Bridge Builders

William and Andrew participated this year in our Holy Family Homeschoolers Bridge Building Competition.

Together with Dad, William and Andrew engineered a popsicle-stick bridge in an attempt to win the prize for the strongest bridge.  The competition was stiff and the contestants were many. William and Andrew placed high in the ranks and went home with certificates of achievement and great enthusiasm for next year's competition.

Andrew and William with their bridge, ready for competition.

William & Andrew's bridge in the contraption built to measure the bridge's strength.

Mr. Tejeda watches the applied pressure and waits for the bridge to break.

HFH students watch the competition.

Blizzard of 2011

We seem to be in the blizzard-every-year cycle in Wisconsin lately. This year was no exception to the rule.

Enjoy the snowy photos. They don't describe Cheeseheads as coming from the "frozen tundra" for nothing.

Yours Truly,  just beginning the bundling process
before attempting to walk the 1/4 mile to the mailbox in blizzard conditions.

Stanley, the Packer snowman, buried alive.

Drifts reaching the underside of our second story deck.
Note the patio furniture legs sticking out of the drift.

Drifts in front of our sliding door.

Check out the drifts.
That picnic table has a bench on top of it, with another picnic table on top of that.
And the drift is still significantly taller than three picnic tables.

She's Such a Handful!

Therese has been longing to be a handful for a long time. Somedays we thought she already was [wink, wink], but she didn't officially qualify as a handful until Valentine's Day when she turned five.

Show us those five fingers, Therese!

Happy birthday, Sweet Valentine!

There's that handful!

Homemade, home-constructed birthday train cake.
The cars are filled with (from left to right) M&Ms, sour gumdrops,
Whoppers, conversation hearts, and crushed Oreos (for coal).
The wheels are gummy lifesavers,
and the smokestack is comprised of a couple of Rolos.

A dream cake for a sweet tooth.

Chugga, chugga, choo-choo!

Happy birthday, big girl!

A homemade cat scarf from Kathleen! 

Thank you, Leenie!

Packers: Super Bowl Victors!

The Pack is back! What a day!

Our beloved Pack came out on top of the Steelers 31-25 in a nail-biter game that had us all hoarse and exhausted by the time is was over.

We'd like to think that is was not only Aaron Rodgers' precision, and Clay Matthews' biceps, and BJ's refrigerator-size, but it was also the flair and enthusiasm that transmitted from the Leone Super Bowl party straight onto that field at game time...   Take a peek:

This Packer fan cannot wait for the cookies.

Yummmmmmy! Green and gold food!

That's a rice krispie football on a green cutting mat... Nice, eh?
Like how the kids labeled the mustard as Packer mustard for the day?
And if you look carefully, you'll see that even Marguerite's sippy cup was green and gold.

Green & gold M&M's, green & gold gummy candies, yellow peppers, green pickles, green grapes, Packers cookies,  football bread loaf, Packer dessert, and --of course-- Wisconsin bratwurst and mustard.

Also... green apples, yellow bananas (and lemons, for good measure), yellow macaroni and cheese with green peas, and see that yellow and gold sippy cup... Nice, eh?

Packer party girl, rockin' the braids with green and gold.

Clay Matthews biceps anyone?

Yet another cheeshead duo.

Scarfing down yellow and gold goodies, just moments before kick-off.

Bring on the Big Game

The Packers, in an amazing wild card turn, were Super Bowl bound this year. The munchkin household was pretty much pandemonium all week preceding the big game, as we collected news articles, decorated the house, taped football player images onto bedroom walls, and started planning our green and gold game-day food fest. 

Kathleen and William get ready to watch Clay Matthews and crew rumble.

Stanley, the appropriately-frozen Green Bay Packer fan.

Decorations by the kids

More decorations by the kids.

Super Bowl signage by little Therese and Andrew.
(The words on the left say "Crush him!")

The Youngest Munchkins

Marguerite has a favorite spot under the dining room table.

Therese and Andrew enjoy a game of Cathedral. (Does Andrew look a bit too gleeful?)

Detective Therese does a bit of research.

The detective sits in her office, planning her next move.

Joe and his two youngest girls.

Cutie-pie Marguerite!

Twelfth Night 2011

Joe's family celebrates Italian Twelfth Night (Epiphany) each year. Following are a few snapshots from the festive occasion.

Joe & the kids break out the games in Cathie & Jeff's family room.

Marguerite looks suspiciously at Cousin Phinneas

Marguerite plays Aunt Cathie's piano

Kathleen and Cousin Zoe

Anna Marie and Aunt Cathie enjoy pre-dinner conversation

Aunt Cathie with her nieces, Therese and Marguerite

Record Hiatus?

Well, I might be breaking all personal blogging records with this recent hiatus from Munchkins. Beginning with my mother-in-law's passing at Thanksgiving, followed by the holidays, followed by five weeks of major illness running through the family, followed by some exciting news (stay tuned!), I've been sorely negligent of the ol' family blog.

Now that we are recovered from our ailments and things are looking brighter (albeit amidst insanity at the Wisconsin State Capitol currently), I will attempt to update this little blog. Bear with me, as we travel back in time a little bit and make things current around here.

Wisconsin Winter Wonderland

I love living where we live.

