Week in Review: We Certainly Ate

Happy 1st Friday in September!!  

I treated myself to a new coffee mug for the school year, and it is just so pretty and the mouthpiece is designed so comfortably that I am getting an inordinate amount of joy from it:

I also bought a rice cooker, which I have wanted for a long time because I LOVE rice but I have a hard time getting it perfect...usually because I'm cooking something else at the same time.  

We made the seasoned rice recipe with chicken cutlets and a salad and it came out great!

Leftover rice with the lime grilled chicken skewers from Aldi's and roasted cauliflower another night.

I also bought a big chuck roast from Aldi's and made pot roast and mashed potatoes for Sunday dinner:

My dad's tomatoes are finally coming in, so a BLT with extra mayo was on the menu.  Just for me.  The others are weird and don't like them.

Speaking of things nobody else in my family likes, here's one of my favorite snacks - cottage cheese with Popcorners or Sun Chips:

I like to make a crockpot meal on Saturdays so that when we come home from the vigil Mass, dinner is ready.  Last Saturday I made Chicken and Noodles which the kids call CaN CaN and we have to play the can can song while we eat.

I only had to cook for three one night (weird!) so I just airfried perdue chicken patties and turned them into chicken parm for the boys and a salad for me:

Chocolate chip cookies because why not?

Back to School 2026-2027

How about a flashback to my favorite back to school photo, when they all lived at home and life was somehow simpler:

12th grade down to Preschool!

And now merely six years later, we are down to only three living at home for the school year - time is a thief!

JP started his 2nd year of med school at Duquesne back in July.  He spent the summer doing an internship in Pediatric Psychiatry at Bradley Hospital (Brown University) and also shadowed an Opthamologist who works at Brown and teaches at Harvard Medical School.  He also managed the ice cream store evenings and weekends.  In Pittsburgh he is continuing to volunteer every chance he gets, most recently as part of the medical team on the sidelines at the Duquesne sports games.  JP is excited to go on his medical mission trip to Guatemala next month!  He would also love to find a kind, sweet, holy, beautiful, smart, and fun girlfriend who would be patient enough to understand his busy schedule - know anyone?

Andrew (black shirt) is a Senior at Franciscan University.  He started out as a Biology major, switched to Nursing, then back to Bio and now wishes he was Business but it's too late to start over, so he's reluctantly finishing his Bio degree and also taking prerequisites necessary to get an MBA one day if that's what he decides to do.  Right now, he just wants to graduate and start his real life - I guess he has college senioritis?  Andrew is much more interested in being the Men's Soccer Team Manager, Mission Trip Leader (back to Arizona in March), playing on intramural sports teams, dating the wonderful Karolina, and living off-campus with his friends.  Does it make me incredibly happy that these three are together for a year?  Yes, it does.

Double Digits and College Dropoffs

Last week our little caboose turned double digits!

Brendan woke up early to find cards and the traditional 10th birthday gift of a tablet:

Listen, when you're packing up a kid for college and celebrating another's bday, sometimes Christmas wrapping paper will have to do!

Then Phil, Maggie, Declan, Brendan and I loaded up in Vanna White and started the trip to bring Maggie to college.  The plan was to stay at a waterpark along the way to split up the trip and also celebrate the birthday boy, and everything was going smoothly until Vanna White started acting up.

I turned to Phil and said "The air conditioning doesn't feel cool anymore."  Then I saw the engine light flashing on the dashboard and then the car started bumping along.  I looked up an Auto Zone, and there was one at the next exit so we pulled in.  The owner was very nice and told us not to worry, he would get us all fixed up.  He took the diagnostics, handed us a bag of the parts we would need and gave us the address to a mechanic around the corner, who took us right in and said it would be a couple hours to fix the *car parts*.

Maggie: "Let's take a photo for the blog saga you're going to write"

There was a restaurant across the street, so we had a leisurely lunch and the waitress brought over a tiramisu for the birthday boy at the end:

Then we walked down the street, and I saw a barber shop and thought how the littles needed some fresh back-to-school haircuts, so inside we went!  There were two available chairs and Declan and Brendan had the most professional haircuts in their life (anything's better than in the driveway with a mom wielding clippers).

