First Communion

Yesterday we celebrated Jackson's First Holy Communion. The first time he actually got to receive the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. I know, some people do not understand that whole aspect of our faith, and quite frankly, I haven't the bloggin' time to explain, but I can say this... When Jesus Christ instituted the Eucharist, he did it at the Last Supper when he told his disciples to do this in remembrance of Him. Well, our church has a lineage of Popes that you can actually trace all the way from Pope Benedict back to Peter. We believe when Jesus gave Peter the keys, that is where he made Peter "in charge", the Pope, our shepherd here on Earth. Remember when Jesus asked Peter if he loved him? And Peter said yes? It wasn't just forshadowing Peter's denial of Jesus 3 times, but Jesus told him to feed his sheep. Who are His sheep? US! All of us!! So that is where all that comes from... There is a lot more to the beauty of the Catholic church, but I want to keep this on Jackson today!

My boy was so handsome! He was so excited! We had such a great time Sunday. The Mass was beautiful and I was even honored to be the extraordinary minister of the cup and he timidly walked up to me and wet his lips just a bit and then gave me that smile that only Jackson could give! Having only one son with 4 girls can be tough sometimes... especially for him, but in a way, that boy is very special because he is the only son in our family!!! (I won't remind you how he keeps walking around with all 8 fingers crossed on his hands in hopes of another boy in the family....)

Anyway... we had a beautiful Mass, and afterwards we had a picnic at the house. My parents had come up Friday afternoon and Jackson's godparents Uncle B and Aunt Laura and their 3 kiddos surprised us Saturday night and stayed until Sunday afternoon. It was so much fun. A few other very close friends were also able to come and help celebrate this very momentous occasion!

Gardening in the rain!

Ok, it rained yesterday, which sort of put a slight damper on my flower garden plans, but not too badly. The girls and I ran errands in the morning... found a really cool bunkbed for G and Em... Then I dragged them to Lowe's where we bought a few more plants for our flower gardens... After we returned home, Ricky let Em and I go to Home Depot and buy a few more things I needed for my herb garden... (it was in the back yard, so I forgot to take pics of it... I'll post it soon) But the storm and rain didn't damper our planting and weeding... I had a ball and I know the kids did, too... Just check out the pictures... ;) BTW-the boots little G are wearing are big G's... so they are, I'm guessing, a size 4, and little G wears an 11???? It was too funny...

Random week facts...

Last night I took the kids and we met Ricky at the Fayetteville town square for a small gathering (probably 1000) people for a TEA party. It is a non-partisan movement to educate people to where all our "stimulus" money is going and what the current administration is raising taxes on and so forth. It was very informative and encouraging that there are lots of people who feel they are Taxed Enough Already! A good experience for the children to see how important it is to stand up for something you believe in... not to mention, I don't want my children to worry about this debt that will carry over into their working generation.

Today was the first day I have gotten to attend my MOMs group (Ministry of Mothers group)since before spring break. I think sometime around my birthday was the last time I attended it... It was sooooo good and soooo uplifting... It's one of the biggest reasons I'm so glad I'm staying at home (other then being with my little angels, a bonus to say the least!) The moms in that group are just awesome and so convicted in their faith. I'm so honored to be a part of such a group.

So now that I'm spiritually filled! Life is good. I'm going to put some random pictures of this week. I think Little M is eating carrots in one of them... I'm teaching her to take self portraits like her momma has done all her life...Just enjoy.

Easter, Rice East and what more could you ask for???

Even though Easter Sunday has been a rainy, cold yucky outside day... it has been a beautiful, spiritual filled wonderful indoor day for the Blair family! Our day started out as it should at Mass this morning. We went with all our fellow two timers... (Christmas/Easter goers...) I playfully considered making a sign that read, "If you weren't here last week and you're not planning on coming back next week, please don't take my seat/parking space..." But being that it wouldn't be the Christlike thing to say... I refrained... But Mass was beautiful and there is something about singing "Jesus Christ is risen today, Alleluia." I LOVE that song. We had an "indoor" Easter egg hunt after Mass and the kids collected even more candy... just what we needed for an indoor day at home!

Little M's godfather took our family picture at church and it turned out pretty good considering how hard it is to make 7 people look at the same spot and coordinate a smile with it! I love my church and I love my fellow parishioners... They are some of my very best friends...

We got home and began our preparations for our traditional Easter dinner. I don't care how many of my kiddos move away, get married, start their own traditions, I want to always have Easter Dinner at my house and leave it open for WHOEVER!! (hint, hint) wants to stop on by! We had a delicious ham (that we got a deal on at Sam's!) and I attempted to make Rice East. My grandma Grace used to make Rice East (at New Year's) as long I can remember (haha, no not since yesterday...) I remember her making it every New Year's Day. I thought, Easter Dinner would be the perfect time to debut my cooking "talents" to see if I have what it takes to make that delectable dish. Which may not even be a word, but in my world, we'll make it one...

