Seven years ago........

 Seven years ago, I visited Cayman for the first time. Little did I suspect then that I would ever agree to move there. Yes, it is beautiful, yes, I love the sun, and yes, Shane's family lives there. But it is just so far away, and I honestly could not imagine actually living there. And yet, here we are, getting ready to sell most of our belongings, pack up a few, and make the biggest move of our lives. It is crazy, stressful and crazy crazy crazy. And yet it is an amazing opportunity, the kids will love it I am sure, I will be tan (ha!) year round, and we will be close to Shane's family. I know that if I heard that someone was moving to the Caribbean, I'd be all "they are so lucky, I'd love to move to a land of sun and no winter!", so I know I really should be excited! But it is so so so stressful and so so so so far away from my family. Not to mention that it means I have to get rid of most of our stuff.
    So now we must prepare for our fourth move in six years...help!

Hutch painting and yogurt making

 We are in the midst of exciting and major life decisions here which have kept me from posting for a while. I will talk about it soon...but not just yet. Instead for today I have a couple of mediocre DIYS for your viewing pleasure.

    First up we have our antique hutch which we updated with a few coats of white paint to produce a slightly cleaner? whiter? less ancient? result. We still aren't completely thrilled with it but it did brighten up the space a bit.

And next we have something which I am actually quite thrilled about: homemade yogurt. If you don't make your own yogurt I don't know what you are waiting for! I use this method , and it is easy, healthy,  economical, and delicious. I admit to being pretty obsessed with yogurt and a complete snob when it comes to buying it. There are only a couple of kinds I will buy, and they aren't cheap. So making it is the absolute best thing I have ever done. It costs me about $2.50 for 8 cups of whole milk, and from it I get this:

One jar of plain yogurt for the kids, one jar of delicious strawberry greek yogurt (all I do is strain the plain yogurt and add strawberries and a bit of honey) for me, and one jar of whey (that I use for smoothies). I repeat, if you are not making this and you are a fan of yogurt, start making it now! 
  Speaking of which, I better go start my yogurt!

One years old!

Guess who turned one last week?

My baby isn't quite a baby anymore! Although he shows absolutely no interest in walking or talking so he may stay my baby for awhile..haha. But he is still the sweetest little guy around, and loves giving hugs and cuddles. On his birthday he ate what everyone else was having (grilled cheese for lunch, a smoothie, and homemade pizza for supper) and was BEYOND thrilled with it all.

Although he is still loving most food, he is super annoying because he needs to feed himself everything. With his hands. Even if I get something in his mouth he takes it back out to play with first. Such a messy eater! But other than that he is still an amazing child. haha.
   He is a little more wild than his sisters were, but he is thankfully still pretty cautious. Love that about my kids!
 I can't wait to see what this next year has in store for our little man.
 We love you stinky Will Will!

Easter!

Happy Easter! 

 Although it was a little short, with all the church going and the fact that we had to come back Sunday night, we still  had a great time at my parents' house with my sister and her kiddos. We were nuts and decided to go to the Easter vigil which ended up being three hours long, complete with all 7 Old Testament readings, and a visit from the fire department. William stayed home (thank goodness!), Felicity whined through half and slept the rest, and Maria payed attention until she couldn't keep her eyes open any longer. 

  This is the best pic I got of my outfit, which is not very Eastery but I tried to brighten my black and white dress up with a purple sweater and green earrings...

The details of my outfit are:

I don't know because they are all pretty old and so I can't remember!

Felicity wore a bright floral dress bought from The Children's place a couple years ago.

William was handsome as always in a white button up with a vest from The Children's Place (thrifted). 

And Maria wore a dress made by her mama. 

The weather was pretty warm (we were out without coats and didn't freeze!) But there were still mounds of snow: 

 Check out all the lovely outfits over at the Easter Outfit OTI Linkup co-hosted by Grace!

7 Quick Takes

Pretty much the only blogging I do these days is on Fridays. I keep thinking of things to write, then never get a chance to sit at the computer in peace to type them out. I keep putting it off every day until its Thursday and then I think I may as well wait till Friday and just write a quick take on it. Lamest blogger ever? That's me! But I'll keep at it till one day I can improve...I know if I stop I'll never start again!
 So here we go! Linking up with Jen yet again!

