The past few days have been a bit crazy...Our dear fish, Lent, died a few days ago at 2.5 years-old. Now for a goldfish that we cleaned his bowl only once a month...it was amazing that he lived that long... but due to this death, I cleaned thoroughly, filtered water into it, and then grabbed another one of the fish in our tank and put in it Bella's room. Why? Because she LOVES Elmo's world and Elmo has a goldfish named Dorothy. So everytime we sit down and watch Elmo's World, Bella gets super excited when the goldfish is featured and she points at our own fish in the tank next to the television. To give Bella her own Dorothy excited her tremendously...and today as we watched Elmo's World, she rushed to her room and pointed at her own Dorothy.... pictures on the bottom.
Today was our preparation for Halloween! Although Bella does not like her costume at all on her, I am trying to get her to wear it for a few minutes each day... you can see cute pics of her outfit on Saturday!!! This being said, if my little Bella will not wear her costume at our Halloween game night, then I have found an alternate that she LOVES!!! Today, we played Ghost Tag. Now, this game is simple, easy and so much fun (as long as you have completely baby proofed the area for collisions). We have a white baby blanket that I put on my head, then I chase Bella. she LOVES it. we played for nearly an hour and a half today! (Cute pics below). I also brought out her Play Hut and we played with Curious George for a while in there....Bella wanted to act our her favorite charater as today the monkey went on a boat...so by herself, she went and grabbed a toy box shelf and brought it into her hut....more pics below too. Finally we made Daddy his favorite biscuits (the garlic cheese ones from Red Lobster), now granted my 15 month-old cannot actually bake...so I give her a bowl and a spoon and she whips it around...but today she saw the fake carrots (that came with her grocery cart gift that Great Grandma Ellie gave Bella) and Bella grabbed those and dropped them in her bowl and had a BALL sloshing those around too!
Altogether, a very successful day for a 15 and 2 month old!
God Bless, Kym


Teigan slept during our Ghost Tag


Look at Ms. Sassy Pants being a ghost!

Bella, C.G. and their boat adventure in the hut

Tea Time! Granted a lot of mess, but still great

Bella's "new" fish: Dorothy (just like Elmo's fish) I moved the bowl into her bedroom and she LOVES seeing Dorothy at feeding time

1 year photo fun

Today started off rocky. Granted it's only 2:20 p.m.... but I've been going strong since Preston left the house at 7:45 this morning. Once I woke up, both babies were still asleep as I went and did my business and got ready for the day.
In my mind, I had the day all set up... breakfast, playtime, relax while Bella watches her Curious George and Teigan naps, photo time, playtime, lunch, then more playtime then nap....Well, we got thru breakfast, Bella loved playtime as it was trying to learn how to draw with crayons (still no luck). There was no relax time...we played right through C.G. which was fine by me.
However it was photo time that really got to my heart strings. I love photography; I love looking at photographs, taking them, enhancing them, printing them, and sticking them in frames or albums or sending them to family...but today was the most fun I think I've had indoors for photography with my daughter. Why? Because today she let me put up a make shift backdrop... yes I did a deliberate color of baby blue as a backdrop because ...1.it was better than a striped green and blue; 2. it is the same color of the first photos my mother took of me when I was a baby; 3. it was a perfect double sheet that could be the back and the flooring! Perfect!!!
So the photo time went genius, and pics are at the end of this post...
Lunch was great! Waffles, apples and some carrots. I know a bit weird...but Tuesdays are Bella days to pick the lunch foods... and she loved every ounce of that meal. She loved it so much, that at noon right after lunch she was tuckered out from all the fun in the morning and she walked right to her crib in order to tell Mommy it was naptime.... she has been asleep ever since!
So now, I am here blogging and wish listing for things from garage sales, antique stores, and thrift shops, I hope to spot this weekend...I'll let you know what I find! But for now, here are those cute shots!

A Baby, A Bottle and a Bear

Teigan is not as photogetic as his sister...

Now shot 1: Bella is getting ready for her big photo, looking down... two seconds later....
Bella looks up and giggles so hard!

Bella with all her animals

Alright, enough for today...I think my little one is just waking up from her nap! More play time!