We walked back to check on the van, and the mechanic was just pulling it up!  Phil had to pay in cash (sketchy) but it was probably the best way to ever have a car break down.  We were on our way 2 hours later than expected and arrived to the waterpark around 4pm.  While Phil went in to check-in, Maggie pulled the van through the drop off lane because "this will be the last time I drive for a long time!"

The kids were off swimming and sliding and riding in no time!

We went to dinner at 7:15 and walked around outside the restaurant for a bit after, looking for dessert, but couldn't find any:

Birthday cupcakes from the hotel for the win! 

Week in Review: Summer Stuff and That's What He Said

Happy Friday!  

We took the kids (minus Maggie who was scooping and JP who's back at school) to Scarborough Beach this past weekend, and it was such a nice time.  We are so lucky to live in such a beautiful area!

Andrew and I decided we should open a beach canopy company after seeing so many expensive ones

Best Beach Snack. I also love my swim shorts and rash guard

Andrew stayed for a couple days with a friend's family in Rhode Island, and had a blast going to the beach, golfing and tubing:

Week in Review: Promotion Celebration, Life's a Beach and Happy Campers

Happy Friday!  Please tell me you haven't started school yet...we have a few more weeks over here, thank God!  

Last week, Declan and Brendan went to STEM Camp and came home with a S'mores Kit with instructions on how to make them using the sun.  But it was evening, and raining, and we all wanted s'mores, so stovetop s'mores for the win!

Maggie went to her last scholarship event, where she received a scholarship from a family who lost their son (a three season athlete who had a heart condition they didn't know he had) when he was a senior from the same high school Maggie attends.  I think it happened about a year after Phil started teaching there, and Maggie wasn't even born yet.  His family has done a wonderful job of keeping his memory alive through the years.

This week was my last full week of strength classes at the gym near my house.  They actually moved to a new studio during my 28 day trial and I am going to miss it:

Week in Review: #5 Turns 15, Summery Things, and 24 Years of NFP

 Happy Last Day of July!

Alexander Blaise turned 15 this past weekend, and he loves to remind me how big of a baby he was (almost 9 pounds) and how fast and hard my delivery of him was (3.5 hours, no drugs, big and long baby with a 3 foot umbilical cord, wrapped around his neck twice).  But he was worth it!!!

Somebody was thrilled to finally be a big sister at 3.5 years old!

Xander was the FUNNIEST little kid.  Almost all of my "That's What He Said" posts are about him.  He loved to eat and would tell me I was "the best cooka ever".  He loved to suck his thumb while holding anything with a tag.  Even a bag of garlic would do:

Xander loved music and would pick up a drumstick and say "And a one, and a two, and a one, two, three, four" before he started to play.  He would dance or clap and tell me he was "just feeling the beat" so we knew from a young age he would be musical...and he is!  He won many a piano competition growing up, and even though he stopped piano lessons when he went to high school, he can be found playing popular songs by ear on the keyboard.

After informing us that he was retiring from soccer at the age of four (I told you he's funny) we never found a sport he liked until he finally joined the swim team at age 12.  He swam on the team for a few years, and started running on his days off from swimming because he realized that he slept better when he exercised (he's also smart) and then switched to Cross Country and Track in high school.

And now he's 15 and about to be a (young) Sophomore in high school, so I guess he can't be called a "little" any more.  He got a new phone for his birthday and he's now able to be part of what was "The First Four" group chat and has now changed to "High Five" to include our 5th born.

Andrew took him out to breakfast after Mass, and the night before he went to see The Odyssey with Andrew and some cousins.

He spent the day at the beach with his friends, and then we had Weiner schnitzel, mashed potatoes, salad for dinner, and cake and ice cream for dessert:

The kids made him nice cards and bought him some gifts, as well as a promise to see the new Spiderman movie tonight!  A very good birthday indeed.  We love you Xander B... to the moon and back and back again!!