Gift Guide 2025! Our Favorite Gifts Bought, Sought and Brought

Here are the gifts we actually gave and received this year!!  I hope this can be useful to your own gift giving during this holiday season.  Happy Shopping!

*When you click on any of the links, you will be brought to Amazon's site and if you purchase anything after clicking through that link, I will receive a small percentage at no cost to you, so thank you for supporting us in this way ~ you are the best.*

Scratchers (with a scratch ticket!)

Laneige Lip Balm Trio

Sleep masks

Tweezers

Curved Claw Hair Clips

Travel Jewelry Box

Initial Letter Stud Earrings

Illuminator Highlighter (a lovely dewy look)

Teeth Whitening Kit (non sensitive!)

Acne Patches

Vaseline Body Balm Stick

Scalp & Hair Strengthening Oil (I add 5 drops to my shampoo per my hairstylist rec)

Handheld Milk Frother, I use everyday for my greens powder and protein powder

Teen/Women's Quilted Vest (I had to purchase another one after Maggie kept wearing mine!)

Wallet and Keychain Wristlet, Maggie had to have this as soon as she could drive

 Fun ornament for the tree

DigitalAIRE Hair Dryer

The less expensive version of the uber popular Uggs

Wickedly on sale snow boots

A new Twin mattress to replace the (really) old ones

Beats headphones (awesome deal right now!)

Samsonite Luggage (a great gift before college)

Oral B Electric Toothbrush

Bluetooth Speaker

Pickleball Paddles

Nike Favorite Sports Team Gear

Birkenstocks, I love that these are back in style

$19.99 tall boots!

Theology of Home Book

Festive plaid shoes

Running sneakers (almost too beautiful to run in!)

The prettiest color Stanley, in my humble opinion

Womens fleece-lined leggings

Bling license plate frames

My favorite leggings, so soft and so many colors

Essential Oil Diffuser with Essential Oils

Yankee Candle

Bento Lunch Boxes (fun for creating your own lunchables)

Mens casual Adidas shoes

Shave Cream (lasts so long and in many scents)

Mens Puffer Jacket

Mens Hey Dude loafers

Fleece Pajamas for some extra cuddling

Electric Neck and Shoulder Massager with Heat

Reading Pillow for Bed (We used to call these husbands?!)

Weighted vest to build that bone density

Apple watch with adjustable band

Gabb Phone (not pictured but a great first phone, and you can get it FREE!)

Owala water bottle

Kids basketball, soccer ball, volleyball

Game Cube

Motion Sensor Mini Drone

Burt's Bees Kids Pajamas

Boys Columbia fleece jacket that they never take off

Redwall Books, a family favorite

Series of Unfortunate Events books, the little guys are obsessed

Bluey Season 3 DVD

Gap sweatpants

Funko Pops of their favorite characters

Cordless hand vacuum, a gift little kids love to get and use!

Hooded Robe

Kids Digital Camera

Trampoline for a big family gift

Echo Pop (so cheap right now!)

Monogrammed Doormat that looks more expensive than it is

Rubber Tote Bag, perfect for the beach or pool

Elegant gold mirror for a bedroom/dorm room/hallway

Air Fryer (we use ours just about every day)

Solar lanterns to brighten up the walkway or stairs

Week in Review: Boring Weeks are Best and What a Small Catholic World Story

Happy Friday!  Let's rewind and play back the tape of life from this past week...

JP bought his first car!  We buy family cars for the kids to use once they can drive, but he is now the proud owner of a 2012 Ford Focus with only 37,000 miles.  The timing of finding the car was great since he started his job this week.  He ordered three pairs of scrubs and got a short haircut and is a professional young man ready to help you if you end up in the Emergency Department, which I hope you don't.

Andrew sent this picture of his Austrian campus this morning:

Snow!  He said everyone has their Christmas lights up and it's so pretty.  Here's a couple photos from his recent adventures in Assisi:

And from Budapest this past weekend:

Declan and Brendan have also been travelling...to a field trip at Plymouth Plantation to learn all about the first Thanksgiving.  I don't even think these kids realize how lucky they are to live where there is so much history!

The Colonoscopy Review

 I'm sitting here on the other side of my first colonoscopy at the age of 45 and I want to talk about it.  If you don't want to know the nitty gritty details, please skip this post.  

Ok I warned ya!  

I don't have a family history of colon cancer (thank goodness) but I am a big believer in annual physicals and mammograms and skin checks and getting a colonoscopy as soon as age allows.  Why not catch something early if you can?  So if anyone needs a little nudge to make the appointment, please consider this your gentle reminder.

Long story short, it wasn't that terrible.

TMI Alert: Appointments are made months ahead of time, and as Murphy's Law would have it, I had my monthly visitor at the same time as the colonoscopy prep and procedure.  So that was fun.  I'm guessing this wasn't such an issue when women didn't start having colonoscopies until the age of 50, but I read about it online and everything said I could still have the colonoscopy so I went ahead.

