No TV

What a day in Hollywood!!!

So it's any wonder that I found this out as Breaking News. It just so happened that I was listening to a local radio station.

Let us pray for his soul...

Wow, and "this just in" - at least for me. I suppose I should say 'let's pray for their souls'.

And we must not forget about Ed who died 2 days ago.... while we're at it.

Dani's Party for Her Sis

Dani organized and threw a surprise party for Therese - and yes, this post is late... Dani keeps checking up on the blog saying, "you haven't posted the party yeeeeeeeeeeeett." :) She was very eager to throw a 'sleep-over' party for Therese and had it in the works probably back in April sometime. She had gently badgered me about it until I said yes. And I'm so glad I did. She did such a wonderful and thoughtful job.

She made the invitations, mailed them out, prepared activities, even went to the dollar store and bought decorations, goodie baskets/items, and gifts and used her own money. [ I'm really likin' this plan :-) ].

The Banner:

Mrs. Incredible and Dash [?]
A big-headed horse

Mike Wazowski

Daddy had taken Therese out and when she came back she found the place just waiting for her. She had this smile on the entire time!! She was glad to see her friend from the old neighborhood. It had been a long time since she last saw her. [that foldgers can in the bkgrd is my compost can - yes, I thought you should know]

Dani performed a magic show for the party girl and guests. She worked so hard practicing and all. Even down to the jokes and training little Sophia to start the clapping at the end of each performed trick!
"I heard the Invisible Man and the Invisible Woman got married...."

"...their kids aren't much to look at!" hahahhahahahahaha!!

Cake time! You can see the joy on Charlie's face. He's so very distraught because he wants to blow out the number 9 candle and Dani is holding him too far away. He knows it's no use. I think this is when he's realizing that fact. We also had to re-light the candle so that he could actually blow it out. I think Joseph got to it first :)

Make a Wish Therese! [Sophia....I see that!]A little swimming - before the rain came - a little movie - A Little Princess - and a lot of giggles - at bed time
Made for a great birthday party!

Thank you Dani!!! Not just for doing all that work, but for being that thoughtful and putting in all that love. Oh!!! I almost forgot! I'll have to post the card Dani made her as well! It's Therese's favorite and you'll see why!

[okay Dani, I stayed up until almost 1 AM doing this post... sacrifices, sacrifices]

New Foundation?

This is an email that I received from the President of the United States. No lie. I'm so honored. Okay, not really. I receive periodic emails from the White House I assume b/c I emailed the president about the FOCA act/bill/bs. So now they know about me. Not such a calming feeling in my book.

Anyway... a New Foundation. That's what the following message is about. Project: United We Serve. Hmmmm. Great. So, why do we need a new foundation? That assumes that there is something wrong with our ENTIRE country. With the founding fathers. With our freedoms. With our religious freedoms you can bet.

So here you go. My message from the prez. Makin' it sound SO PATRIOTIC....

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Dear Friend,

Last week, I announced United We Serve – a nationwide call to service challenging you and all Americans to volunteer this summer and be part of building a new foundation for America.

And when I say “all,” I mean everyone – young and old, from every background, all across the country. We need individuals, community organizations, corporations, foundations, and our government to be part of this effort.

Today, for the official kick off of United We Serve, members of my administration have fanned out across America to participate in service events and encourage all Americans to join them.

The First Lady is rolling up her sleeves and getting to work too. But before she headed out today, she asked me to share this message with you. [then there is a video which I didn't watch - and it miraculously wouldn't show up here!]

Our nation faces some of the greatest challenges it has in generations and we know it’s going to take a lot of hard work to get us back on track.

While Michelle and I are calling on every American to participate in United We Serve, the call to service doesn’t end this fall. We need to stay involved in our towns and communities for a long time to come. After all, America’s new foundation will be built one neighborhood at a time – and that starts with you.

Thank you,
President Barack Obama

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I think I need to review my 17 points again...

Lack of Humility

The Seventeen Evidences of a Lack of Humility

The Servant of God, Blessed Josemaria Escriva once compiled an inventory of pride so exhaustive that it is like something written on the shield of a soldier who has learned it all in true combat. Saint John Vianney (Cure of Ars) wrote the same thing in shorthand when he signed his name to a clerical petition. His fellow priests circulated a petition accusing St. Vianney of sensationalism, ignorance, and ostentatious poverty and austerities. As it was addressed to all clergy, St. Vianney got a hold of it, read it, and promptly signed it. By 1834 the local priests themselves were going to St. Vianney for confession.

