Holiday Highlights

Well, hello! Yes, I'm still alive! I have a lot to share about the past few months. My last post was on November 15th, and now it's almost February!! That is cra-zy!

So welcome to my holiday catch-up post. I just went through all the pictures we took recently and it's going to be hard to not over-share! I'll try to keep it brief...

*****

We celebrated Andrew's 26th birthday:
We had a party with my parents and even busted out some huckleberry pie! I got him some nice gifts, but it's hard to compare with what I did for him last year - not sure how I will ever compete with that!

Thanksgiving:
We kept with our usual tradition of going to Bellingham. We had a lovely time with Andrew's family and even celebrated Mom's birthday while we were up there!

Bellingham Tree Cutting:
This is one of my treasured traditions. I have helped Andrew's parents select, cut, and decorate their Christmas tree every single year that we've known each other. Now it is a joy to see John and Peter helping with the decorating!

Funeral for Andrew's Uncle John:
Uncle John was Andrew's godfather and one of the men we named our John after. He passed away in mid-December and we decided to pack the car and head over the mountains to Kennewick for the funeral. It was so nice seeing a lot of extended family members and, most of all, celebrating the life of a great man! Andrew had the honor and privilege of being a pallbearer at the burial. Rest in peace, Uncle John!

My birthday/tree decorating:
I had a lovely birthday this year! Andrew took the boys out in the morning and I invited some of my friends over for a spa day. We all did pedicures and ate yummy food. It was a lot of fun! Then in the evening we had a family party and decorated our tree.

See if you can guess how old I am...

First tree in our new home!

Christmas:
We went to mass on Christmas Eve. Then my parents took the boys out to look at Christmas lights while Andrew and I went out to dinner. We tucked the boys in bed and finished setting up for Christmas morning. We had a cozy morning together in our jammies. Then we got ready and continued the celebration at my parents' home with Great-Grandpa and Uncle Aaron.

Family party at our house:
Around New Years, we hosted a "St.Hilaire" party. This was our biggest sit-down dinner so far in our new home. It worked out well and I'm glad the dining room is connected to the living room - so we can   use that space too if needed. We can't wait to host more parties!!

*****

Now that I'm caught up with the past, I'll soon be writing about what we are up to now! ;)

God Bless!

Halloween

Halloween was fun this year. John got to be St. Michael and Peter was St. Anthony (one of John's old costumes). We trick-or-treated to one of our neighbors houses but then went to the party at our church and "trunk-or-treating". Andrew won a huge jar of M&Ms for guessing the closest amount. Woohoo!

St. Michael and St. Anthony

All the loot!

So excited about the lollipop!

Easter 2012

We've had a great Easter Octave. On Holy Saturday we had an egg hunt for John in the yard. Then we painted eggs in preparation for Egg Wars - post to come!

Love this action shot!

Easter Sunday was a full day. We started it off by going to the 7:30am mass then over to Edmonds for our annual Launceford breakfast at the Pancake Haus. Then over to Grandma's condo for a few hours. We ended the day at Aaron's house for a fancy steak dinner.

Peter got this bunny from Great Grandma

Hope you all had a blessed Easter!

Unworthy

John has been a real stinker the past few days. Refusing to clean up his toys, hitting, yelling, back talking, chewing with his mouth open, whining... It's been rough for me as a parent. 


At the same time, I've been preparing myself to celebrate Easter by stocking up on goodies for John's Easter basket. I've had the thought a few times lately: Why does John have to be so naughty? I don't really want to give him an Easter basket because he doesn't deserve one!


Last night, while praying the Divine Mercy Chaplet with Andrew, I remembered that Jesus died and rose from the dead for us - even though we are naughty all the time and are totally undeserving! 

"But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." Romans 5:8

John will definitely be getting his Easter basket.

Until Next Year...

We had a good run, O' Christmas tree, but the time has come to say good bye. It's bitter-sweet. Sweet because your departure means that I can get on with organizing and cleaning the house. Bitter because it means Christmas is over and you won't return for another year.

----

As a grown up, a year doesn't seem that far away, but when I think that my boys will each be a year older - that seems crazy! Peter will probably be walking! John will be even more eloquent, independent and potty-trained (please, oh please!). A year is a long time in child-years.

Today as I laid by the tree with John, I realized that I will only have 16 Christmas' left with him living in the house. Might seem like a lot, but I know it will fly by.  I'm going to cling to these years like Pooh Bear to his Hunny Pot.  It's been a sappy day for sure.  To top it off, "What a Wonderful World" played on my Pandora station while I was rocking Peter to sleep.

So tomorrow is the day, I will pack all the Christmas decorations away. Probably during John's nap. I don't want to traumatize him with de-decorating!

More to come later about all the festivities. For now, here is a picture of the boys cuddled up in matching PJs (thanks Grandma and Grandpa!) watching the Grinch.

Off to Oregon!!

In one of my "quick take" posts, I mentioned that we were going on a vacation in Florida... well plans have changed and we are going to the Oregon Coast instead! The weather won't be as nice... but we are very excited just to have a week together as a family! =) We have a lot of plans, but the main item on the agenda is - relaxation!

We will come back home on John's birthday, but we won't be having a party until the next weekend. I can't believe he is almost 2 years old!! He is such a big boy!

