Growing kids
We had a play date with our friends, the Ceys, last week. It’s always neat to see how the kids are growing.
This was last spring:
This was last week:
Category: Friends
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Archive for the Category »Friends «
Rest In Peace, Fr. Zimmer
Fr. Thomas Zimmer passed away Saturday morning. Father was the pastor of my little hometown parish during my youth. I received my first Holy Eucharist from his hands and served at mass with him for many years. Ever summer he would load the altar servers in a bus and treat us to a game at Wrigley Field. Sundays I would receive catechesis from him. He never spoke down to us and always challenged our understanding. Father made it possible for me to attend World Youth Day in 1993. I never would have experienced this life changing event outside his generosity.
Father was a joyful man. He loved life and the priesthood and it showed. Unfortunately he never lived to see his beloved Cubs make it to the World Series. I imagine his time in purgatory will be short.
Grant him eternal rest O Lord, and let the perpetual light shine upon him.
Category: Faith, Friends
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TAL Dinner Pics
We saw so many friends at the Texas Alliance for Life dinner this year. Thankfully we’re not short on people to ask to sit at our table. We had some new faces this year including three of the Dominican Sister of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist, Sr. Mary Jacinta, Sr. Mary Cecilia, and Sr. Mary David.
Our neighbors, Chris and Sandie.
And the newly engaged, Matthew and Lauren.
Us with Sr. Mary David.
And our God daughter, Lindsey, with Sr. Mary Jacinta.
Sr. Mary Cecilia and Sr. Mary Jacinta enjoying our sweet Cecilia.
Cecilia enjoying a little bit of time with her future God parents, Mr. and Mrs. Cey.
Category: Events, Friends
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D minus 2 weeks
Two weeks to go!
I’m still waiting for my weeks to be uneventful. This week was good but tiring. Tuesday we had Fr. Oliver, one of our associate pastors at our parish, over for dinner. It was an invitation that was long over due on our part, and we had a pleasant evening.
Then Wednesday I hosted our second TEACH Austin (TExas Association of Catholic Homeschoolers) meeting here at the house. This is a new homeschooling group that I joined recently to get support as a homeschooling mom from solid Catholic families. I really needed something to get me out of my introvertedness and this seems like a good thing.
Last weekend my dear friend Lauren threw me a baby shower to restock on a few items that need replenishing in the Gretencord Baby department. It was such a blessing to get together with friends! Not everyone in all my circles knows everyone else. So when we did introductions it was just so amazing to me that I’ve known some of these ladies over 12 years! Time flies! These are new and old friends who I have shared the intimacy of my spiritual life and who have had a profound impact on my life. Some of these ladies knew me with red hair and have seen our family blossom through seeing us in daily mass starting before Adam and I met! Others have only know my dark brown hair, type-A, bake everything from scratch personality.
I invited Therese to go and she had a great time besides enjoying the blue jelly beans and nut mix. She even won one of the games–the guess how many toilet paper sheets wraps around my belly. Must have been all those hugs she gives me. It was fun to have three God children there and the grandmother of a fourth God child. And of course my sister-in-law, Misty (who is married to Adam’s brother) got to come as they came down to spend the long weekend with us.
Also last weekend, Marc, Misty and Grace came to spend the weekend with us. We had a nice relaxing weekend. I mostly went to bed early. It was very interesting seeing how Muffin interacted with Grace. Therese would bring toys to Grace and Muffin would take them away! It was almost amusing. Thankfully Grace is not at the age to care too much about it. We also moved back into our room after some heavy duty cleaning and putting up painters plastic us to seal the exposed walls in our bathroom until it gets fixed.
Finally I had another prenatal appointment on Tuesday. My blood pressure continues to rise. UGGGH! I’m borderline bad. I’m supposed to try to get more rest and eat more protein. It would help if I can sleep at night. But I only get a good night’s sleep once every 3 days or so. I’ve slowed down my morning exercise routine. Partly because of the rain and darker mornings, and partly because I’m just not feeling up for it and partly because Adam has had to leave the house by 7:30 a.m. most of this week. I’ve lighted up our homeschooling load this week so I can catch an afternoon nap.
