Akiane Kramarik - Spiritual Young Artist

This is a short segment from a CNN broadcast. The story of this 12-year-old girl is mind-blowing. It is amazing how God works through people!

25 weeks

We had a rough beginning to the week, as I had the flu (GI) from Sunday to Wednesday, and we were thus unable to make it out to places like Mom's group and story time to get the jitterbugs out. Mike had off Monday anyway because of President's Day, but he ended up taking off Tuesday and Wednesday to take care of me and Jack (and unfortunately had to work all Saturday so he'd only have to forfeit one vacation day instead of two). The flu was miserable while it lasted, but I was thoughtful and didn't share it with anyone else (that I know of). I had a midwife appointment on Thursday, and everything looked and sounded good. Our girl is growing well, and I can feel her even more than I could feel Jack around this time.
I think Jack was going stir-crazy by the end of the week, so even though the weather was gross on Friday, we bared the elements and spent the majority of the day (minus Jack's midday nap, which was mostly spent driving around) at our good friends' the Wards' house. Jack has become best friends with Amalia and Brinnly and always feels quite at home there.
To top off our week, tonight we had another couple over for dinner, which was a nice change to our routine-- an evening with other adults! (and an excuse to get this week-long-unattended house back in order again) They brought the most delicious chocolate cheesecake I have ever eaten, made by Monica herself-- this is the girl who made her own three-tier wedding cake, which Mike devoured almost all by himself. Thanks Mehaffeys!

11 months

[This is Michael blogging -- you know, the other name on the blog] Jack has gotten so big so fast. He has just recently started doing all kinds of neat stuff. When we ask him where his feet are, he reaches out and grabs them. He also claps and waves when we ask him to. And just tonight he took four or five steps in a row to get to me from his Mom -- without warning or precedence. Here are some pictures of the little guy.

Weekend Plans

I found this video on a friend of a friend of a friends' blog (yes, that's right), and Mike and I thought it to be very appropriate to our new life status-- married with soon-to-be-two kids.
In the past few months, I've found myself involved in a Mom's group and various playgroups or story time (all of which have become my new favorite activities), but we'd really like to do more things with other couples. Maybe Mike and I should memorize this little ditty.

Some snippets of Jack

I've been wanting to post some videos of Jack for while. Mike will upload some more onto our video section on the right shortly, but here are a couple I thought were cute. The one with the cat was taken at my parents when Jack and I visited Maryland a couple of weeks ago. And the other one was two days ago. They gave Jack a balloon when we left Trader Joe's, and it kept him occupied all afternoon. Last night, when it no longer had enough helium to stay afloat, we finally had to take it away from him, as he was trying to gnaw off the end of it, and I thought it might pop in his face.

A break from self denial

Since the true Lenten tradition includes giving something up during the 40 days of Lent except for Sundays, I decided to indulge one day a week. Yesterday, Mike and I had our TEAMs retreat all day at Holy Family Friary. It was a good time to reflect on Lenten and Catholic traditions, spend time in prayer and scripture and just meet with other married couples to talk about Christian values.

So long for 40 days.

I was thinking last night about hat to give up for lent. Usually I give up sweets or junk food in general, but I don't feel like I can give up food now because I won't just be denying myself (maybe just on the fasting days, I'll do this). So I thought I would give up some time on the computer. I don't spend an incredible amount of time on here, but it's something I enjoy that I can give up. I couldn't justify doing without email, though I would like that. Really the only other thing was blogging. So for this period of lent, I've decided to do without recording the mundane details of our life and poking around on friend's blog, and friend's friend's blogs, etc. This is it friends.
Maybe I'll get Mike to fill in occasionally.

open studio 1

Since I have been putting up new drawings on my art site inconsistently, I thought I would start a new category here- Open Studio- to show new art pieces I have completed. This one, Nana's Precious Boys, is done in pencil of a woman and her two grandsons. Sarah, the mother of the children and a photographer, found my art site through a friend's site (thanks, Kurths!), so it is starting to reach people outside of my little sphere!
I have really been trying to motivate myself to do a large painting to put over our mantle. My problem is thinking of a subject. Because of this, in high school, a friend and I used to work jointly on some pieces-- she would come up with the concept, and I would focus on the technical part. Mike thinks I should do a landscape, a subject at which I am terrible. But I haven't attempted a landscape since high school. We'll see if I make any progress.
And Mike helped me add some new (and old) works to my art site-- sketchbooksnapshots.com

Sugar and spice and everything nice...

That's what she's made of.

Chihuly at Phipps

Since this was one of the first Saturdays in weeks that we had nothing planned, we decided to see Dale Chihuly's glass show at Phipps Conservatory before evening mass. I had seen his show in Trenton as a Freshman with a friend and had wanted to see it at Phipps before the show ends at the end of this month. Chihuly's colorful glass works are like something out of a child's dream. They remind me of Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (maybe because I was craving a Cadbury Creme Egg the whole time?). If you live near Pittsburgh and haven't seen the show yet, it's worth seeing. Here's Phipps' site's gallery from the show. I'll post more pictures in Picasa (the photo link on the right) soon.