A weekend with the grandparents

 This little boy is just too darn cute!

 Here he is enjoying the gorgeous weather we were blest with last week.

 Jay attended a conference in Boston, this past weekend, so the Albanese grandparents came up for a visit! Yeah! We had a great time. We attended St. Greg's fish fry on Friday, played outside, enjoyed a home cooked meal, thanks to Poppy and enjoyed lots of conversation together. We also watched the 2010 version of "True Grit."  I need to see the original since Grandma and Poppy were comparing the movie to the John Wayne original. 

 Here are Raphael and Jacob wearing the shirts that Grandma and Poppy gave them from Paris. Jay was given the "Je suis fou du paris" shirt from his Aunt Eleanor when he was younger and Grandma found the exact same shirt for Jacob over 20 years later, amazing!

 The boys always love a good book!

 Helping to snap green beans for dinner (and eating a few too).

 Watching "Busy Town" together.

 Before bed, the boys enjoyed playing monster with Poppy.

 Theo and Poppy before church.

 Thank you Grandma and Poppy for making the trip up to Buffalo! We had a wonderful time with you both. We look forward to seeing everyone again soon at Easter.

Lucky

 March is flying by and we've been keeping busy! Here Jacob is painting his lucky rainbow.

I'm loving Pinterest. Here's my attempt at a Lorax (made of mandarin oranges, raisins and a slice of turkey)! The boys enjoyed the book and have seen ads for the movie everywhere (although they are too young for the movie in my opinion).

This little man keeps us busy all day long!  He's very fast and I have a feeling he might be an early walker.

Mom and I enjoyed Les Miserables! It is such a tear jerker! The actor who played Jean Valjean was excellent!

The boys "diving" off a diving board into the water. This winter Jacob has been taking swim lessons. We're hoping this will alleviate some of the fear, he had last year, of the water.

We planted some of our seeds (although it might be a little early). The weather has been awesome!

Raphael playing outside in crocs!

Humm what to plant next?

Here is our garden box. We have some garlic coming up and the strawberry plants made it over the winter.

Theo looking over the fence with Daddy.

We made some delicious shamrock sugar cookies!

The boys lovely St. Patrick's Day artwork! Have a blessed day!

      "May you have:
A world of wishes at your command
God and his angels close at hand
Friends and family their love impart,
And Irish blessings in you heart."

-Irish Blessing

Thoughts

I do not usually use this blog to discuss inner thoughts/feelings but here are a few:

I'm excited for spring. I'm anxious to watch the daffodils and tulips start to sprout their little heads out of the dark soil into the light of day. I can't wait to watch the forsythia bush bloom before my eyes, as I observe on our living room couch.  And I'm already thinking about what little edibles we will grow in our garden box this year. In a couple of weeks the seeds will be started indoors.  Spring is a beautiful time of year.

It's Lent. This year due to all that is going on in our world and country (especially the HHS mandate and all of the attacks on our religious freedom) I feel that prayer is needed more then EVER.  In my mind and heart I have been worked up over these issues and try not to let my passion get in the way.  However, it is frustrating when I come across apathy or ignorance of the issues and what is truly at stake.  As Christians and people of faith we can no longer just sit idly by. It is imperative that we make our voices heard. 

  I've been enjoying discussing Lent with the boys (well really only Jacob).  Jay and I have been introducing the rosary, the stations of the cross and other prayers.  In a few weeks I'm attending a Catholic Women's Conference and Theresa Tomeo is the keynote speaker. I'm super excited. I listen to her radio show, "Catholic Connections," when I drive Jacob to and from Pre-School. She's spot on.  Jay and I also started watching Father Robert Barron's Catholicism series, it's AWESOME. Omi and Opa bought this wonderful series and we are going to pass it along to the family members to watch and share. It is powerful.

I've been reading, reading reading. I'm currently enthralled in a wonderful book entitled "No Ordinary Time:  Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: The Home Front in World War II" by Doris Kearns Goodwin. It is a 700 page read (I'm chugging along around page 400), but well worth it. It is superbly written and a wonderful look into FDR's fourth term and the U.S. during this difficult time in our history.  I also watched the movie, "The Tree of Life," when I was home alone one evening (well the boys were sleeping). The film features Brad Pitt and Sean Penn. I thought it was well done.  It was very though provoking and visually provocative.

I enjoy and am blest to be a stay-at-home mom.  However, at times I feel restless. At first I used to be scared by these feelings and would beat myself up mentally over these thoughts.  However, through reading other mommy blogs, books, sharing with friends and family and prayer I'm coming to peace with these feelings.  The season of my life right now, at this present moment, is calling for me to be home. This does not mean that I have to always be happy or that I can't get frustrated, however, I know that someday I will truly miss this season of my life. It is crazy, exhausting, repetitive (did I mention repetitive) and mundane, but I love the boys and am grateful for the opportunity to watch them grow.  Every day they give me new moments to smile, laugh, cry and sit down and pray for the blessings they have given me.

If you're still with me thank you for reading my thoughts, it means a lot. Have a peaceful weekend....I'm off to see Les Miserables!

P.S. Big Chuck (Mr. D'Imperio) writes a bi-weekly column for Oneonta, NY's newspaper, "The Daily Star."  Here's a link to his recent post:http://thedailystar.com/bigchuck/x1513923696/All-Oneontans-have-memories-of-Bresees  The girl, Sarah Keating who is mentioned is me!

Away

This sweet little girl (our niece and goddaughter turned one on the 23rd of February)! We do not see her nearly enough! Happy 1st birthday cutie pie!

