Have Courage and Be Kind

SENTIMENTAL WARNING: The following paragraph contains words of sentimentality and sadness.  Read at your own risk or skip to the next paragraph which details the more joyous accounts of a young girl's 10th birthday.

Our 'Little Girl' is not so 'little' after all.  She recently turned 10 (against our every effort to the contrary) and this inevitable event weighed on my poor maternal heart a humble and acute heaviness. I cried the other day watching her swing away carefree on our tree swing. As I watched, I remembered when she was just a young thing, running around, singing and playing in her distinctly cute fashion.Well, she is still the sweetest thing and it cannot be argued that she is indeed growing into a very kind and intelligent young lady of whom Richard and I are exceedingly proud!

In honor of her 10th birthday, we decided to have a Cinderella themed party (not the cartoon but based on the 2015 live action film).  If you have seen the film, you know that the moral of the story is to "Have Courage and Be Kind" (and if you haven't, you really really should) and that was the central theme of the party.

We started with the invitation:

She loves the Fairy Godmother... so there you have it.

Next we worked on the gift bags.  We made these homemade whimsical bookmarks replete with glitter gold:

We encased a handful of gold-wrapped Almond Kisses in tulle and trimmed it in blue ribbon and then added all things Cinderella-blue: a bracelet and nail polish to boot.

Finally we personalized each bag to make it a truly royal affair.  Plus, we found these really age-appropriate Cinderella coloring sheets that the girls loved and added them to the bounty as well.

Next, we found these nylon butterflies at a consignment sale and thought they would make the perfect touch:

I also printed up this poster from online and bought a cheap frame to glam it up:

 Here we have the table set for our guests...

We have mini pumpkin muffins topped with homemade fondant pearls.  These were such a hit!  Did y'all notice the metal decorative pumpkin carriage in the background?  Perfect, right?  Thank You Hobby Lobby for reading my mind.

We  also have Magical Wands: sesame bread sticks dipped in melted white chocolate and sprinkled with blue.

And the two-tier cake topped with Cinderella's glass slipper!

 After the girls watched Cinderella, we had a toilet-paper gown making competition.  The boys were beside themselves with the excitement of it all.

One more touch...

And the winner is,,,

After the competition we made origami butterflies which held a kind hand written message for someone special.  A real cute craft!

Here is the link to the instructions.

Next was the cake and once you introduce cake everything becomes a blur - it's not the camera, its the situation: everyone is dizzy with excitement and anticipation!

 Let the real fun begin...

Okay so when Mila turned 8 we went to get her ears pierced and they ended up getting infected so we waited 2 years before trying again...

See those tiny gold studs...they really make her eyes POP, don't you think?

Fingers crossed.

Happy 10th Birthday to our kind and courageous girl!

Good Things

Clearly I was unprepared to maintain school, a family, moving into a 'new' home that needed serious attention and a blog all at the same time.  Something had to give while we moved in and renovated our 'new' (old) house and, sadly, the blog was it.  Nevertheless, I will try to update this dusty blog and devote some time to doing so with attention, thoughtfulness and an acceptable degree of humor: my readers would have it no other way.

Let's start with my favorite subject: Baking. Here are a few goodies that I whipped up in the last 6 months or so:

 I made these in honor of Our Lady.  I was shooting for the Immaculate Conception but I didn't really finish until the feast of Our Lady Of Guadalupe.  No harm done...they were ever so tasty but almost too pretty to eat. Almost.

Ezra's 8th birthday cake. 

I love the checkered layers inside...fun, right?

Here are some Easter cupcakes that turned out nicely. I made two buttercream frostings: Fresh Lemon and Fresh Strawberry.  It was too hard to decide which I liked best...but if you had to twist my arm, I'd say Lemon: DElightful!

My first First Communion Cake:) I call it the Pretty in Pink.

An assortment of biscotti.  Who doesn't like biscotti?

Here are some pickles I canned with the staggering abundance of cucumbers from our garden.

