Catching up - Confirmation and Easter

On Sunday, May 3, Will and 2,800 other kids were confirmed at a huge Mass at the Lucas Oil Stadium. The Mass commemorated the 175th Anniversary of the founding of the Archdiocese of Indianapolis, and was attended by over 25,000 people. It was a beautiful afternoon, and we were blessed to be joined by Will's godparents, Rich and Barb and their daughter, Stephanie --Rich was good enough to agree to be Will's confirmation sponsor. Sharon, Maggie, Sarah, Adam, and Alex all came, too.

See, it was huge:

Our dear Archbishop Daniel in the recessional. To the Archbishop's right is Chris, who was at St. A two summers ago as a seminarian and will be ordained next month. Some parish will be very happy to have him.
The tall guy in the center, carry the little incense pot (there's probably a better word for that) is Doug, our seminarian from last summer. He went to San Antonio with the kids and to the Demolition Derby with Clay and Will, plus he loves football, racing and video games. He will be one cool priest. Father Todd, sneaking out of the procession

To have his picture taken with the kids:

Will's not looking at the camera, but that's him, front row right. Afterward, we all went to supper at Will's favorite restaurant, The Rathskellar before the DelRoso's headed back to Ohio.

Easter, before:

And after. It was almost time to go when I remembered to take a picture -- pajama pants were already on!

Sister wanted a real crown of thorns for the Living Stations of the Cross, so I went out in the woods and found these thorns. Of course, she made me trim them down, because they were so sharp -- my hands were raw after weaving this together. Food for thought . . .




Peace.

Friday -- Fiction, 500, Field Day, Field Trip!

First, fiction. Clay and I both loved this book, Our Lady of the Lost and Found, by Diane Schoemperlen. It's not a Catholic book, just a good book -- heart-warming, historical, humorous. My mom often said to act and speak as if Jesus were in the room with you -- what if Jesus (or Mary, in this case, or Buddha or Mohammad) came to stay with you for a week? What would you talk about? What would you fix for supper? Would you go to the mall? Or Mass? It's one of those I read slowly, not wanting it to end.

We've both moved on to non-fiction: Clay's now reading Eat, Pray, Love and I have a hard time putting down The Sharper Your Knife, the Less You Cry. Top Chef makes a lot more sense now, but more on that book after I finish.

The 500 -- We never take as many pictures at the track as Jill does, but here are a few:

Our patient and lovely and patient and obliging hosts

(they do put up with a lot from us, year after year)

I made signs for Katie, who sang America the Beautiful and rode around in the celebrity parade before the race. I took this practice picture beforehand, because I knew I would be too excited when she passed by. As it turns out, I wasn't excited at all, because when she came by (at 11:45), we were taking a short walk and going to the bathroom before the festivities were to start at noon. But my dear friends held up the signs anyway. Did she see them? Maybe someday I'll get a chance to ask her.Not such a great picture, but here's Helio, making his victory lap. He sobbed, sobbed, sobbed in Victory Lane -- just a few short weeks ago, it looked like his life could have taken a much darker turn than the 800 lefts he took on Sunday. Although some say he had a really, really good lawyer, I can't imagine that such a good guy would have evaded paying his income taxes.

Field Day has become a beloved tradition at St. A School. It was a beautiful day, the perfect day to get wet and messy. Each class represented a South American Country, and at each of the 16 stations, before the games, the kids heard a little history/geography/biology lesson. Because we were such a big class, we were divided into two countries: Paraguay and French Guyana.

The firetruck came after lunch for a thorough hosing-off:

We were all pretty cranky on the walk back to school, but we rallied for the next day -- the whole-school field trip to Spring Mill State Park. We visited the Grissom Memorial, the Nature Center and then after lunch, the pioneer village.

Learning about pioneer toys (we made some, too)

Lorenz napped like this on the bus for much of the way home:

(Perhaps he was praying that next year he won't have to make quite as many trips down to Sister's office. Although, the crusty old nun thinks she made some progress with the obstinate little boy this year. Personally, I think he just liked her hugs and enormous bosom.)

And now school is over for another year. Will is officially a junior. Officially, I haven't heard if I have a job in the fall, but I have a feeling that even if my position is cut from the budget, I'll be hanging around the kindergarten room, anyway.

Peace.

Thursday's Happy Moment

It's been a long week. A stressful week. Waiting for test results for Sarah. Major difficult (for me) reports due for PIX. Field Day. Field Trip. It culminated today, at our last school Mass with Father Todd.
I got a little weepy. (I know you are shocked.)

I thought about taking a nap when I got home, but decided to bounce around on some of the other blogs participating in the SewMamaSew! Giveaways and found this happy video at an Australian crafter's blog, Buttontree Lane (many thanks to her!). It is truly worth sharing (especially if you are a musical geek like me):



Happier? I know I am. No nap needed now.
Peace

May Giveaway Day

Sew, Mama, Sew! is sponsoring May Giveaway Day, and since I love them (the company, the fabrics, the blog and forum) so, I thought I would participate!

I'm giving away two things: a onesie baby dress (made with a size 3-6 month onesie) and matching headband, and a selection of vintage buttons from of my mom's vast collection.

(Believe me, once again this doesn't hardly make a dent in the amount of buttons in those 4 tins!)

Leave a comment (just a nice "hi" is great), and let me know if you want to be entered for the baby dress, the buttons or both! I'll put all your names in a hat and draw the winners on June 1.

Thanks for visiting, and peace.

Yes, I know

I haven't blogged for ages, even though I had promised to do better. In my defense, I gave up almost all Internet use for Lent.


Yes, I know. Lent was over 6 weeks ago.



So, here is a list of things I should probably blog about:

1) Lent
2) Very cool Spring Break trip to Lincoln Land
3) Will getting his driver's license
4) Easter
5) Will's awesome Confirmation/Mass at Lucas Oil Stadium/Visit from Rich, Barb and Stephanie
6) Losing our dear priest/Getting a new one
7) Cleaning the basement and getting rid of 8 bags of fabric and 3 bags of yarn (really!)
8) Turning Will's old bedroom into my craft room/office
9) Clay's new obsessions: blood pressure and softball
10) Mother's Day
11) Kindergarten Graduation
12) Upcoming: Indy and the Purdue Crew reunion
13) Current: 24 Pre-Convention reports to check, audit and compile before next Wednesday. Yikes!


and of course,


15) The boys and
14) Projects -- knitting, sewing, decoupaging, gardening


So, here are a few pictures for the meantime:

The Monkey Quilt I made for the school auction

Nate's Birthday

Emilee's Shawl

Peace.