to experience this restaurant, it will probably require a little more planning on my part!)

So we headed downtown to try another restaurant we had never been to. The wait was 30 minutes so we headed to the bar to get a drink.  It was a restaurant and WINE bar so they only thing they served at the bar was wine and cocktails.  NOPE!  (And I'm sure they had a few bottled beers, but I didn't see any and I really didn't want to be standing around a pretentious wine bar with a glass of beer looking like the redneck girl that I really am!)

So we headed to restaurant number three which was also packed but we waited and had a really good dinner.  And by the time it was all said and done, it was time to pick up the kids.

They had a great time.  Sarah danced with a boy (her friend Oscar) and Peter was happy to report that he danced with NO girls.

Saturday morning found us headed to a basketball game.  The boys won and every single boy on the team scored!  I love this team that Peter is on.  (Every time the second string scored, the first string boys cheered and hooted and high-fived.  It was so sweet to see.  Especially when one of the boys on the team who has never played basketball before this year scored a basket.  They were all genuinely happy for him!)

Saturday night we watched the Patriots play.  They won but it wasn't pretty.  I think all the hype about how badly they were going to beat the Texans got into their heads. But they won so - whew!

Sunday was Mass and lunch with my family and Dan had a Boy Scout Committee meeting and then it was Monday.  We slept late and then moved a bunch of stuff from the bonus room to the basement and actually took quite a few things to Goodwill.  There's still a lot of work to be done up there and down in the basement but - babysteps!

And with that, it's TUESDAY and time for me to head to the grocery store.  And laundry - there's always laundry!

Enjoy your short week!

Finally back to our regularly scheduled programming.

The kids are back in school today.  Well, my kids anyway.  The county schools are still out today due to many of the roads still being icy and impassable for buses.  But our little school doesn't have buses so back to school it is for Peter and Sarah.

Sarah seemed happy to go back but Peter was not.  No shock there though.  He's always ready to stay home and never excited about leaving the house - especially for school.

I'm meeting up with my old MOPS Care Group.  I joined the local Mothers of Preschoolers group 9 months after we moved here.  Sarah was 2 and Peter was 4.  And it was a lifesafer!  I met so many ladies who were in the thick of mothering little ones and it was so nice to have one morning a month where we were able to focus on ourselves.  I continued with the group (and it eventually morphed into a Mom's group with kids up through elementary school) until I think when Peter was in 5th grade and Sarah was in 4th grade. However, I have continued to meet monthly with  5 of the other moms from that group.  We all hung around so long that we were getting to be the old ladies in the group!  I always look forward to seeing them and catching up.  We typically just meet at Chick-Fil-A for coffee and breakfast.

I always look forward to it and I'm glad we were able to make it work this morning even with the crazy school schedules.  We have two moms with kids in public school, two moms with kids in private school and two moms who home school!  How's that for diverse?!

Every other week I have to send in baked goods for the 8th graders weekly bake sale.  This bake sale is a fundraiser they do all year long to make money for their trip to Washington, D.C. in the spring. I waited until late in the evening to make my Ooey Gooey Butter Bars because I just knew if I made them early, school would be cancelled and we would have a whole pan of Ooey Gooey Butter Bars to eat.  Which normally wouldn't be a problem except that I made a big batch of chocolate chip cookies yesterday and I can not stop eating them.  And I wonder why I am not able to drop a couple of pounds.  They were so good though!

Sarah helped me with the cookies and the batter eating:

And speaking of eating, I made some delicious paninis the other day:

Cheddar cheese, cream cheese, and jalapeno jelly!  So yummy!!! 

Enjoy your Wednesday!

Snowy weekend, too much food, and future plans.

On Friday afternoon, I got a text saying that our Friday night basketball game was postponed because of the impending storm.  If you will recall, I had received a text on Thursday saying that our Saturday game was cancelled because of the snow that was supposed to arrive on Friday night.  I will admit, I was a little annoyed that the Friday game was also cancelled because the snow didn't start until around 10:00 PM Friday night which was what they had been calling for the whole week.  We could have had the Friday night game no problem. 

Now, with no plans, I decided that we must go out to eat!  :)  There's a new restaurant in town that we were supposed to go to the Saturday after Thanksgiving but due to the fact that Dan worked all day Friday and Saturday that weekend, we never made it.

If you are local, you must try out the Cin Cin Burger Bar (pronounced Chin Chin).  It was really good and I am already looking forward to going back!  I got the No Money - No Honey Burger which had bacon, goat cheese, and sweet pepper jelly.  It was so delicious!  Diet?  What diet?

And that side of mayo that I ordered because I love mayo on a burger?  Not necessary.  The goat cheese and the pepper jelly was all this burger needed!