I got the call on Friday to tell me that my colonoscopy would be at 8:30 am on Monday.  My last meal was on Saturday after Mass, and I chose fried scallops and sweet potato fries, followed by a cookie.  Hey calories don't count when you're about to flush everything out.

Week in Review: First Time at Costco, Fritters on Demand and Friends in Holy Places

After spending my first three years of this job saving my paid time off, I have some personal days and vacation days that I need to use or lose this year so I decided to take a bunch of half-day Fridays on weeks that don't already include a holiday.  My goal is to not work a full week for the rest of the fiscal year (ending June 30) .  I really sound like a government employee now :)  

On my first half-day Friday, JP and I went with my parents to Costco for the first time ever.  My parents have the Costco membership, but we have a BJ's membership because it's much closer.  Anyway, JP and I were like kids in a candy store and somehow spent $690!  

We shopped separately from my parents but when we were checking out, my mom and I realized we both bought the exact same sweater in the same color and we were cracking up.  When we got to the register, the elderly male cashier happens to  mention "nice sweater!" as he scans it and the giggles returned.  What are the odds to pick the same article of clothing in a giant warehouse?

 

We woke up to a freezing cold on Saturday morning, which also happened to be the last of the soccer games for our Declan boy.  It was worth braving the cold to watch every minute because at the very end he scored!!  He was so proud of himself and it was such a much-needed boost to his confidence.  He played a lot of defense this year and came close to scoring on his chances as forward.  We thought the season might end without a goal, but he pulled it off...phew!

Cheerleaders for life.

To everything turn, turn, turn

There is a season, turn, turn, turn...

...and so we now turn, turn, turn our attention to his basketball season.  We sponsored a team in this league, and the coach who selected Declan at tryouts made sure that their team got the name of The Ice Cream Cottage:

Our #2 scored 2 points in the game this week.  Maybe he should have picked a higher number?

Work it, work it

Xander and Brendan both competed in a swim meet on Saturday and beat their best times, always a great goal each meet.  The meet was almost an hour from our house and lasted 4.5 hours so you can do the math to realize it was a long day.  We need to rethink swim team for next year when it's only Brendan on the team (maybe move him down to the practice-but-no-meets level?) because Xander will be on the high school team and swim team is a very time demanding sport for littles who can't drive.

Brendan (in bottom lane) came in 2nd place in this race

A Good Buy and a Cute Guy

The Good Buy 

I found a great Advent Calendar for myself and others who love to light a candle each evening...

The best news is that this Candle Advent Calendar is at Kohl's which means you know you can add coupons and Kohl's Cash and get it for even cheaper than the listed price :)  The idea of lighting a new scented candle each night during Advent is the definition of comfy-cozy for me.  It would also be a great reminder to let it burn while praying a family rosary or watching an episode of The Chosen during the season of preparation.  And hey, if candles aren't your thing, there are lots of other Advent Calendars to choose from on this perfectly timed Advent.

The Cute (Little) Guy

We watched Despicable Me 4 at home this weekend and while setting it up on the TV, Declan saw the popcornmeter rating and ran into the kitchen where I was cleaning up to say:

"Mom!  There's this little popcorn thingie that they have on movies, and it goes from 0-100 and the higher the number lets you know if the movie is a good one to make popcorn for.  Despicable Me 4 has a popcorn rating of 87% so WE JUST HAVE TO MAKE POPCORN!"

So we did, of course.

Week in Review: Updates Galore

What a week!  It feels like we had something every night this week - Monday was Open House at the high school, Tuesday was the Election and our weekly Adoration Hour, Wednesday was Declan's 1st basketball game of the season, Phil had a meeting for work on Thursday, and now here we are.  Happy Friday! 

During the last presidential election, our family only had two voters (Phil and I) but just four short years later, we now have five voters which is wild!  When Eamon (a recent 18 year old) went to vote, they asked him if it was his first time voting, he said yes, and they announced WE'VE GOT A FIRST TIME VOTER HERE and whole place cheered and clapped for him :)

I voted before work on Tuesday morning, thinking it wouldn't be busy at 7am - wrong!

A restaurant in our town had a Buy One Adult Meal and Get a Free Kids Meal on Election Day, so you know this crew showed up:

I was at swim practice (for Xander)/spin class (for me) but we got Jersey Mike's steak and cheese subs after.  If there was any night for stress-eating, it was Election Night.

Week(end) in Review: Halloween and All Saints and Traveling Kids

First off, a game.  

Where in the World is Andrew Pauric Martin?  

Did you sing that to the Carmen Sandiego tune like I did?

He's in Italy!  All of the students on the Austrian campus are on their 10 Day Break to Rome and Assisi.  It's an awesome school trip, and Andrew and some friends actually left a day early to see Capri, Italy first before meeting up with everyone in Rome.

Andrew and the Lovely Ladies

Andrew and Smiles, twinning

In case you think it's all visiting historical sites and getting cultured at museums around the world, here's a reminder that they are still dumb fun college kids:

JP returned from his week in Ohio and is currently sitting by the phone waiting on the word when his job will start.  This has been a long time coming between interviews and a start date, so we're all a little impatient, in particular JP's wallet.