The seventeen evidences of a lack of humility are:

1. To think that what one says or does is better than what others say or do

2. To always want to get your own way

3. To argue with stubbornness and bad manners whether you are right or wrong

4. To give your opinion when it has not been requested or when charity does not demand it

5. To look down on another's point of view

6. Not to look on your gifts and abilities as lent

7. Not to recognize that you are unworthy of all honors and esteem, not even of the earth you walk on and things you possess

8. To use yourself as an example in conversations

9. To speak badly of yourself so that others will think well of you or contradict you

10. To excuse yourself when you are corrected

11. To hide humiliating faults from your spiritual director, so that he will not change the impression he has of you

12. To take pleasure in praise and compliments

13. To be saddened because others are held in higher esteem

14. To refuse to perform inferior tasks

15. To seek to stand out

16. To refer in conversation to your honesty, genius, dexterity, or professional prestige

17. To be ashamed because you lack certain goods

:::sigh::: I think I've got to make copies of this. I wish I could just download this to my mind. Upgrade... viola!

Happy Father's Day!

to my dad... and theirs...

I LOVE YOU!!!! MWAH!

Duct Tape and Velcro

Caviezel Post

I'm no dummy. I would've been verbally slaughtered had I posted this yesterday!
At any rate, go here to view the trailer of Jim's upcoming flick. You can go HERE to see if/where he'll it'll be showing in your state.

You're welcome :::smiles:::

BEHIND...

I'm so behind on posts...
Just thought you should know.
Do you like my new background though? Regina IS amazing - and besides being amazing she's so generous with the giving of herself. Amazing.

Oh! well, I guess I can clue some of you in who didn't get it.

DK = decay

ha!

i think i over-used the word amazing, huh?

Happy Birthday!

To my favorite guy ~ the one to whom I give my LOVE... ~Happy Birthday Paul~

35 the 7th time around

:)

Touching Words...

For many years Ben Stein has written a biweekly column called 'Monday
Night At Morton's' (Morton's is a famous chain of Steakhouses known to
be frequented by movie stars and famous people from around the globe.)

Now, Ben is terminating the column to move on to other things in his
life.

Reading his final column is worth a few minutes of your time.

Ben Stein's Last Column...
============================================

How Can Someone Who Lives in Insane Luxury Be a Star in Today's World?

As I begin to write this, I 'slug' it, as we writers say, which means I
put a heading on top of the document to identify it. This heading is
'eonlineFINAL,' and it gives me a shiver to write it. I have been doing
this column for so long that I cannot even recall when I started. I
loved writing this column so much for so long I came to believe it would
never end.

It worked well for a long time, but gradually, my changing as a person
and the world's change have overtaken it. On a small scale, Morton's,
while better than ever, no longer attracts as many stars as it used to.
It still brings in the rich people in droves and definitely some stars.
I saw Samuel L. Jackson there a few days ago, and we had a nice visit,
and right before that, I saw and had a splendid talk with Warren Beatty
in an elevator, in which we agreed that Splendor in the Grass was a
super movie. But Morton's is not the star galaxy it once was, though it
probably will be again.

> Beyond that, a bigger change has happened. I no longer think
Hollywood stars are terribly important. They are uniformly pleasant,
friendly people, and they treat me better than I deserve to be treated.
But a man or woman who makes a huge wage for memorizing lines and
reciting them in front of a camera is no longer my idea of a shining
star we should all look up to.

How can a man or woman who makes an eight-figure wage and lives in
insane luxury really be a star in today's world, if by a 'star' we mean
someone bright and powerful and attractive as a role model? Real stars
are not riding around in the backs of limousines or in Porsches or
getting trained in yoga or Pilates and eating only raw fruit while they
have Vietnamese girls do their nails.

They can be interesting, nice people, but they are not heroes to me any
longer. A real star is the soldier of the 4th Infantry Division who
poked his head into a hole on a farm near Tikrit, Iraq. He could have
been met by a bomb or a hail of AK-47 bullets. Instead, he faced an
abject Saddam Hussein and the gratitude of all of the decent people of
the world.

A real star is the U.S. soldier who was sent to disarm a bomb next to a
road north of Baghdad. He approached it, and the bomb went off and
killed him.

A real star, the kind who haunts my memory night and day, is the U.S.
soldier in Baghdad who saw a little girl playing with a piece of
unexploded ordinance on a street near where he was guarding a station.
He pushed her aside and threw himself on it just as it exploded. He
left a family desolate in California and a little girl alive in Baghdad.

The stars who deserve media attention are not the ones who have lavish
weddings on TV but the ones who patrol the streets of Mosul even after
two of their buddies were murdered and their bodies battered and
stripped for the sin of trying to protect Iraqis from terrorists.