1.

How can the first take not be about our new Pope?! What exciting times! He seems like an amazing and humble man. I keep hearing more and more things about him that give me so much hope! For example, this one I read today: “Perhaps for that reason they might bring us to the courts. Perhaps, for that reason, for caring for life, they might kill us,” he said. “We should think about the Christian martyrs. They killed them for preaching this Gospel of life, this Gospel that Jesus brought. But Jesus gives us the strength.” 

2. Shane was blown away because apparently a few days before he had a premonition that the new pope would be named Francis.

3. On Wednesday I had just happened to tune into the live stream of the smokestack and the girls were absolutely glued to it. They were afraid to leave the room because they didn't want to miss the smoke! They watched it for an hour before I finally said I don't know if it's coming and sent Felicity to her "quiet time". Ten minutes later we saw the smoke and called Felicity down and we all hugged and cried. Or something like that. The girls were so excited to find out who it was.

The next hour was a little long but we had a cheerio party to kill the time.

I tried to get a picture to show what we were watching...

It was such an exciting day and a treat to get to experience with my girls who were so into it! 

4.

If you can't tell, it says "have a new pope speshill (special) supper"

 Maria likes to write me notes about things so she came to me with this one after we saw the new pope. So we had a little Pope party! Shane brought home some Argentinian wine, and we made dessert. I made lasagna, though which apparently didn't qualify as a "speshill supper". Sorry Maria. Hopefully it was still fun?

5. What else can I talk about that is not nearly as exciting or important? The fact that just when all the snow was gone and I thought spring was on its way, I woke up this morning to falling snow? Or the fact that spring coming means that we need to make plans about where we will be moving? Both are too depressing to talk about.

6.

The girls pushed Willy around in this car for the first time the other day. He was in heaven. He is not so into pushing it around though. The girls both used it to walk around for awhile before they started walking, but he is just not interested. Guess he won't be walking anytime soon, which is fine by me! Please stay my baby for a little while longer:)

7. I cannot write any more of these without going crazy! In between Felicity asking me to "come see!" the letters she is writing every two seconds (in which time I have typed two letters), and Maria reading every word as I type, I just cannot think anymore! haha I tried to type that fast enough so Maria wouldn't read it, but I just saw her laugh to herself, so I guess I failed!

That's all for now! 

7 Quick Takes: Snapshots of our Week

 1. We've had company all week and they just left today. It was so nice to spend time with my sis, and the kids had a blast with their cousins.

 2.

Yesterday was Felicity's feast day so we celebrated with ice cream sundaes. Yum:)

3.

 Proof that there was another cousin around. He just doesn't like to be photographed.  

4. 

 In one of their many costume changes of the week.

5.

Having fun at the Discovery Center

6.

 All bundled up to play outside!

7.

Helping me make pizza!

Now the house is way too quiet we really really wish we lived closer to at least some of the kids' cousins.

Have a great weekend everyone! Check out more fun at Conversion Diary!

7 Quick Takes

1. It's March!! Yay! This is going to be an amazing month, with William's first birthday and Easter, there is so much to look forward to and plan for!
2. My sister and my niece and nephew are coming tomorrow and we are beyond excited! The kids will all have a blast and my sister informed me that we are partying every night...so.. I'll let you know how that goes:)
3. The normal state of my house is such that when we are going to have company, it takes me a week to clean it. So that is what has been keeping me busy this week!
4. The girls are in the basement acting out the entirety of The Sound of Music. Right now they are at the part where the Captain is whistling and they are saying their names.

Maria as Maria

5. Last night we were saying the rosary and I started saying, "for the intentions of Our Holy..." but we have no Holy Father........sadness. Praying for the new Pope, whoever he may be!

6. My kids love to play games in which at least one of them is a whiny baby. It is the most annoying sound in the world to hear fake whining and crying...it sounds exactly the same as the real thing but I can't make them stop. No matter how many times I tell them not to......

The whiny baby

7. And now I hear the sounds of banging and kids screaming and I'm assuming it is real and not just pretend fighting (although I honestly never know for sure!) so I better go investigate!

Visit Jen for more quick takes!