I collected the ingredients this week and I'll be honest, there is enough sodium in the original recipe to dry your insides completely out! I think I estimated over 2000 mg of sodium? CRAZY! So I found some lower sodium soy sauce, and only used one cube of bouillon (one cube has like 600 mg of sodium, but it's so GOOD!!), and used a real stick of butter (which technically is "healthier" than a stick of margarine) if butter can be healthy. Any way, I DID IT! It was DE-li-cious! I took pictures... it was beautiful! I even took pics of the kids clean plates, but unfortunately, I can't figure out how to have more than 5 pics on here at one time... maybe another blog another day??

I hope you notice how we used our good china for Sunday dinner! We started a tradition a few years back when we started cooking our Sunday dinners that we were going to use our good china every Sunday. We don't have a china cabinet/hutch to display it and really it had been boxed away up until a few years ago, and why have it if you're not going to use? It's been almost 13 years since we got it, so the newness has worn off!

I haven't quite given in to giving them glasses to drink out of yet... maybe next year! My Grandma Grace gave us the glasses that Ricky and I are drinking out of. I call them our "sophisticated" glasses!

After our delicious Easter dinner, Ricky and I cleaned up the kitchen while the kiddos got ready for bed and then we prayed our Sunday Rosary and prayers together. We try to pray every evening, but on Sundays, we pray the Rosary together. I hope they will want to continue that when they get out on their own. Today we prayed the Glorious mysteries all about the Resurrection and Ascension into Heaven and the descent of the Holy spirit and the crowning of Mary as Queen of Heaven... (hey, if Jesus is our King, she is the Queen mum... can you deny that?)

Our day was wonderful and I capped it off by calling my sweet grandma to tell her about how delicious my rice east turned out... She sounded very pleased that I had managed to make it without any problems... another one of her wonderful traditions that I have tried to bring to my children passes with flying colors!

I hope your Easter Sunday was as special if not more than ours. We are so blessed. More then we deserve... Have a GREAT Easter week!

The Hunt!

First I will blog about the Easter Egg hunt, and then I'll do a separate one about our Easter Sunday. We decided since the weather was supposed to be bad on Easter Sunday that we would do our Easter Egg hunt Saturday night. They had a ball... Just enjoy the pictures... (Ricky is laughing because G literally climbed the tree to get the egg...)

Coloring Easter Eggs

This face shows it all in the excitement of coloring Easter Eggs today. We had a ball with the 12 different colors we were given in that classic Paas coloring kit... This is what having kids is all about! We had the best time.
Little M did the usual eating of the boiled egg, but she threw a curve ball, LITERALLY, and dropped the egg on the table and therefore caused me to eat a delicious hard boiled egg! Nothing like forcing yourself to eat something you enjoy! But seriously, coloring Easter eggs is one of the great traditions we have. We attended Mass for Holy Thursday, the Service of the Death of our Lord on Good Friday and today we spent together coloring eggs and watching a great movie... We have really enjoyed our family time together... I will post later a picture of the girls and their finger nail polish. During the movie, the older 3 girls got their toes and finger nails painted! Em stared at hers the entire time! She's such a girlie girl. Ricky actually wanted me to have my nails painted, so Big G and Em convinced me to paint not only my toe nails, but my finger nails as well... and if you know me, you know I DO NOT paint my finger nails... short of looking like I'm giving blood out of my nails, I am very self conscience of my fingernails and putting anything on them that would actually make them stick out for others to see!

The Great Gardening Gurus...

The Blair family garden went into action this weekend! The weather was beautiful Saturday about 70 or so degrees (of course yesterday the high barely made it above 40, today 30...) love spring time in the Ozarks...

Ricky tilled up the garden again and we planted some broccoli, spinich, lettuce, and my all time fav, GREEN ONIONS! Those of you that know me well, know I LOVE green onions... dipped in a little salt, they can ward off evil spirits with the breath they give you!!!

Seriously, the two older ones were making "Stone soup" as you'll see in the pics, little G and little M were asleep and Em was at a birthday party.

I also attempted planting blueberry bushes AGAIN! For those who don't know this, I have a 96 (almost 97) year old neighbor, Mr. Bonds and my dear sweet Mr. Bonds (who btw, has been married to Mrs. Bonds for 75 years!!!) loves to help out in our yardwork, like he really thinks we have no yard work skills at all (really, he just loves to help out a neighbor and he has been around the block a time or two) but during one of his "helpful" endeavors last summer, he mowed over my blueberry bushes that we planted behind the fence... so this year... I planted them in the fenced area, hey we have no more dogs, so I only have to keep the kids out them, and the squirrels...

On to a different note...

This is Holy Week in the Christian world and one of the most exciting times in the Church. I am on the downside slope of getting through this Lent without Facebook! That was TOUGH! I realized I had become quite addicted to FB, so I am glad I made the "sacrifice." Maybe I'll even wait until Easter Monday to check it...or not... ;)

Spider woman?

G now loves the Spider Man mask and gloves... unfortunately, one glove has magically evaporated from our home... hmmm... but today she was wearing the glove and mask and playing with M... it was hilarious...