Canned peaches I made with honey instead of sugar...my goal is that they last us through the winter.  I hope they make it that long;)

I know this isn't a very exciting or thorough post but I'm a little out of practice.  I hope to have another entry SOON showing the improvements we have made on the house as well as other exciting events! Stay tuned...

O Mary, Conceived without Sin...

So, today we celebrated the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary.  We colored pictures from Holy Heroes, I made yummy Vanilla Cupcakes and we went to Mass.  It's funny, but, whenever I think of the term "Immaculate Conception" my mind always cuts to the scene in the movie  Song of Bernadette when Bernadette is interrogated by the priest for calling 'the lady' the "Immaculate Conception". It is a powerful scene and one I remember well, both for the contrast between the cold, gruff priest and the soft and humble Bernadette; as well as for the introduction of this mysterious and beautiful title. It brings home the point that Our Lady, unlike any other human that was or will be, was privileged by God. She was preserved from the stain of sin from the very moment she came to be in order for her to be the Mother of God the Son.
Speaking of  'Mother', Richard read to me a very salient definition of the term 'matrimony' this afternoon.  Of course, no other definition save for one from Aquinas' Summa Theologica would suffice:

"Three things may be considered in matrimony.  First, its essence, which is a joining together, and in reference to this it is called the conjugal union; secondly, its cause, which is the wedding, and in reference to this it is called the nuptial union...thirdly, the effect, which is the offspring, and in reference to this it is called matrimony, as Augustine says... because a woman's sole purpose in marrying should be motherhood...since the duty of bringing up the children chiefly devolves on the woman...Although the father ranks above the mother, the mother has more to do with the offspring than the father has. Or we may say that woman was made chiefly in order to be man's helpmate in relation to the offspring, whereas the man was not made for this purpose.  Wherefore the mother has a closer relation to the nature of marriage than the father has." Q.44 Article 2

Isn't that powerful? "The mother has a closer relation to the nature of marriage than the father has"? Wow.  That whole revelation and understanding just blew me away.  Truth be told, I never really gave the nature of marriage an in depth examination.  The roles of husband and wife and mother and father, yes.  But this.  This is beautiful ...and scary.  Beautiful because it makes sense, especially when you look at it through the lens of the Holy Family. Joseph played a small yet important role as Jesus' adoptive father but Mary IS the Mother of God. Her whole life and marriage pointed to and centered on being Jesus' mother.
This beautiful revelation is also scary when you apply it to one's own life:  I may be solely responsible for the kind of people my children become.  That the duty of bringing up the children chiefly devolves on the woman!, who knew?  Aquinas did.
 Oh Lord, help me to be a good and patient mama.  Help me to be kind and gentle and humble.  See my weaknesses and grant me the grace and strength to raise these children to be virtuous and good. Our Lady, intercede for us and keep us under Your mantle of protection.  O Mary conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to Thee!

Failing that, at least my kids like my cooking.

Life in the fast lane

Here are some random shots in the life of the Meloche clan, when I say 'random' I mean in no chronological order whatsoever. Time goes by so fast I am amazed we have time to take pictures of anything at all.
These are a few of us at Conner's A-MAIZE-ing Acres in October, don't ask me what day.

I made some Vanilla Cupcakes with Buttercream frosting in honor of Our Lady on the Feast of Her Immaculate Conception December 8.

Here we are picking out a Christmas tree. Simon wears that cowboy hat almost everywhere, he fits right in with the folks here.

Simon giving Mila a ride on our visit to Grandma and Grandpa Ernie's place.

Our Thanksgiving feast. Delicious.

Here we are camping in the middle of November. We went with some friends of ours and a good time was had by all.

Dressed up for the All Saint's Party. Mila as Mary and Ezra as Joseph and Simon was too cute to not be in the picture.

Mama Bear and Papa Bear cookin' up breakfast while camping...scrambled eggs and bacon mmmm....