On Saturday morning we woke to a nice 5 inches of snow at our house.  It was a powdery fluffy snow that was not good for sledding according to Sarah so she and Cheyanne and Peter and Colton went four wheeling instead.  It's nice to have friends with big toys! 

Dan shoveled part of the driveway and the sidewalks and by 1:00 he was ready for lunch. His cabin fever had already set in.  So the kids changed into dry clothes and we piled into the car with my brother and off we went to eat out.  Y'all! I'm living the dream! 

We went to my favorite wing place (Christo's) and I proceeded to chow down on a big order of hot wings.  One of my bucket list items is to eat wings at the Anchor Bar - the place that invented the Buffalo wing.  While we were eating  lunch we were discussing that we needed to swing by Buffalo on our way home from the Cape one summer and get some wings and visit Niagra Falls.  And when I say "swing by", I really mean, drive about 8 hours!  But, that would kill two birds with one stone - Anchor Bar Wings and Niagra Falls!  I think we need to make that happen!

And all this eating, meant that what I really wanted to accomplish on Saturday did not happen.  The bonus room remains a hot mess.  I was lamenting this fact to Dan and he said, "What do you mean we didn't do anything today?"  The kids played on the four wheelers with their friends, we had lunch together, it was a great day! And besides - if you want to clean out the bonus room, you really need to clean out the basement first."

Argh.  He's probably right.  I think I'm going to look into those collapsible dumpsters that get delivered to your house and once you fill them up, they will come pick them up and take the stuff away. 

On Sunday, we headed to Mass, then lunch at my parent's house, then an afternoon and evening of watching football.  The kids finished their homework and we go the text that there would be no school today so there was much cheering about that! 

I will leave you with some pictures of snow in the south:

See that weird lump in the table?  That's the bowl we left out for snow cream!

Sweet Sarah on her way to attempt to sled in the powder.

View from my front porch on Saturday morning right after I woke up.

Snow cream!  YUM!

Sarah and Chey came in from 4 wheeling and decided that they needed some hot chocolate!

Happy Monday, y'all!

7 Quick Takes: My $4000 phone bill, my 4000 Legos and snow.

It's Friday and I'm trapped at my computer so it seems like the perfect time for 7 Quick Takes!

1. Why am I trapped at my computer?  Welllllllllll....I went online to pay my Sprint bill on Wednesday and low and behold it showed that I owed over $4000!  We got Peter a phone for his birthday in November so my first thought was, "What the heck has he done?????"  Sorry, Peter!

Apparently someone hacked into my account and ordered 3 phones and 3 lines of service.  YIKES!  And, y'all, it's sort of my fault.  Not the hacking in part, but I did receive an email from Sprint in early December and I think it vaguely said something about my password having been changed.  I also vaguely remember that I was in the throes of PTO work, purchasing Christmas presents, and just general December craziness and I also vaguely remembered thinking to myself, "I should really call Sprint." 

Anyway, after being on the Sprint Chat (because you can not get a real live person on the other end of the phone) for 1 1/2 hours on Wednesday, it was all resolved.

However, I went online to pay this morning and it still showed that I owe $500.  WRONG.  So, I'm back on chat with them now. 

2.  Snow.  BOO!!!  I hate snow. And mostly because in N.C., it just messes everything up.  It's supposed to snow 3 - 5 inches here starting late tonight and into the morning so yesterday I got an email stating that Saturday's basketball has been rescheduled to next Wednesday.  I was looking forward to driving to Greensboro with the family tomorrow for this basketball game.  But now thanks to the snow (or rather, the IMPENDING snow) I will get to drive to Greensboro Wednesday after school.  GRRRRRR....  I enjoy Saturday basketball games but games during the week, not so much. 

3. UPDATE:  So, I'm off chat now, apparently the Fraud Team is still working to get all of my charges adjusted.  They have assured me that I won't be fined a late fee and my service will not be cut off while they are trying to sort all of this out. 

4.  I actually do need a few things from the grocery store which is unfortunate because it will be a madhouse thanks to the IMPENDING snow.  And I could really probably wait to get them because when we are "snowed in"  my husband gets cabin fever and will get out and go do something - and typically we find a restaurant that's open and go eat! :)  I think it's the Bostonian in him.  3 - 5 inches does not bring everything to a halt there but it sure puts a damper on things here.

5.  Since we aren't going to be spending Saturday playing basketball, I think we will clean out the bonus room.  It's still a hot mess from when we were redoing the downstairs and everything just got shoved there.  But basically all this means is that everything that got shoved up there will get moved to the basement.  But getting it to the basement is one step to getting it out the door because I can back my car up to the basement door and get things to the dump or to Goodwill!  :) 

6.  One of the main things that taking up space in the bonus room is Legos.  Every single Lego (minus the ones that got vacuumed up are in the bonus room.  And Peter hasn't really played with them consistently for at least three years.  Oh, occasionally, he and Colton would play with them over the last few  summers but it was rare.  And I can't even really say they were playing with them.  Maybe putting a couple of pieces together here and there but that was about it.  So, to the basement they go until I can figure out what to do with them.  Peter does not want to part with them but do I really need 1,000's and yes, there are 1,000s of Lego pieces in big plastic bins in my basement???