Maybe next week will be a little lighter. 
Category: Family, Friends
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Prayer Request
Dear Prayer Warriors. We very much need you to storm Heaven for a little boy named Daniel. He needs our prayers and the healing touch of our Heavenly Father. Daniel is 2 and has had health problems since he was born with a rare blood disorder. His body can not make its own blood and he has had blood transfusions all his life. Many of you have probably seen his family at your parish.
Daniel’s heart and liver have dangerously high levels of iron. This could mean liver failure.Tests are still being run and he is schedule to have a liver biopsy next week.
Please pray for him and his parents and sister.
Category: Faith, Friends
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Happy Baptism Zachary
Yesterday two new babies at our parish were welcomed into God’s family through the Sacrament of Baptism. We were blessed to be chosen as the God parents of one of them, Zachary Peter. Zachary is the 3rd child and 3rd son of our friends Teresa and Doug.
Category: Faith, Family, Friends
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Chop and Stock 2009
What do you get when you mix 3 hours, 5 friends, 1 baby G, 12 lbs ground beef, 4 lbs chicken, 3 tubs ricotta cheese, 3 tearful onions, 5 jars of spaghetti sauce, love and spice and everything nice?
4 good friends helping this pregnant woman stock up the freezer with 22 meals for her family and a load of fun! (We ended up making 4 chicken pot pies, 2 meatball meals, 3 sloppy joe meals, 3 meals worth of enchilada sauce, 2 meals of beef chili, 2 beef stroganoff meals, 4 trays of manicotti, 1 meat lasagna, and 1 veggie lasagna.)
Thankfully the only mishap we had was with some manicotti getting out of hand…thankfully high heat will destroy any bacteria involved. We learned that chopping 3 onions will have everyone in the kitchen in tears. And the funniest comment came from Lindsey: “Even the beer is made from scratch around here!” I had a great time enjoying the company of my girl friends. The time went by fast with 5 of us cooking and the kitchen heat was actually bearable.
Last time we did this was before Gianna was born. It was extremely helpful then and I anticipate with four children it will be even more helpful this time around. I love all the meals people bring us but eventually those stop and we are left to our own devices. The realities of our extended family unable to come and help after a baby is born requires a little more organization on my part to help the family with a smoother transition. So to answer Zvezdana’s question, “Yes, I’ve always been this organized,” or you might say self-sufficient.
My heartfelt and sincere thanks to Julie, Zvezdana, Lindsey and Lauren for helping me this morning cook up some yummy meals for our freezer, to Adam who took the kids out so we could cook peacefully, and to God who blessed me with these lovely ladies and their friendship and the family we got to cook for! (I’ll post follow up pictures on Monday since I’m off tomorrow. )
Category: Family, Friends, Fun, Recipes
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Congratulations Haunspergers!
Congrats to our friend the Haunspergers who welcome another son into this world, Zachary Peter.
Category: Friends
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Wartime Tales
We’ve known our friend Zvezdana for a little longer than we’ve been married–some 6-7 years. However, I must admit I never knew how much she endured in the war in Sarajevo. At the urging of several friends in our young adults bible study, she started blogging some of her wartime tales. As I’ve read her stories this past month, I’m in awe of her–of her courage, her strength and her humility.
As we prepare to celebrate Memorial Day tomorrow, let us remember our soldiers and those civilians like Zvezdana, who fought the good fight everyday to merely survive.
Category: Friends
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The Joys of Life
Our friends Lauren and Matthew were over today and Lauren made a remark that we haven’t posted anything in a while. So I thought I’d give a little update at the joys of life that have been keeping us busy.