Not only do we have beautiful snows, amazing scenery, and an abundance of wildlife. But we have the PACKERS!

We're ready for the big Packer-Falcon playoff game tonight. We'll have curried shrimp dinner before the big game, and then we'll settle in with our full tummies for the big hurrah.

You don't think a quick prayer for the Pack would be sacrilegious now, do you?

Kathleen and Andrew enjoy the last minutes of daylight as the sun approaches the horizon.

Kathleen and Andrew in the back yard.

Marguerite practices her Packer touchdown.
She even says "touchdown!" when her hands go up. (Okay, she says "tu-duh.")

An Ode to My Hubby

Joe and I get buried in the daily grind of school and work and parenting and to-do lists. And it's not often, certainly not often enough, that I reflect on Joe and the many reasons I am so happy I married him.

With our sixteenth anniversary quickly approaching, it seems only appropriate that I thank Joe for all the things he does—for me, for our children, and for our family as a whole.

• Joe mows the lawn. Always. I've never mowed the lawn in all the years we've been married. He often has one of the kids on the tractor with him, just because they like being with him.
• Joe takes out the garbage. Always. Unless he's out of town, Joe always manages the garbage. No easy feat with our long driveway.
• Joe plows the driveway. It's Joe's thing. He plows, he shovels. Bless his heart.
• Joe plunges toilets. We have toilet cloggers in this house, and Joe always takes on these icky jobs.
• Joe fixes kids' toys. The pile of toys-to-fix might get big on his desk, but he always gets to the toys and makes them well.
• Joe does Cub Scouts with William. I've never been to a meeting. It's a Dad-William thing. How cool is that? Lucky boy, that William.
• Joe picks up the slack when I have a migraine. Fortunately, the migraines are much fewer than they used to be, but when one comes on, watch out. I'm out of commission.
• Joe leads us in family prayers in the evening, and often helps put the kids to bed.
• Joe attends Knights of Divine Mercy and St. Thomas More Society meetings, making him a better man, and setting a faithful example for all of us.
• Joe gets in there and plays with the kids—really plays with them. Board games, baseball, volleyball, target shooting activities, bonfire stories, science experiments, model construction, and general rough-housing.
• Joe attends music recitals and sports events and does a whole lot of driving to and from extracurricular activities.
• Joe cut out regular golf-playing years ago to spend more time with the family. What a guy!
• Joe works all week and then enjoys cooking on the weekends—so much so, that my cooking duties are fairly limited to weekdays. 
• Joe takes the time to teach our children. Although he does not do the regular, formal instruction in our homeschool, he is the impromptu dinner-table educator. Conversations with Dad around the dinner-table usually involve science or history. He engages the kids and makes them better people.
• Joe makes tough decisions and has even turned down lucrative client opportunities which were not compatible with his faith.
• Joe's a tough-love kind of dad, and while he might ruffle some kiddie feathers, the kids always know what's right and wrong, thanks to Joe.
• Joe puts his wife, his kids, and his Catholic faith first. The examples of this are innumerable. He is my hero. I don't know what I'd do without him.

I didn't touch on everything. How could I? Love, and the service and devotion that comes with love, cannot be boiled down to a tidy little list. This list is merely the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the amazing Joe.

I love you, Joe! Happy (almost) sixteenth anniversary!

Here we are, sixteen years ago.

Joe, doing his thing, plowing our big ol' driveway.

New Year's Day

In a break from tradition we celebrated New Year's Day, rather than New Year's Eve with the Daniels this year.

We had so much fun eating and socializing and eating and gifting and eating and running after kids and eating some more...that I completely failed to break out the camera.  Thank goodness for Claudia who got a couple shots that captured the New Year's new one-year-olds.

The first shot below was taken at the Daniels' on New Year's Eve of 2009/2010 when Joseph and Marguerite were infants, just a few weeks apart in age. The second shot was taken on New Year's Day this year. Joseph and Marguerite, newly-turned-one, are now toddlers. What a difference a year makes!

Meredith & Elizabeth with babies, Joseph & Marguerite, last year. 

One year later, and look how they have grown!

Joseph & Marguerite—You've come a long way in one year!

Happy New Year!

Friends invited us for a family New Year's Eve party, with the promise of "banging pots and pans at midnight."

The little kids latched onto this message and, getting it just a little wrong, went around for a week telling everyone that they were invited to our friends' house to "break pots and pans at midnight."

Bang, break... What the difference?

Happy New Year!

The banging, breaking midnight crew.

Chillin'

It happens every year over the holidays...

I fall hopelessly behind, barely stay on top of the laundry (who am I kidding—I slide right off that laundry mountain), pull out frozen pizza with ever-increasing frequency, and run myself ragged getting from one holiday event to the next from Christmas straight through Epiphany.

It's all good, really it is. I wouldn't have it any other way. We have a great time over the holidays, and who really cares if the laundry suffers and the meals are weak? (Okay, I care, and it makes me edgy, but we're not going there.)

In any event, I clearly need to build in a solid minute or two a day for unwinding during the holidays. Yes, every mom needs a minute or two to herself, don'tcha think?

Perhaps I should take my cues from Therese and Marguerite, two girls who clearly know how to put up their feet.