I will post all about our trip when we get back!

Happy Mother's Day to all you mothers out there -

but especially to my dear mother and mother-in-law!

Beautiful Oregon, here we come!

Egg Wars 2011

This event is a long-standing tradition in Andrew's family, and it is a fun way to add purpose to egg painting. Here are the rules that I posted on our blog last year:

1. Before we paint our eggs, we write a family member's name (or Saint's name) on them and they represent that person. We use a white crayon to write the names.
2. Each person uses their egg (since it is just me and Andrew, we will play for the other people we chose to represent).
3. You hold the eggs facing each other. One person goes first and taps their egg against the other person's egg (begin by doing nose to nose).
4. The person with the cracked egg turns the egg around to the other end and they tap that end to the other person's egg.
5. If both sides of your egg get cracked, the you are out and you punish your loser egg by devouring it with a dash of salt and pepper!
6. The winner goes on to challenge the other eggs.
Each day, we will tap eggs until we have two loser eggs (so we can each eat one for breakfast).

Click here to see a video of how it works (from the 2010 championship round).

Egg Wars 2011

Day 1
"Dad" vs. "Mom" ----> "Dad" is the winner!
"Dad" vs. "John" ----> "Dad" is the winner!

Day 2
"Dad" vs. "Baby" ----> "Dad" is the winner!
"Dad" vs. "Grandma St.H" ----> "Dad" is the winner!

Day 3
"Dad" vs. "Dymphna" ----> "Dymphna" is the winner! (*See note below)

Day 4
"Dympna" vs. "Grandma Sto" ----> "Grandma Sto" is the winner!
"Grandma Sto" vs. "Grandpa Sto" ----> "Grandma Sto" is the winner!

Day 5
"Grandma Sto" vs. "Grandpa St.H" ----> "Grandma Sto" is the winner!
"Grandma Sto" vs. "Joseph" ----> "Grandma Sto" is the winner!

Day 6
"Grandma Sto" vs. "Mary" ----> "Mary" is the winner!
Final round:

"Mary" vs. "Jesus" ----> "Mary" wins!!!!!

We felt bad that Jesus lost, but that's probably what He would've wanted anyway - He is a good Son and always puts His mother first! =)

*We will never truly know results of this years competition because on day 3 I accidentally tried to set a jar on "Dad" - the reigning champion up to that point. Needless to say, he got cracked and I sabotaged that round! =(

Easter!

Our busy Holy Saturday was followed by an even busier Easter Sunday! We got all spruced up for the 7:30am Mass. It was a wonderful celebration of Christ's Resurrection and Father Lappe's Homily was great!

We came home and told John that there was something special hidden for him. He found his Easter basket in the net of his new basketball hoop! He was very excited about it, even though he is not smiling in the pictures...

We changed clothes and loaded up my parents' car. Then we drove to Edmonds for our annual Launceford family brunch at the Pancake Haus (a tradition that has going for over 15 years!). We forgot John's bib at home, so it was a challenge keeping him clean while eating pancakes smothered in strawberries and whipped cream! Then we all headed to my Aunt and Uncle's house for more visiting and an egg hunt for John. The big kids hid the eggs for him and we all enjoyed watching John's innocent pleasure and excitement in finding the eggs.

After that we headed up to my other Aunt and Uncle's house in Mukilteo (on my dad's side of the family). John fell asleep right as we got there, so we left him in the car to finish his nap (that we were worried would never happen!). We had a nice visit with them and John woke up eventually and got to play with his 2nd cousin, Alice.

The next stop was at my brother's house in Seattle for dinner. On our way down I-5, a couple miles before our exit, I looked over to the car next to us and thought the driver looked familiar. He was looking at me too and I quickly realized that he was Father Qui-Thac - the priest who celebrated our wedding! Andrew called him and invited him to join us for dinner. He was on his way to Lacey for a retreat and accepted our offer! =) So we had a great dinner with our family, Fr. Qui-Thac, and our friend Andrew, who lives with my brother. We are still so amazed that we noticed Father on the freeway, and just in time to invite him for dinner! It was Divinely arranged! And thank you to Aaron for cooking a great meal!

We had such a great visit over dinner that we lost track of time and didn't leave until 9:30pm - which means John had another late night. But other than that, I thought our Easter was perfect!

Holy Saturday

Holy Saturday happened to land on my mom's birthday! We had a very busy but special day! I started the day out by getting a much-needed haircut. Then we all went with John to a public Easter egg hunt at a city park. We were about 15 minutes late and pretty much all the eggs were found already! We went up to one of the coordinators and she graciously gave us a few handfuls of candy and some empty plastic eggs so we could do our own little hunt for John. Grandma and Grandpa played with John on the playground while Andrew and I stuffed and hid some eggs in the woods. John caught on quickly and found all the eggs! It was very cute watching him! After he found an egg he wanted to open it right away and eat the candy inside - which he calls "cookie."

The egg hunt was followed by a nap for John, while I went out with my parents for some birthday shopping. When we got home, we painted eggs (aka - the contestants for "Egg Wars 2011").

Then we went out to dinner at Applebees. It was a full day and little Johnny didn't get to bed until about 10pm - usually he is in bed around 8pm. And since we had to go to the 7:30am Mass in the morning, that made the 6:30am wake-up call pretty difficult!