Easter Festivities!

Christus resurrexit!

We had a beautiful Easter Sunday, and I hope that everyone else did, too! We were able to attend the Latin Mass with my family, which was amazing. We then returned to my parents house for delicious food, egg hunts, and good company. The weather was perfect for such a joyful day, too.

Tony decided that he did not like my uncle who was kind enough to take some family pictures for us with Zach's phone...we did not get a single picture of everyone smiling and looking at the camera.

I forgot my camera at home, so we have been using our phones for photos...not my favorite thing, but they take decent enough photos.

I only managed to make Evie a dress for Easter. I wanted to make Tony something to match, but I never decided what, and then her fabric didn't really jive with his thrifted shirts (he just outgrew all of his size 2 shirts and dress pants, and the consignment shop only had two dress shirts in his size, and they were blue/green and blue/pink - no yellow). So, he got nothing.

My dress and sweater came from our consignment shop. I was there one Saturday and tried the dress on along with a pair of shorts and capris. It fit perfectly, and I was in love with it, but I didn't have enough store credit to get all three items. So the dress went back. I thought about it all weekend, and ended up going back with a bag of clothes to trade in and had just enough credit to get the dress with the little sweater. You can't see very well in the picture, but my dark purple heels made their annual appearance (I don't know how people wear heels on a regular basis. I could barely walk after just three hours in them.)

For as long as I can remember, my family has done an egg hunt for the adults. It started with my grandma doing it for her children, and now my Dad hides the eggs for it. There is a table full of prizes, and it's lots of fun to watch the men compete for the most eggs. Evie had her first ride on my back in the Ergobaby for the hunt.

On Easter Monday we attended the First Communion and Confirmation of my uncle's wife, which was a blessing! Tuesday was my birthday, and Zach took me out for a nice dinner, while my Mom watched both of the babies (I haven't left the house without Evie ever, so that was a treat). On Thursday my Mom treated me to my very first pedicure, which was so relaxing I nearly fell asleep.

Right now we are enjoying the South Florida sun before we head back to the more mild spring climate of New York. I have lots of pictures from the beach and can't wait to share some soon.

Love,

Jess

I cannot believe it is Spy Wednesday already. Or Holy Thursday, depending on what time zone you are in.

My Lent has been closely tied with the difficulty of Zach's classes. This was a particularly hard trimester, simply based on his workload, which was over 30 credits, I do believe. He did make a more concerted effort to spend time with us in the evenings for most of the tri, but midterms and finals are always hairy. On top of that, the issue with his class schedule for next tri became an added burden here at the end. As it turns out, the decision regarding whether or not he starts clinic next tri and does the herbs has been made for him - regardless of the herbs, he has to modify his DC schedule, so he's going to keep up with the herbs. It's been very frustrating, and means that he won't graduate with his DC class, but it's out of our hands. He just came down and told me that he passed the herbs exam today, so there are zero issues continuing with that.

Through all of that, and for the first time in a long while, I have felt the grace of prayers - my own and those of people kind enough to pray for us. I have handled daily frustrations with more gentleness and patience, and been able to relax a little more and enjoy my sweet babies. That has been a huge blessing. I have also been waking up earlier, and trying to get my day started before my needy offspring are demanding things from me. (That has not been very successful, since they have also been waking up early, but oh well...at least I am up.)

The antics of these two are simply too precious to miss.

There is so much more I wanted to say, but it will have to wait for another day when I am not so tired.

A blessed Triduum to you all!

Love,

Jess

Lenten Meals

This is mostly for my own sake, since I tend to misplace pieces of paper, and would like to be able to refer back to these meals when I am brain-dead for meatless ideas.

Lent Menu - Week 1

Monday: Eggplant Parmesan (I ditched the breadcrumbs and just used a little extra cheese and it was still ah-mazing)

Tuesday: Avocado Tuna Salad

Wednesday: Frittata

Thursday: Sweet Potato Tuna Patties

Friday: Pizza (Quinoa crust)

Lent Menu - Week 2

Monday: Lentil Chili

Tuesday: Feast of the Annunciation, so we're doing Sweet Potato and Sausage Hash

Wednesday: Tuna Salad

Thursday: Frittata

Friday: Butternut Squash Stew (so tasty!)

I'm debating getting into a Friday night pizza habit. It makes it a lot easier to do meatless every Friday (which we usually do, but tuna is often what comes to mind and you can only do so much tuna salad or tuna casserole, you know?).

Happy First Day of Spring!