7.  And speaking of cleaning things up.  I have begun the process of unsubscribing to all the emails I get that clutter up my inbox.  I mean, do I really need a weekly email from Domino's Pizza with their latest special or an email from Box Tops for Education explaining why I need to be collecting Box Tops, or even an email from my beloved Joanna Gaines reviewing last night's Fixer Upper?  NO!  I do not!  So, it's farewell to all the useless marketing emails and hello to a nicer inbox!

And with that, I'm out.  Time to go get my bread, milk, and toilet paper!

I took a week off and apparently spent it eating!

Hi!  Welcome back to the blog!  As you can see, I took a little break from things over here to enjoy Christmas. 

Well, and honestly, when everyone is home, I can't blog but everyone is back to their normal routine today (finally!) so here I am!

And let me just say go ahead and get this out of the way:

According to my scale, I was fine before Dan got home from Seattle but this morning, it told me otherwise.  Apparently all I did the past week was eat.  So, this was my breakfast this morning:

Gonna try to do the low carb for a little bit just to get back in gear.  I'm not starting any new diet or anything, I just fill like I probably had enough carbs over the last couple of weeks to last me for a while so less of them can only be better for me.

However, that's the exact breakfast I had yesterday morning and look what I got yesterday afternoon:

Yep.  Donuts.  In my defense, there's a new donut shop that my parents were raving about so I had to see what the fuss was all about.  I ate the lovely red velvet cake donut and had a bite of Dan's chocolate glazed donut which was filled with a delicious white cream.  They were yummy but hopefully I can resist all the sugar and all the carbs today.  Willpower - not my strong suit.

So, where were we?  Yes!  Christmas!  Dan finally arrived home on Christmas Eve and promptly did this:

And then he got up for a little bit and promptly went right back to napping.  The red-eye will do that to you!

We went to my old church on Christmas Eve for their Lovefeast and Candlelight service.  It was beautiful!  Afterwards my family and my BFF's family came back here for appetizers and festivity!

It was a great evening and I took zero pictures.  I'm so bad about that! 

I had to set my alarm on Christmas morning because I knew everyone was going to be sound asleep.  And I was right.  I got up at 7:30, put the breakfast casserole in the oven, had a cup of coffee and then got everyone out of bed.  Long gone are the days when the kids are up before dawn.  I kind of miss that.

We opened our stockings.  It's tradition that Santa brings tons of stocking stuffers and we always open those first. 

After the great gift unwrapping, we ate breakfast and then got ready for Mass.  After Mass, we went to my parent's house for lunch.  My mom fixed everything that we would normally have in Wellesley for Christmas day lunch.  Then we unwrapped presents there and y'all I totally forgot to get pictures of all of us unwrapping our gifts.  I didn't even realize it until I got home. 

But, I did remember to get the annual Tesh Family photo that we have been taking since 1997!

And then, after that, Christmas day was over.  And then apparently I proceeded to eat until New Year's! 

We did manage to get in a  couple of fun family things during the week between Christmas and New Year's.  We headed to Grandfather Mountain last Wednesday.  It was a very warm day and we enjoyed the time together.  And Dan and the kids walked across the Mile High Swinging Bridge.  I however, did not.   I am still traumatized by the time I went across it when I was about 10.  Although, they have since upgraded it and it not longer actually swings like it did when I was a kid.  Still didn't go across it though.

And on Friday, we headed to Charlotte and ate lunch at Midwood Smokehouse.  So good!

And then headed to Reed Gold Mine which is the site of the first gold discovery (1799) in the United States.

On New Year's Eve, we went with a group of friends to a Japanese Steakhouse for dinner (and I got zero pictures) and then we headed back to Jennifer's house to hang out and wait for the ball to drop.

And I only got one picture and it's of Sarah and Cheyanne after they mixed up some good old fashioned Shirley Temples!

And just like that - our TWO WEEK vacation is over. 

Sarah, who normally takes forever to go to sleep, actually got to sleep at a decent hour last night but woke up this morning at 4:00 wide awake and raring to go.  She came downstairs a little before 6:00 while I was drinking my coffee.  Peter, who normally goes right to sleep, apparently tossed and turned last night until after 2:00 so he was hard to get up this morning.  But I was able to get Dan and the kids out the door and off to work and school and it's time for me to get the groceries!

This afternoon we have an orthodontist appointment and a basketball game and I'm sure the kids will have a ton of homework.  I guess it's back to life, back to reality!

Happy New Year!