Monday, March 31, 2014

Family and Marriage Conference

Eric and I went to a Family and Marriage Conference Saturday at Notre Dame.  It was hosted by the Office of Family Life of our diocese and we are so glad we went!  We always said that we should do something like this, but hadn't actually signed up for one.  It also helps that the kids are old enough to be home on their own (Sarah was in charge) and we don't have to worry about them too much.  

Dr. Ray Guarendi was the keynote speaker...he is awesome!!  How can you not be inspired by the stories of a father of 10 adopted children?!  He and his wife are very faith-filled, down-to-earth people and have raised these children after adopting them under some pretty difficult circumstances.  We laughed saying that his books should be required reading for 
anyone having children!  

We attended two workshops and heard two talks by Dr. Ray.  There were plenty of breaks in between and lots of food for the whole day :)

What we took away from it, is that families in general are under attack in our current culture (which we already knew) and what we can do to stand strong.  As Dr. Ray said, "Love without discipline is abuse."  Not only being reminded of our parenting responsibilities but also being reminded of the goals and purpose of our marriage was so uplifting and reassuring.  
If you've never heard of Dr. Ray, you should definitely read about him here...

Or, watch this to see what a great speaker he is - he brought me to tears a couple of times laughing so hard!

Sunday, March 30, 2014

Lyndsay turns 12!

It should not take a week to get things posted on here but...that's life!

Lyndsay turned 12 this year - one more year until teenager status.  

I love it when the kids take the camera because they always come up with fun shots that I would have missed.  



~ she and her sisters have watched Frozen about 10 times in one week


~ a fleeting moment




~ fun with shutter speed and a spinning plate of brownies


Thursday, March 20, 2014

Searching for Eagles

We have heard about a family of eagles living on the St.  Joseph River in a nearby town.  The girls and I decided to try and find them today.  I work with a woman who has seen them so when we got to the area, I called her to ask if she would give me more details on where exactly she saw them.  She did, and after we got there, we waited for about 2 hours...and didn't see one eagle.  They were not in the mood to come out this morning I guess.  I'm sure we'll try again later.  Even though we didn't see them, we still had fun.  It was too chilly to be outside of the van for too long, but at least the sun was shining!







Tuesday, March 18, 2014

Sarah turns 16!!

Every March is a flurry of activity with three birthdays in our immediate family and then four more birthdays in the extended family.  

We now have a 16 year old! Ah!





 



She was really surprised and thrilled with a new laptop from Eric and I and her grandparents.  It is now completely customized to her liking and she's looking forward to learning Photoshop Elements this summer.  Happy Birthday, Sarah!

Monday, March 17, 2014

Meredith turns 8!

Every year it gets harder to believe that our kids keep getting older...why do they keep doing that?!  Meredith turned 8 last week and we surprised her with a pogo stick.  She is probably the most active one out of all of the kids so we know she will enjoy it.  I won't lie, we all had to give it a try...



 







Monday, March 3, 2014

The weekend



We went to Indianapolis Saturday for a funeral for one of Eric's cousins, Jim, who died suddenly last week apparently due to complications from the flu.  It was quite a shock.  They have 5 children, ages 4 - 16.  

It was such a beautiful Mass and I have not seen one so crowded before.  The family has a large support group through friends at church and I am so happy for them that they have that.  It was good to see so many family members that we never see.  We are spread out all over the place.

My thoughts have been on them so much lately.

Meredith came down with a fever last night, but slept all night long, surprisingly.  She woke up this morning and has been getting sick, and since she's old enough to kind of know what's going on, she has asked about Jim and how he had the flu also...  

I think I might be having a change of heart about the flu vaccine...

On a lighter note (I think), I was having a discussion with our teenagers about what they want their funerals to be like and our daughter said "No flowers!"  When asked why not, she said, "Because they remind me of dead people."  It made us all laugh.  She had been to more funerals by age 8 than I had in three times that amount of time so I can see why she associates flowers with dead people!