Week in Review: Sports Banquets, All My Babies and A False Alarm

Let's see, where were we?  Last Friday I saw the For King + Country Christmas concert movie and it was good!  Definitely got me in the Christmas spirit and now I want to go watch Unsung Hero about their family's story (seven kids!).  On Saturday I went to a womens Advent retreat that was pretty good, but a bit of a let down from the previous year, when Danielle Bean spoke.  However, I got to go to Mass, Confession and Adoration AND hear Marie Miller sing a few songs including 6'2:

There was a nice gathering of women from my parish that all attended, so that made it fun too :)

This is one side of the church - there were 280 women in attendance, mostly sitting in the central pews.

Meanwhile, Eamon and Ellie went for an unofficial tour of Providence College given by our niece, who is a freshman there.  They ate delicious food at the dining hall and went to a hockey game together that night and thoroughly enjoyed the day!

On Sunday, Declan went to a friend's annual Grinch Day party and had an absolute blast with his buddies:

We had a gingerbread house contest at work, and this was my team's design:

The front with an ice cream cone tree and Santa in the chimney

In the back with two gingers kissing under the mistletoe, so cheeky!

I wouldn't mind kissing my sweetie at our back door - isn't it festive?  OK it's not much but it makes me happy :)

We spent Tuesday night wrapping gifts in my parent's place (they live downstairs) but they weren't there because my sister took them to Florida on vacation this week!

They reported back that they loved Amelia Island and "it's just like Cape Cod and Ireland where the people are so nice and everywhere is so beautiful and there's free parking and a lovely way of life".  That does sound wonderful.   While they were there, they met up with my cousin Eddie and his wife who live on Skidaway Island in Georgia.  Eddie was the closest-in-age cousin to me and I'm pretty sure we wanted to marry each other when we were little.  Thank goodness that plan didn't work out!

On Monday night, Maggie had her volleyball banquet from the fall season and she won her league's All Star award!

Her adoring fans

Eamon and Maggie had their first winter track meet on Wednesday and had vastly different experiences with one of them running a great race and one of them having to quit in the middle of a race due to feeling like they were going to pass out because they were so nervous for the meet all day that they couldn't eat anything but a yogurt.

I'll let you guess who was who ;)

We also found out that we are going to be Great Aunt and Great Uncle come this summer as our niece is expecting her first baby!  The next generation has started!  We have 32 nephews and nieces - so there's going to be loads of babies to come in rapid succession.

Mrs. Katrina (Declan's violin teacher) and Maura (their cousin) are both expecting!

Speaking of babies...my baby went for his final visit to the Spar in Gaming, Austria:

And arrived back home on Wednesday night!  Oh it is the bestest feeling to have all of the kids sleeping in their beds under our roof.  I know it's not going to last too long and I am cherishing it!

On Thursday night, we had Eamon's Soccer Banquet, which was bittersweet as soccer was "his sport" and he's been playing for 15 years.  It's the end of that era for him, and we will have a few years without a high school soccer player until Declan is old enough, which is very weird.  As for me, I definitely embraced the roles of soccer mom, basketball mom and volleyball mom, but can't quite wrap my head around swim mom or track mom or cross country mom.  I'll just have to fake it until I make it!

Eamon with his coach

Eamon won the Spartan Award and was praised for his leadership and being a great role model

At one point during the dinner Phil leaned over to whisper to me that I had a new dark freckle on my nose.  I took a quick pick with my phone so I could see it and was shocked!  Where did that freckle come from so fast?  It's definitely cancer, the non doctor me said.  We have both already had skin cancer removed from our faces, and have an appointment in March for a check so I didn't freak out too much.  When we got home and I was brushing my teeth, I rubbed at the freckle...and it came off.  As did the other dark spot above it.  It must have been sauce that splashed on my face!!  

When in doubt, rub it out

I'm off to mail out Christmas cards and buy some last minute gifts (the neighbors!  I always forget the neighbors! Any ideas on what I can get them?) and I hope you are feeling more parts accomplished than stressed this Advent weekend.  Have a good one!