Or, if you are living somewhere like us, happy...? We still have snow on the ground, and it flurried for a bit this afternoon. I know that warmer weather is coming, but I am beyond ready for it. We have had a couple of  beautiful days. We were able to walk to the library and post office the other day, which was amazing.

The other day I had all kinds of things I wanted to write about:
The mozzarella I made a couple of weeks ago, and my attempt at cream cheese (which I haven't given up on, I think our house is just too cold and it's taking longer than the recipe said it should). We celebrated St. Patrick's Day with the shepherd's pie recipe from Feast! (which they have for the feast of St. George, just FYI), and last night we enjoyed spaghetti (using spaghetti squash) and brownies with ice cream for the feast of St. Joseph. We managed to complete all seven of the Seven Sundays of St. Joseph this year, which was a great blessing. I dragged the chickies to a noon Mass, since it was also my in-laws anniversary and I wanted to offer Mass for them. Our friend Ryan joined us for dinner, and Rosary after, and it was wonderful.

Yesterday I made my very first Craigslist purchase. A week ago I found this awesome futon (the nice kind with wooden arms), and the girl said it was available, so I set it up to drive down the next day. Just before leaving, I texted her to get her address, and she responded. Then she emailed me saying that her roommate might want it for her new apartment. I have turned off the email notification on my phone for Lent, so it was after rearranging and removing seats in the van, and driving 45 minutes, that my knock was greeted with, "Oh, you didn't get my email?" Seriously? You couldn't text that to me. I told you I had nearly an hour drive. I was really upset, because aside from the trouble I went through going down there, I really wanted the futon. I ended up making a fun day of it with the kids - we (window) shopped, and then went to the park and ate yogurt and crackers and it was great. Anyways. To yesterday's purchase. It isn't as pretty as the other one, but it was only $30 (!!) for a solid wood frame and mattress. It needs a cover to make it more attractive, but that is easy enough for me to whip up one of these days.

We are nearing the end of this trimester and it can't come soon enough. Zach could use some extra prayers - he has to take a test to be able to skip the required physics class for the AOM program, and he already has a ton of stuff going on with finals. If he doesn't pass the test, he has to decide if he wants to modify the DC so he can take the physics class and keep the AOM, or drop the AOM, which would make me really, really sad because he has worked so hard to do both programs. It would be a no brainer if the pricetag on modifying wasn't another $15k.

Skip forward if you have no interest in my anger towards this education system...
Most people don't know that it takes 3 years and 4 months to become a chiropractor. They go by trimesters, and there are 10. The Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine program is 9 or 10 trimesters, too. I can never remember.
Most people also don't know that it costs as much to become a chiropractor as it does to become a medical doctor ($150k). Yet the average salary for a chiropractor is probably half of what a family practice doctor makes.
 A lot of students are here because they couldn't make it into medical school, and they have no business being here, either. This education would not have to be so heinously expensive if they were more selective about who they accept.

Zach works incredibly hard. Last trimester he took 34 credits and managed to finish the tri with a 4.0 in both programs. But it took a lot out of all of us. When I hear about some of the idiots that spend all of their time drinking and barely passing classes it makes me positively livid, for a multitude of reasons. Plenty of people think chiropractors are quacks, and some of them are. And then some of them are just morons who have no place being any kind of healthcare. But there are also people like Zach who truly care about helping people and who have interests far beyond just cracking backs. He will have to fight against the stigma that follows chiropractors, though, and that really irks me.

Why didn't he just apply to medical school, you wonder? Sometimes we wonder that, too. However, at the end of the day, Zach would rather be trying to help people stay healthy than writing them prescriptions. If he were a medical doctor, his dream would be to be a surgeon, and that isn't really family-friendly.

Enough of that. It's on my mind because we were talking about it today. Sometimes you hear these horror stories of people who have graduated and are making zero dollars and you get on your knees and pray that that isn't you in two years. I mean, we know the first couple of years will be rough. There really isn't any getting around that. But once you get established somewhere, you can do pretty well.

On a happy note, Evie is on the verge of cutting her second little tooth. I am eternally grateful to the good Lord for not letting teething interfere with our night sleep. I can deal with the fact that she won't nap for more than 20 or 30 minutes at a time during the day, but I couldn't make it if she were up at night. We had one night this week where she woke up a few times and cried for a minute and then started nursing, and that was my worst night of sleep since I can't remember. (Of course, I have also been extra tired since the time change.)

Right now this sweet thing is asleep on my lap, so I should get myself upstairs and snug under the covers while all is quiet.

Love,
Jess

Happy Mardi Gras!