Car Accident: I was in a car accident a week and a half ago. It was really not a big deal except that our hatch and window on the van had to be replace. It was in the Sun Harvest parking lot. No one was injured. God blessed me that the guy with whom this happened was very charitable. I don’t even think his truck incurred any damage. My insurance company was just really great and everyone was really nice in all our conversations. And it turned out that the day it happened, a friend, Kelly, called and she mentioned her husband works for Caliber Collision. So I went with them for the car repairs. I was originally going to get the car fixed at the location on 620 but they wouldn’t see me until May 18, because of all the hail damaged cars. When I told Kelly, she told her husband and he called around the other locations. I ended up taking it to the location on North Lamar and I dropped off the car on Monday and picked it up yesterday. They did a fabulous job and were very timely. If you ever get into a car accident, I would highly recommend them for any repairs.
Gardening: This is probably a no brainer, but if you don’t water your garden, things won’t grow. I somehow always think that Adam should have a green thumb since his dad’s a farmer and all, but that’s not the case. Our gardening experiments in the backyard have been good learning experiences. We have a 2×9 plot based on the Square Foot Gardening. The mix is composed of vermiculite, compost and peat moss which makes for very good drainage…too good. It also means it need more watering than a soil mix, which is what our other two garden plots are. After some extra watering the last week, the seeds are finally sprouting. I ended up transplanting our tomato and pepper plants from the other gardens to this one because they just weren’t growing in the other gardens. I hope they take off. There have been a few days that I sit cursing Adam and Eve! Adam’s grape vines are doing well, but yes, they too require more water. The hops has spouted and my husband is getting all kinds of ideas that I’ll let him tell you about some time.
Homeschooling: Adoremus books had its big Easter sale recently (20% off the order). I like to order our homeschooling materials from there when they have their big sale because I certainly can save a bit if I order all our materials at one time. Of course this means I would have to know what we’re doing next year in terms of our curriculum. So, in a week’s time I had to figure that out else I miss the big sale. I already had some ideas but nothing set in stone. It meant contacting a few friends to see what they’re using and why, and making a trip to Mardel to see some of the stuff they have and be able to actually look inside some of these books. It was also nice to have a serious conversation with Adam about how we want to approach teaching subjects such as history and science. I didn’t choose one curriculum such as Seton or Kolbe. Although I like parts of them, I didn’t like all the materials either offered. In the end, I chose the following:
- Math: Singapore Math and Family Math
- Phonics: Phonics Pathways (what we’re using now)
- English: Seton (for now)
- Handwriting: Zaner-Bloser
- Spelling: Phonics Pathways and Zaner-Bloser
- Religion: Faith and Life
- History: The Story of the World
- Science: (oops, I can’t remember…maybe Seton, for now…or was it Science and God’s World?)
Anyway, I got the materials ordered. It looks like I’ll have a nice summer planning before Baby G makes his/her arrival in September.
Other: Our parish had a book sale of old books/movies from the library they are getting rid of. I pick up a few books and a bunch of VHS movies for the kids and us. Now, if there’s a way to convert those to DVD we’re in business.
Our God daughter, Lindsey, accepted a job offer to teach at a middle school as the theater arts teacher in the fall. Yay! She used to work at Dell and was laid off. So this one less unemployed person. She’s going to be great!
Then I mentioned Matthew and Lauren spent the day with us observing famiy life (i.e. playing with the kids). To celebrate the Feast of St. Mark, we made homemade strawberry ice cream. It was SOOOOOO GOOD.
Here’s the recipe:
- 1 cup milk
- 1 cup sugar
- 2 eggs
- 1-1/2 cups heavy whipping cream
- 2 cups strawberries
- 1 tsp vanilla
Heat the milk on medium heat until hot. Remove from stove. Beat eggs and sugar. Gradually add hot milk. Return to sauce pan and heat stirring constantly until slightly thick (8 minutes). Allow to cool.
In a blender, puree strawberries in the cream. Add this to cooled custard. Stir and add vanilla. Cool in refridgerator. Then crank it out in your ice cream maker.
Category: Events, Family, Friends, Garden, Homeschooling, Recipes
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