 The boys and mommy snuck away to Ithaca for the weekend.  Rebecca and Seamus drove up from N.J. and we had a fun weekend together. Seamus is almost 3 months old and boy is he an adorable little baby! It was a low key weekend, we played, cooked, listened to music and caught up on the "news." Rebecca and I snuck out to go window shopping and enjoyed a cup of hot chocolate together at the Ithaca Bakery. The boys spent most of the day on Sunday at Grandma and Poppy's house and had a blast! The time flew by as it always seems to do when we visit. We never have enough time with either family and I always feel torn in two.

 Theo was a little under the weather (we think it was due to his teeth).  He wanted to be held most of the weekend or crawling on his own!

 Look at those eyes! Seamus is an easing going baby who rarely cries and who sleeps like a champ.

 Grandma K. with all of her handsome grandsons!

Raphael and Poppa watching a Western together.

Since our trip Raphael has been given a hair cut and we're working on lotioning his dry cheeks. He's enjoying one of his favorite snacks, crackers and hummus.

Valentine's Day Wrap-Up

 Okay, yes I am a nerd and yes I love to mail out homemadeValentine's Day cards. Here are some of the cards I made this year (thanks Martha Stewart for the inspiration).

 I sent this one to my Grandparents-"you are my cup of tea"

 Jacob and I made some cute shovel Valentines for the kids in his class. I found this idea on Pinterest. I actually had a hard time finding the shovels, since they were in high demand due to the popularity of this Valentine on Pinterest! Jacob hand wrote his name on each card  and was really excited to share these with his friends.

 20 shovel valentines ready to be given out.

 Coloring sheets are always a hit around here!

 Jay was home for Valentine's Day!! Yeah! He made us a delicious dinner and he gave me that cute kitchen towel that he has on his shoulder (and a few other goodies....).

 Here is another cute idea, found on Pinterest. They are heart stamps made using a toilet paper roll. Jacob and I made a few cards for his teachers using this stamp, oh and did I say I was a nerd yet?!

 Here are the boys on Valentine's Day morning. They woke up to handmade Valentine's and a treat of dried cranberries and chocolate chips. Jacob had his school Valentine's Day party that morning so we had to hurry to get ready.

Here is Jacob showing off his loot. This year we had a lot of fun leading up to Valentine's Day. Jacob learned all about St. Valentine at school and we talked at home about showing people you love them through our actions (this could still us some work, but we're trying).  We hope you all had a wonderful Valentine's Day with the ones you love.

Our boys

Here are some tidbits about our boys that I thought I'd share so as not to forget.

Recent dialogue between Jacob and Raphael:

Raphael:  God is in Church  Jacob:  No He's in heaven with Jesus and Mary.  Mommy:  No He's with us always everywhere and anywhere.

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Raphael enjoys keeping tiny toys in the pockets of his clothes.  Sometimes I forget to check and these toys end up in the wash.  The other day we were visiting a friend. When it was time to leave I had to check Raph's pockets.  We found Barbie shoes, Legos and miscellaneous other toys, my friend was laughing!! 

Jacob and Raphael both LOVE Busytown Mysteries (a PBS show that we get on Netflix) and any Busytown book that they can get their hands on.  They get super excited when the theme song comes on during the show and they can name all the characters by heart.

Jacob's concentration (when he wants to use it) amazes me at times.  He can focus on listening to a chaper book (We just finished "Charlotte's Web" and the time before that "Little House in the Big Woods") for a half an hour at a time.  He also listens to a song so well that he repeats phrases in songs I didn't even pick up.  The most difficult aspect of Jacob's focus is when he has it disturbed.  At times I think Jacob wishes he were an only child. 

Raphael loves having Jacob for a big brother, well most of the time anyway.  He follows Jacob around constantly and always wants to do what he does. Case in point; the other night Jay made the boys individual pizzas. We asked each of the boys what they'd like on their pizzas.  Jacob said he wanted pepperoni and Raphael said he wanted just cheese. However, as soon as Raphael saw that Jacob had pepperoni, he too wanted pepperoni on his pizza.  Raphael so desparately wants to be just like his big brother!

Theo is so far an easy going little man. His first word is "da da," and I love how he says it.  It is so pure and sweet. He's a drool machine and since he started crawling, he's unstoppable.  He enjoys laughing with and at his brothers.  He has some crazy hair, that we do not style (I get asked this quite a bit). 

These little boys are loads of fun and exhausting..I need to go to bed! Pictures coming soon...

The happenings

 The boys love keeping busy by checking out lots and lots of library books!

Theo could spend hours in his jumper, don't worry I don't let him!

 Jacob had Clifford the dog for a week. Clifford is passed around to all the classmates in his pre-school class.  Clifford went on a lot of adventures with our family!

 Grandma and Poppa visited last weekend. The boys enjoyed playing swimming with them!

 They set up "rafts" and "floaties" on the floor. Jacob started all of this because he's taking swim lessons this winter. So far he loves it!

 We had a nice weekend with Grandma and Poppa.  We checked out St. Greg's Open House, which was great. We then went out to eat at Family Tree.   Throughout the weekend we enjoyed some great grilled food courtesy of Jay.  Jay has been able to use his grill quite a bit due to all of this crazy nice winter weather.

 A sneak peak at Jacob's Valentine's Day craft/activity that he made for his classmates. This was a super cute idea that we found on pinterest.  The other side of the tag says "I dig you" and Jacob wrote his name on every card (we made a total of 21).

 The boys are making sprinkle snowmen! I try to keep them busy with different crafts/activities, etc. It's difficult, however, since it often doesn't seem worth all of the effort and time to get everything together to only have it last a few minutes! Oh well.

 Theo is crawling around everywhere and his top teeth are starting to poke through. He is a wonderful baby and very squeezable!

Raphael showing off his sparkly snowman!