We stayed true to my (Grandma's) New Orleans roots and enjoyed Jambalaya for dinner, with a GF King Cake for dessert. Tony and I were jamming to Mardi Gras parade music all day which was tons of fun.

This year we decided to give up meat every other week. I've mentioned before that we eat a lot of meat, so it will not only be a sacrifice because we like meat, but for me on the planning side of things. Cooking vegetarian is really hard when you don't eat grains. At least it is for us, maybe because we eat so much (it's kind of embarrassing sometimes how much food we eat. I can eat as much as a man sometimes {most of the time}). I've been collecting some meatless dinner recipes, and hope to survive it without too much difficulty. 

So serious.

I meant to post after Evie's surgery, but the next day she start teething really bad, and that first little tooth finally broke through on Saturday...and has been busy working it's way up some more since then. 

The tooth breaking through there on the bottom, and the white part under her tongue is from the posterior tongue tie revision.

The Birthday Buddies - 6 months later.

Our experience with Dr. Kotlow was excellent. He was very kind, and his office was very timely. 

Evie's lip tie was a class III and she also had a class II posterior tongue tie. 

I managed to control my anxiety the whole time, even though I really wanted to cry when he took her. She was gone less than 10 minutes - I barely had time to text people and let them know she was gone before he was back in the room. 

Recovery has been fantastic. She nursed immediately after the procedure, and only seemed to be crying from pain for a few minutes in the car on the way back. I stretch her lip and tongue twice a day to keep it from reattaching, but even that doesn't seem to bother her. I have already noticed a difference in the way she nurses, which has been so much better for both of us.

I pray that Lent may be fruitful for all of us! (And that spring comes SOON!!)

Love,

Jess

{pretty, happy, funny, real}

Linking up with the ladies at Like Mother, Like Daughter. :)

{pretty}

 My Mom and my sweet Evangeline. Grandma was loving her grandbaby time over Christmas break.

Examining "Little Tiny Grandma's" goat beard hair scarf from India (which kind of weirds me out, but it was really soft!). My Grandma is quite short, so we told Tony to call her Little Grandma. Because we often say "little tiny" together he started calling her that. Then he was calling my Mom "Big Grandma", though I don't know why because she isn't much taller than my Grandma. There were a good many laughs over that.

{happy}

 Double trouble. Teddy was a lot more enthusiastic here than Tony. Tony had a great time at Grandma's house, though - playing with the kids, and driving the little car around outside. He even kept up with his potty training - thank you, Jesus!

Cora at the Christmas tree farm. She loved running through the trees. It was precious.

 {funny}

 You're probably trying to figure out what to look at here. Consider the above a mugshot, with a close up of the evidence below:

 Yes, that is butter. Yes, it has been partially eaten. I think there were teeth marks in each stick. (I know, I need a lock on my fridge...I had one, and then we got a new fridge, and I haven't bought a new lock yet.) I felt really bad because I hadn't made breakfast yet, and he must have been hungry. When I was pregnant with Evie I would eat bites of butter and Tony would ask for some too. He still loves butter (so do I, though I don't crave it like I did when I was pregnant). When Zach and I found the sticks on the table, he looked at me and said, "Will this be {funny} or {real}?" Oh, how I love him.

{real}

 Evie found the perfect place to nap - Pappy's lap. It always amazes me how contorted their little bodies can be, yet they are sleeping peacefully.

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas!

Christus resurrexit!

Christ is Risen! Alleluia!

I spent my Holy Week spring cleaning like a madwoman. I have to say I felt rather like I was living my own Passiontide, but I persevered with the Palestrina channel on Pandora keeping me company. Easter felt even more beautiful because I was able to look around my home and be happy because it was clean and mostly clutter-free!

One of my favorite things about spring are flowers! I have tulips, Easter lilies, hyacinth, and a daffodil plant making the main floor smell amazing. 

 I used the technique for making a balloon arch (with helium filled balloons) to hang across the kitchen/dining room opening. It looks so festive, and Tony loves to look up at it.

We did Tony's egg hunt before Mass, but also before he had his church clothes on. Oh well. It was so cute to watch him get the eggs. I put a gummy bear in each one and once he discovered that, he would shake them to see if it was worth trying to open. Today he is still playing with the eggs - he has a paper plate and plastic fork that he carries around with a basket of eggs. Kids are so funny.

I...Can...Reach...

 

Choc-late. Said in a grovely baby voice. While I was showering yesterday he swiped MY chocolate eggs. I came to the kitchen to find two foil wrappers on the floor, and him watching Tarzan with a mouth full of chocolate. I guess he knew Mommy had had enough chocolate already...and would have more after dinner.

