St. Joseph's Feast Day 2022

We celebrated St. Joseph's Feast Day by taking our Joseph, et al., to meet two other large families at a restaurant for a delicious and noisy breakfast. It was good fun.

Later in the day, Pop-Pops arrived from Atlanta and we went to Saturday evening Mass and dinner.

Four-year-old too noisy for Mass

Happy Birthday, Margaret

Happy 11th Birthday, Margaret! It has been lovely to watch over the past year as Margaret has started to blossom and come into her own. She is our very sensitive songbird and artist, and all her siblings agree that she cooks the best eggs. She enjoyed having a Broadway karaoke party with a few pals.

Birthday Breakfast

Party Appetizers

Party Lunch

Miscellaneous Moments

I took Thomas to one doctor visit and visited the hospital pharmacy on another day, we enjoyed a family movie night (Newsies)--which now require about two weeks to plan because that is how rarely all eight of us are home on the same evening--and we registered the top three kids for another speed cubing competition in May, something that requires battle planning and coordination since the online registrations typically fill up within 60 seconds. Not even kidding.

One day I opened the front door to call children for dinner when I spotted Thomas ten feet up in a tree! This was a first and a big milestone. Him regaining upper body strength after hospitalization for four and a half months has been a lot slower than regaining lower body strength because we naturally walk all day, but we don't naturally climb or do pull-ups!

I found a new successful recipe for Keto Egg Loaf, which I believe we would have simply called soufflé in the 1980s. Thomas loved it and ate it for numerous snacks, and his glucose stayed beautifully stable. So much more nutrition-dense than bread! The only downside is that it probably costs $5-6 in ingredients to make one loaf and most of the other kids loved it too, so they ate it up almost entirely in one breakfast. These are good problems to have. (No matter how many times I rotate the below picture, it won't rotate. Very strange.)

I attended a Lenten Retreat for women, although was late because I realized moments before leaving that I had 24 fewer hours than I thought to finish hemming and tucking Broadway Revue costumes. With Margaret pitching in to sew (she is the other seamstress of the family), I was able to dash out and catch most of the evening retreat. However, it proved an experience for me just to practice simply leaving the house and handing off care of Thomas to someone else. My weird hearing combined with a strange microphone echo meant I could not understand a word of the priest's two homilies, which was disappointing because I love that particular priest's talks. I was told later that the subject of one was about joining alongside one's suffering child, so I found it very interesting that God closed my ears to that! I was able to sit in Adoration and afterward, I chose to forego the candlelight social out on the plaza for just having the first opportunity in almost two years to sit alone in a church. Maybe that's all God wanted for me that night and that's enough.

Feast of the Annunciation

The Feast of the Annunciation involved juggling part of the crew attending 7:00 a.m. Mass, one daughter being taken to voice lessons, and a lovely, traditional waffle breakfast. Thanks, Chris, for the new double-Belgian waffle maker that makes our breakfast so quickly!

Then I took all six kids (by myself! I am out of practice!) to a field trip with their homeschool hybrid. I cannot share many pictures because of the school rules.

They participated in a teambuilding obstacle course which was pretty neat to watch.

Thomas really struggled on the field trip. It's going to be so good for his development to be involved in a co-op next year and learn how to adapt to others, how to follow along, and how to be on a group schedule.

Chris led us in prayer before he had to depart.

Little ones all throwing rocks into the lake

David and Thomas balancing along the firepit

We zipped home for an afternoon of more hemming and tucking of costumes while Chris cooked dinner on my behalf, and I finally finished preparing all ten costumes needed for this weekend! I was exhausted to the core and not even safe to drive at that point, so Chris took the kids to the Broadway Revue dress rehearsal. Sneak preview pics . . .