Seven Quick Takes: XII

-One-

My laundry is washed, folded, and mostly put away, my kitchen is clean, there are two batches of cookies and a batch of granola on the counter, my fridge is stocked with delicious leftovers, our five pans of fudge are cut and doled out to send off to our mission partners, Anni has been outside to play nearly every day this week, and I have only one shoot left to be caught up for Christmas. 

Lest you think I'm supermom, here's my little secret: my mama came to visit, which pretty much means all domestic dreams come true. 

 

-Two-

My mom had to leave a day early today, and, as you would probably expect, everything fell apart, especially my patience.  Just keepin' it real... I am so not supermom.

-Three-

A week or so ago, in the midst of a big snowstorm, we had one of those parenting moments we will never forget.  I was working downstairs when I heard Daniel yelling for me, and as I ran up the steps, heard him saying, "Just breathe, Colette, just breathe."  That in itself isn't too scary as both of our girls hold their breath when they get really upset, but my heart was already pumping.  As I rounded the corner, I saw Colette go limp (at the time I thought she was arching her back, seizure-like).  As Daniel tried to rouse her, I fumbled with his phone, trying to dial 911 (this took far longer than it should have, because I am, apparently, incapable of figuring his smartphone out).  The firemen/ems workers/ambulance (I honestly am not sure which combination thereof came, they were all very large, very competent men in two different vehicles) made it within three minutes.  During that time, we had been doing our best to keep Colette awake (she had started to drift off to sleep).  To wrap up the rest quickly: she smiled and started to respond pretty normally as the first responders came in and we ended up refusing transport (at their recommendation) and were able to put the incident behind us.  After talking to our favorite medical professionals at length, we are pretty sure that she held her breath for just long enough to pass out (or nearly pass out) and was sluggish to respond simply because her body was trying to get oxygen back into her system.  Whew.  There you have it, my first 911 call.

-Four-

Some random photos of Lettie from the past week; because, while I did manage to write in her baby book for 9 months... I kind of missed it on here, and she'll be 10 months on Christmas Eve.  Therefore... Happy 9.75 months, Colette!

 

-Five-

 

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!  With an extra adult around, Daniel was able to get some lights up!  That makes us one of two houses on our block to have lights.  They're all just waiting until Christmas Day, right?  Advent feels like it went so fast.  All of the sudden we are less than a week from Christmas, and while I'm ready, I don't know if I feel ready.  That being said, I am rarely really ready for the next thing, so that doesn't mean that the next thing shouldn't come nor that it isn't a beautiful thing. 

6. We went to an ugly sweater party last week.  I think I'll let the photos do the talking for this one (thank you to my lovely friend, Amy, who let me borrow a few of her pictures to illustrate my point!)

-Seven-

I'm sorry for the lame, haphazard attempt at getting back into the "seven quick takes" game.  Forgive me, then go check out some (most likely far better) Seven Quick Takes at Conversion Diary.

2nd Annual St. Lucy's Day Tea Party!

Happy feast of St. Lucy!  We continued our family tradition this year and had a little tea party with a few of Anni's sweet little friends (and their mamas, whom I just happen to be friends with, too, of course).  And my sweet girls?  Aren't they about as darling as they come? 

This year I actually homemade some braided cinnamon bread (no saffron rolls, two loaves of the one baked good and a breakfast casserole was enough for me!)  It was yummy (and pretty... as long as you don't look where I tried to join the braid!)  

We lit some candles (Lucy does mean "light" after all) and sang "Happy St. Lucy Day to you" (yes, to the tune of "Happy Birthday").  I had also picked up some little battery operated candles in the dollar aisle, so every kid had their own candle to take home.

Oh, and this darling little sunshine?  Isn't that smile just the best?!

Happy St. Lucy's Day!

Happy St. Nicholas Day!

I realized last night, that, though I had known St. Nicholas day was coming and had grabbed a bag of chocolate golden coins at Target on my last stop there (could someone please make chocolate golden coins that taste good, by the way?!), I hadn't planned much further than that and had no oranges and no stocking for Colette.  She ended up getting the new one I bought for myself last year, and, we'll just see what she ends up with in the end.  Our staples for St. Nick's day are always chocolate (gold coins) and oranges to represent the gold that St. Nicholas dropped down the chimney of three poor sisters.  This year, each girl also got a fun little gift.  Colette got a "C" ornament and some puffs (instead of chocolate) and Anni got a mini ring sling for her babies!  (Really, I just couldn't wait to give her her little ring sling!)  The most excited reaction Anni had; though, was when she realized there were two oranges in her stocking.  Oh, happy day!

Advent

I love "getting into the spirit of things", so I was a little disappointed in myself when I felt like I had left fall pass me by a little.  Not that we did nothing, I just felt like we could have done more.  Luckily, being Catholic presents us with all kinds of other opportunities to celebrate the season.  Our new church year started on Sunday, and with it the Advent season.  I didn't realize until I was gathering everything that we are doing a little bit of everything this year.  We have an advent calendar, the advent wreath, a Jesse Tree (we just did an ornament exchange!) and an advent activity chain.  Whew!  In truth, none of these things is too time intensive, and Anni is at the perfect stage to soak it all up like a little sponge and, as a definite plus, she won't let me forget anything!

The ornament exchange was great annnnnd crazy!  A dozen or so mamas and many, many more kiddos hanging out in our little place eating and picking up their own set of ornaments.  I have to admit, my introverted self was definitely worn out by the end and ready for a break, but it was fun to get to host (and, one of my sweet friends organized it all and everyone else brought food, so I didn't have to do much at all)!       

Here they all are!  We only ended up with one no-show, which is pretty good with 28 sets of ornaments to be made by busy wives and mamas.

We also picked up this Advent calendar this year.  I actually haven't even looked at all of the symbols yet... it's going to be a surprise for me, as well, this year!

We've got our wreath ($5 at my home parish four years ago!  I picked up candles from them again this year since we were in Wichita, buuuuut all four broke when I put them on, so maybe I'll stick with the Hobby Lobby ones next year).  See more wreaths at Catholic Mom!

Last but not least, our Advent Activity Chain.  I picked it up from a lovely fellow blogger while I was in Wichita and it has worked really well with what we're already doing.  

Happy Advent!

Oops, a little update: I realized I hadn't mentioned our nativity set!  Our wise men are traveling from the window-sill and Mary and Joseph are traveling from the piano.