Never give a small child truffles. They don't understand that truffles must be eaten quickly, or they will melt. Thankfully I had put him in his high chair with it. Otherwise that mess would have been all over my dress.

The truffles. One of our guests is allergic to dairy and eggs, so I tried to find something easy to make that she could enjoy. These truffles are just coconut milk, coconut oil, vanilla, and Enjoy Life chocolate chips. Oh. My. Word. I posted the recipe here.

My first leg of lamb! I left the bone in, and the fell on. On Saturday I inserted garlic slivers, and rubbed it down with olive oil, rosemary, thyme, salt and pepper. I added a little red wine to the bottom of the pan, which it soaked up by Sunday. Before roasting I added more wine. It was perfectly pink inside, and absolutely delicious. It will definitely be an Easter tradition from now on!

 My vegetable dyed eggs. The pink one was made from beet juice, and the blue from boiled red cabbage leaves. I did orange, too, from carrot juice, but they were fairly light. I think the beet juice needed a little water or something because, as you can see in the picture, it was kind of sticky and left bubble spots. Next year I'm going to plan ahead a little better and try more colors.

And last, but certainly not least, my 20 week bump. Last week I had that awful burning/stretching sensation around my belly button. I'm feeling the baby move a lot more, though still not enough for Tony or Zach to feel. One of these days. 

I had high hopes of making an Easter dress, and my Mother even went to the trouble of mailing me a curtain that was on clearance at Target to use for it (Target's Shabby Chic line had voile curtains on clearance for $9. I got a whole dress out of one panel!). I cut it out, and thought I would get to it, but cleaning took priority. I wasn't too sad, though, because I love the dress I made for Easter when I was pregnant with Tony. 

Wishes for a joyous Easter week! 

Love,

Jess

A Visit to the Park

 Tony and I took advantage of the fairly nice weather yesterday and went to the playground. He loves playing outside, and has a higher tolerance for the chilly weather than I do.

 He's a total stinker and will not look at the camera.

 This was covered in water in the summer! I have pictures of Tony sitting in the shallow water on his birthday. I can't wait to take him back there when the beach is open again. We walked down to the water, and then he turned around and ran back to the playground.

My Lenten wreath. The twig wreath was on the outside of the house, left by the previous owner. It had some very worn berries and leaves that I pulled off. The cross is just a piece of cardboard with hot-glued felt on it. I debated how to place the flowers, and ended up with that. Not awesome, but it will be transformed into an Easter wreath before too long, so it's okay.

This is such a beautiful picture. A good reminder that the Church is being watched over by Heavenly hosts, especially important as we enter the second day of the Conclave.

Come Holy Ghost! Blessed Mother and St. Joseph, watch over and guide us!

17 Weeks

Today was a BEAUTIFUL day! It was just above 50 degrees, and the sun was shining. I can't wait until warm weather has come to stay. In celebration, Zach fired up the grill and we had grilled sausage for lunch.

I've felt the baby move a couple of times, but not consistently. I think I was 17weeks, 3 days with Tony when I first felt him move. I'm looking forward to seeing Tony's expression when he can see and feel the baby. 

Last night I put together a Lenten door wreath. A little late, but better late than never, right? It's super simple, but it was fun. I forgot to take pictures today. I'll try to get some tomorrow.

I hope that everyone had a good 4th Sunday of Lent! 

A reminder: if you want to pray the St. Joseph novena it starts today. 

Love,

Jess

{pretty, happy, funny, real}

{pretty}

A small treat for St. Valentine's Day. My first time making chocolate covered strawberries. I forgot to put them on parchment paper, so I think the bottoms are going to stick to the plate, unfortunately. Better luck next time!

{happy}

I was about a month further along with Tony on St. Valentine's Day in 2011. Zach and I enjoyed dinner with my parents at the Knights of Columbus Valentine's Day dinner-dance that year.

{funny}

I don't go outside when it's cold. Except to the car. I didn't realize how much snow we got from that winter storm of historic proportions, until I opened the back door. The little slide looked so silly buried under all of that snow.

{real}

This little man is a trooper. After a lot of thought, I decided to wean him. It was a hard decision, but he is 19 months, and I don't think he was getting much of anything from nursing (aside from comfort). He wasn't nursing much, mostly at night, which coupled with teething, was not making for a restful night for any of us. This pregnancy has me tired enough without the added strain of nursing him. I'm also trying to plan ahead and avoid the issues I had with pre-term labor last time. I don't remember how early it started (26 weeks, maybe?), but I couldn't do any kind of physical activity for long at all without having contractions that would go for a couple of hours. (In the end, he came early at about 37 1/2 weeks.) I'm praying that isn't a problem this time!