God Bless, Kym

Truly Honored

So, last night Preston and I were bathing Bella when our dear friend, Caleb, called Preston's cell. Unfortunately, with Preston busying holding onto our little bumblebee and myself feeding Teigan, I asked if we could call him back in fifteen minutes.... waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay over 15 minutes after Bella was done with her bath, I remembered that we needed to call Caleb! As soon as Preston called him, Caleb asked for it to be on speaker. Oh no, maybe Brooke (Caleb's fiance) didn't have a good time at the retreat this weekend was my first thought. As soon as Caleb was on speaker, I had this pit in my stomach... it quickly passed as Caleb & Brooke speakered us on our cell asking both Preston and myself to be in their wedding party! My jaw dropped, it is such an amazing honor to be asked to be in our dear friends wedding party.
Now the back story, I knew Brooke from the first First-Year Retreat Experience I ever developed for St. John's Campus Ministry some 3 years ago. Caleb was one of the first First-Year men who signed up... these two knew each other through friends along with being greatly in touch with their Catholic faith; but it turned out that Caleb and I would work in Campus Ministry together and then years later develop an amazing relationship with beautiful Brooke. A few weeks ago, Preston, Caleb, Brooke, Natalie (another dear friend), and myself went to Buffalo Wild Wings and just as we were leaving, Caleb grabbed me and led me away from the rest of the pack telling me that he had just bought the ring!
Caleb (who I believe is a closet romantic, or maybe just an outspoken one?) proposed to Brooke a few days later by inviting her out to Lake Sag to pray their nightly rosary together. Just before this, he had stolen her rosary, when she wasn't looking, and put the ring on one end of it! Well, in the dark, Brooke thought she was untangling the rosary when she found the ring attached to it and Caleb on both knees asking for her hand in marriage!
AWWWWWW! A few hours later, I received a phone call from Caleb, where once I heard the news, I shrieked in excitement for these two....and then the grocery store manager ran up to me asking if everything was alright. BUT what a great news while a person is in the diaper aisle right?
So this blog is a thank you to Caleb and Brooke for allowing my husband and I to be involved in your amazingly special and blest day! We are very excited to help in any and all ways that we can.
Oh and here's a pic of the newly engaged:

Courtesy of Facebook

Confirmation Retreat

Wow. That's the impression I have a day after the retreat of a lifetime. It was wonderful. The amazing leaders, Erin and Andrew: thank you for providing a great witness of what an amazing married vocation can look like when God is in the center; Brooke-for being a wonderful leader that the youth adored; Liz, Ashley, and Christine- you all did awe-inspiring jobs with your Spirit-led leadership as first-time peer leaders. It was a wonderful, wonderful, wonderful retreat with 52 10th grade students. No one was sent home, no one got hurt, no one acted less-than-average, no one "fell asleep" or was bored with a talk, no one was disrespectful, no one seemed to be having a bad time... what more could a youth minister ask for, right?
Well, not only were these 10th grade students wonderful in respect, action, and reaction; the first night's closing prayer, ALL 52 students repeated and professed the prayer "Come Holy Spirit". Now, this was completely optional to repeat after me, only if they were willing to grow deeper, lean into Christ, and be open,honest and real.... and they all did it with conviction. It was spine-tingling wonderful!
So Saturday morning came, and I was nervous. Are they going to behave? Am I going to have to send someone home? Will they gain anything spiritually from this retreat? Is there enough free time that they so much crave for (due to last year, apparently "ALL they did was hang out in their cabins and chill")? Will this retreat be enough to ignite their hearts and give them something MORE to crave?
Simple answers to all: YES. Before the day even began with the retreatants, I spent some time with God, praying and conversing with Him, asking His Spirit to come down and truly touch each one of the talks, activities, prayers, and meal times. Oh God is good, all the time! That Holy Spirit swept in to each youth... now, how do I know this? Well, besides the great amounts of energy, the fact that a few of us left with no voices from praise, prayer, and conversations...but the best proof that the youth had a spiritual renewal was in the evaluations....Not ONE eval was below average. In fact from a 1 to 10 (10 being the BEST!), we only received one 6, 3 7's, 2 8's, and the rest were either 9 or 10! But here were some comments!