We put couples with incomes of $100 million a year on the covers of our
magazines. The noncoms and officers who barely scrape by on military
pay but stand on guard in Afghanistan and Iraq and on ships and in
submarines and near the Arctic Circle are anonymous as they live and
die.

I am no longer comfortable being a part of the system that has such poor
values, and I do not want to perpetuate those values by pretending that
who is eating at Morton's is a big subject.

There are plenty of other stars in the American firmament...the
policemen and women who go off on patrol in South Central and have no
idea if they will return alive; the orderlies and paramedics who bring
in people who have been in terrible accidents and prepare them for
surgery; the teachers and nurses who throw their whole spirits into
caring for autistic children; the kind men and women who work in
hospices and in cancer wards. Think of each and every fireman who was
running up the stairs at the World Trade Center as the towers began to
collapse. Now you have my idea of a real hero.

I came to realize that life lived to help others is the only one that
matters. This is my highest and best use as a human. I can put it
another way. Years ago, I realized I could never be as great an actor
as Olivier or as good a comic as Steve Martin...or Martin Mull or Fred
Willard--or as good an economist as Samuelson or Friedman or as good a
writer as Fitzgerald. Or even remotely close to any of them.

But I could be a devoted father to my son, husband to my wife and, above
all, a good son to the parents who had done so much for me. This came
to be my main task in life. I did it moderately well with my son, pretty
well with my wife and well indeed with my parents (with my sister's
help). I cared for and paid attention to them in their declining years.
I stayed with my father as he got sick, went into extremis and then into
a coma and then entered immortality with my sister and me reading him
the Psalms.

This was the only point at which my life touched the lives of the
soldiers in Iraq or the firefighters in New York. I came to realize
that life lived to help others is the only one that matters and that it
is my duty, in return for the lavish life God has devolved upon me, to
help others He has placed in my path. This is my highest and best use
as a human.

Faith is not believing that God can. It is knowing that God will.

By Ben Stein

This is a Job for....

SuperRegina!

Mom to all those cute girls posted something about LENA's* bandwidth limit. Hmmmm... I may just have to call on this super friend to 'come up with something' cool :)

*don't really know why I added a link to her site... it's just wallpapered with that same lovely bkgrd my blog is sporting :)

Wait For It....

From the kids:

Why is Donkey Kong so rotten?

Because his initials are D.K.

give it a few seconds...

And They Just Keep Growing...

...like there's no tomorrow! "It's too early for taking pictures"
Happy Birthday Big Guy!!

Enjoy being SIX!

~~~~~~~~~~John Paul the Great, pray for us!~~~~~~~~~~
It's great to be able to share your day with
St. Anthony!

For Real?

Yet another news flash - I truly can't understand this... it's just a satanic hold.
Do you have any words? Because I surely don't!

More on Shame

Dialogue, shmialogue.

From the 5yo - almost 6 yo; he just informed me this morning, "3 more days" - last night after he went to bed, he got up .... he yelled this down to us from the top of the stairs:

JP: "Daddy...[ mumble mumble mumble]"
Paul: "What John Paul?"
JP: [with a whiny-on-the-verge-of-crying-tone] "I can't get to sleep up here. I'm dying of starvation!

And yes, we did rectify this problem of starvation with a fruit bar AND a threat of "don't you dare tell Joseph" - with whom he shares a room :)

Twilight Poison

I think it is always wise to look at things through our Catholic glasses.

I never liked the subject matter of the Twilight series - call it a gut feeling and just the way I am - so when Fr. Euteneuer [an exorcist among other things] uses the word 'poison*' to describe this series, I can rest assured that my gut - although pudgy - is spot on.

*as seen in the comments following the article

9 Year Old!

Happy Birthday Therese!

May God bless you and may NINE be a wonderful, memorable year for you!
You are such a creative and sweet girl - always thinking. Daddy and I are so blessed ~ as are your brothers and sisters!

We Love You Theresey-Poo :)

Coffee Filter Flowers - Instructions

These instructions are from my awesome friend, Michele. She's got 4 children ~one of whom is a nursing baby~ which is why I can't believe how much time she put into these instructions, got them done in a couple days from the word "lit", and how great they look [this part I can believe!]. I'm humbled to house them on my blog. I hope you enjoy!

You can view these instructions larger... click on the Toggle Full Screen on the UPPER RIGHT ~


Coffee Filter Roses Instructions

Publish at Scribd or explore others: How-to-Guides & Manu flowers crafts

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Coffee Filter Flower-simple

Publish at Scribd or explore others: How-to-Guides & Manu flowers crafts

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Coffee Filter Flower-variation

Publish at Scribd or explore others: How-to-Guides & Manu flowers crafts

Paper Daffodils

Yeah, Why is That?