So last Thursday he nursed for the very last time. He asked to nurse a few times a day for the first couple of days, and cried in the evenings when I wouldn't nurse him to sleep, but after that he only asked once a day. Now he doesn't ask at all. It makes me kind of sad, but I try to remember that it's another stage of life. In six months I'll have a new baby to nurse. Right now I can enjoy snuggling him, and napping with him, without just being a milk machine. Last night he slept through the night without waking up asking for milk or water, which was really, really nice. I never thought I would wean him, and I am so grateful that it was such a smooth transition. God was good, and it definitely made it easier on both of us. 

Good morning, this is your wake-up call

I received a very surprising phone call this morning. My first thought upon seeing it was my Grandma was that someone had died or been injured or something awful. 

I definitely did not expect to hear that Pope Benedict is resigning.

I might even consider that worse news than someone dying. What a way to start Lent. I didn't really have the future Pontiff on my prayer list.

When I think about the state of the Church in this country, and the possibility that we could end up with someone less committed to preserving the beautiful traditions of the Faith, I am scared. Moving out of my hometown opened my eyes to the reality of the Church everywhere else. It's not a pretty sight. There are few places that offer the grounded, authentic teaching, without all of the clownish nonsense. I'm not saying every Mass has to be the Traditional Latin Mass, but there is so much hostility towards tradition and a lack of proper catechesis (for priests and lay people!).

We had a guest priest yesterday, and I nearly blew a fuse when he started making derogatory comments about the TLM, while praising the change that came from "the great Vatican Council Two". The change from Vatican II? Confusion, misinterpretation, an incorrectly said Mass... the list goes on, and I wouldn't call it flattering. 

I need to remember that there will always be strife in the Church. I find things the way they are incredibly depressing, and it's easy to feel overwhelmed. Especially when you feel like you are in a spiritual wasteland. (Which, dramatic as it sounds, is how I feel here. Mass sometimes seems more like an occasion of sin than grace.) I get anxiety every time we have a visiting priest, or end up at a different church, that I will have to argue with the priest about giving me Communion while kneeling. That isn't cool.

This has been a wake-up call for me. I have let some things fall by the wayside, and need to get my act together. I need to pray harder for the continuation of the traditions I love so much, especially in light of this. It's easy to take the good things for granted, but they could wither and disappear without the support of our prayers.

Love,

Jess

Merry Christmas!

I hope that everyone had a blessed and peace-filled Christmas!

One of the Christmas card runner-ups.

 We had a very quiet Christmas. 

My family started battling a stomach bug, and what seems like the flu, over the weekend. The bug is gone, but there are still children miserable with fevers. 

On Sunday night, my Grandpa stopped breathing. Zach couldn't find a pulse. He did CPR on him, not sure what would happen, and Grandpa came back. He was dead, though. For 2 minutes. He had multiple seizures that night, and the hospice nurse told Grandma to call her children. We prayed the prayers in the 1962 missal for a person in their last agony. Some of my Mom's siblings came. My Mom sat up with him all night so Grandma could sleep. 

He's still here. He had another seizure yesterday morning, and after finally eating some jello yesterday (he hadn't been awake enough to swallow since Sunday), he started choking on it again last night. He had another mini-seizure this morning, and has a fever. The nurse who came on Sunday said he has aspiration pneumonia. Right now they think he will probably end up with kidney failure, and then go into a coma and pass peacefully. That is what we pray for.

  We didn't make it to Midnight Mass because of the snow that came down on Christmas Eve. More than half of my family wasn't able to go because of the sickness. Zach took some of the healthy ones to Mass on Christmas morning, and then was sweet and went to Mass again with me at noon.

We opened presents on Christmas Eve, since we were unsure of who would be going to Mass. I am embarrassed to say that Tony was a monster. He had fallen asleep, and then woke up. So did the crab inside.

Completely unimpressed by his lamb.

In a lot of ways it didn't feel like Christmas. But Christmas is more than the dinner you eat, or how healthy you're feeling. Father's homily made me think about that. Did you know that the Irish brought the tradition of Midnight Mass to the United States? Or that the word merry in Merry Christmas means Blessed and Peace-filled? I thought that was really neat. 

I hope that everyone enjoys the rest of the Christmas season! We have snow again today, so people are having fun inside playing board games. (The Lord of the Rings game, anyone?)

Much love,

Jess