"By far my favorite retreat. I felt myself growing into my faith with every activity we did. I loved it"
"Kym is amazing. She's fun and funny and is someone I look up to. She has great ideas about faith and is a reat leader for us."
"I seriously loved this retreat. In How the Grinch Stole Christmas, his great grew 10 sizes too big, I'm pretty sure that's how I grew in my faith this weekend."
"The weekend was really fun. I'm so glad that now, after we leave we don't just have confirmation classes, we actually have other groups to go and take those steps towards increasing our faith."
"This retreat inspired my spirit and helped me to love my Lord more than before."
"Before this retreat, I felt like I had turned my back to God, but this retreat turned me back to Him. I rate this retreat a 9 because it was a great balance of fun and learning and you made it so that we could understand it."
"Before this retreat, I felt like my faith was just there, but I didn't really think anything of it." Kym gave a talk on Baby steps and Adults steps in our faith. That was my favorite talik because before this retreat I wasn't even really at baby steps, but now I'm almost at adults steps!"
" I loved Ashley's talk because I learned that God hsa to be farther up on my priority list!"
"I loved this retreat. I thougth it was better than last year's. Because I learned more about my faith in 3 days than I did in the first 15 years of my life. Thanks St. Henry's for helping us grow in our faith."
"This retreat was amazing. The 10th graders next year should looke forward to it. I got a lot of out it and wouldn't want to change it."

Ok, so seriously those are only like the first ones I flipped to...each evaluation has something impactful to say on its own. I truly hope my parish can soon find the understanding of the importance of real faith being shared, action-based activities, peer ministry, and the awesome importance of being on retreats and youth ministry activities.
So the Holy Spirit really did shine down on us this weekend and I would love to thank each person out there who prayed for us!

Thanks and God Bless, Kym

the weekend

This weekend was a nice, relaxing time with the kids and my husband... I figured the pictures could do more justice than me blogging about it! Enjoy!

Bella's favorite thing to watch on PBS kids is Curious George...now granted this is not an official CG monkey, she thinks it is...so she LOVES carrying it around! We have only one Curious George book, but believe me, it gets a LOT of love

Bella leaning in to kiss Teigan on the forehead

Bella ready for the snow! It comes with matching pants, she just ran to show Daddy before I could put them on her!

Teigan is ready for the snow...

SNOW! This morning....AWWW

those first snips

Well as many of you know, my husband does not particularly love bangs. He loves all women in his life that have bangs, he just does not prefer bangs in general...this being said, he and I have often debated on having our daughter's bangs cut so that she doesn't have the "troll" look that she regularly sports now that her hair is constantly in her eyes.

Last Monday, my wish was granted. After multiple times of fishing Bella's hair out of her mouth, it was time. So we took her for her first hair cut at Great Clips in St. Cloud. When we first arrived, Preston put his name and Bella's name down and of course he got in first...leaving Mommy to deal with the squealing, crying, fighting daughter-o-horror during her first haircut... it was a hassle...but I think the end result is fantastic. Here are some pics!

Before the hair trim...note the massive "trolly" hair do was coming out already!

Bella had a rough start, she would not wear the hair bib, so naturally she had to have the hair slide onto her...she also would not sit on the booster alone, so she sat on Mommy's lap. it was too cute and very precious!
Helping her hairdresser with what part she did not want cut... please NOTE the hair on the clothes :)

She wanted those shiny scissors

sick of stupidity

Really like this idea and concept... through watching television, I've noticed more than once that Hollywood makes the abstained teens/young adults to be complete idiots. It's ridiculous... I mean why is it that the most popular teens are the ones who give up their God-given gift to some random high school boy. I follow these two blogs, Katelyn/Mary's www.growinguplanes.com, and Rachel's http://visualizelove.wordpress.com/, granted I don't know any on of these three lovely ladies, I can say that their words are so on point when it comes to living a chaste life, whether single but also married. These blogs are Catholic young women, but they aren't the "shove-down-your-throats-Bible-loving" Catholics... they are amazing! I would love for people to check out their project chaste, it's an online YouTube project...for more info check out: http://growinguplane.com/project-chaste It's awesome!

Way to go ladies and be great, but humble, role models!

God Bless, Kym