Prayers Please

Tonight Jason got news of a former MARINE friend and flight mechanic. Ameer Ali has been a pilot in Alaska and last night his plane crashed. His body and that of his copilot have yet to be found and the search has been suspended. Even if they survived the crash after all this time in the water, they have almost no chance of survival. Jason was stationed with him in NYC and they served many missions together, including their time in Iraq and Afghanistan. He was hoping to see some more of Ameer as he was going to start some work around the Seattle area. Please keep all of this in prayer...so hard to lose a friend and praying he can be found!
http://www.adn.com/news/alaska/rural/story/1105193.html
http://www.adn.com/news/alaska/ap_alaska/story/1105205.html

Sharing..

...a yummy recipe: Our Lady of Altagracia Orange Smoothies
...a GREAT read (especially for us wives): Love, Honor and Take for Granted?
...and a beautiful picture of people marching towards the Supreme Court in defense of the unborn today!

Seven Quick Takes (volume 1)

Ok, so I have always enjoyed reading other's quick takes...but never thought I had enough note-worthy tidbits to share...but I am going to give it a go...it is a nice reflection on the week at least.
***1***

I feel confident in saying that Angelica is OFFICIALLY potty trained!! It has been TWO full weeks with not ONE accident. She is even wearing underpants during naps now and only pull ups at night. However, she has been dry for one week now in the morning so I think I am going to say bye-bye to pull-ups all together! It has been such a FREEDOM going from 3 kids in diapers to two! We tried so many training methods, I read all the different books etc. With Angelica it came down to mama going cold turkey on her and putting the "baby" diapers away and putting her right into the underpants. She went from fighting me about going potty to LOVING it!! She has LOVED her sticker chart and step chart on the back of the door....she puts a star sticker on for pee-pee and a smiley face sticker on for poo-poo. Then she marks her X's on the step chart. We definitely had to find the method that worked for Angelica and I am sure Emma will be a little different....thinking of giving her a try at it soon as she already goes some and follows Angelica around...my life will be extremely different then!! Here is an article about Potty Training today.
***2***

Going along with the above...to get her finally to go poo-poo consistently in the potty...we used the reward of money (the m&ms etc didn't work). But, being able to choose one coin from our coin basket was a HUGE hit. So every time she went she got to pick her coin and put it in her purse. The other day she commented, "Mama, I am getting rich!" And she was...so then we changed the rules to every morning if she woke up dry she got to pick a coin. Might have to change them again soon....Angelica loved going to the dollar store and using her own money to pick out a toy!

***3***

We had a second collection at church last Sunday for the relief efforts in Haiti. I was frantically trying to find my wallet in the diaper bag when Angel (who had brought her purse with her to buy a holy card after mass) said, "Mama, I can give the sad people one of my monies." A melt your heart moment....and she did, so that quarter was given with lots of love!

***4***

I (finally) attended the third meeting of our new MOMS group at church. We are doing the Full of Grace study and based on my first encounter think this will be a great support group for moms at the church and also enriching in the study and discussions we will have. Now to only get Miss Emma to stay in the child care room the whole time. On a side note, if you have never read the life and story of Edith Stein, I highly recommend it!

***5***

This week (yesterday) marked the one year anniversary since my PopPop passed away. Hard to believe a year has already gone by and in so many ways we remember him every day. Angelica still talks about her memories of him and I hope that through our pictures and stories all of my children will have a good understanding of who their PopPop was. He would definitely not be liking this rainy weather lately...

I took the girls to his grave yesterday and we said some prayers. Then Angelica started asking questions about death and Heaven, such as:

"What is a soul?", "How do we get in the ground?", "How do we die?", "Where is Heaven?". All good questions but a little difficult to think of how to explain to toddlers!!

***6***

My hubby works at Boeing and they have a point system where they get rewarded with points when they do certain jobs or get acknowledged for something. He has been racking up the points lately. Boeing has a store where then you can redeem your points for a variety of items. Well, instead of him getting a GPS or other fun items I know he wanted...he got me LOWES gift cards and yesterday my brand new item arrived:

my KitchenAid Standing Mixer
Now I just need to learn how to use it!! So excited. Thank you hon!

***7***

Some of my favorite mama time is snuggling. This morning I had all three babes in the bed and well...wasn't as fun as it used to be with one. Today I was worried about feet kicking the baby's head, about someone rolling off the bed, being a referee to who had more blankets...thinking we need a king size bed and rotations on the snuggle time!!