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Salad. Tastes good. Good for you. Huge pain in the neck to make. Even when it was just the husband and I eating dinner, I would mean to make us a salad, but end up running out of time or motivation and just steam some broccoli again. Now with a houseful of kids to...
Pshew, we did it. It took a whole day, and we didn't get ANY schoolwork done (double day tomorrow!) but we went to Mass, got our ashes, decorated the house for Lent, and . . . Cleaned Out the Toys! Here's our day in pictures . . . ashes remember, baby, you are dust ....
Discipline. It's a scary word that conjures up images of switches behind the shed and nuns with rulers in hand. But I'm here to tell you that it's the thing that makes me not only love my children, but genuinely enjoy being around them. We live in a Chicken Little...
As subscribers to Lego Club Magazine AND Lego Club Junior, my boys have been breathlessly filling me in on various details of The Lego Movie for months now. I have to say, those details did not fill me with confidence. The bad guy is Lord "Business"? Only the...
When my eldest son was in preschool, I made the mistake of handing the buck to the Pope when it came to some of our parenting practices. When Jack would ask why he couldn't watch a particular show that his friends were watching, I'd say, "Well, we're Catholic and...
You guys. I love these books. When I was a kid I my grandmother gave me one of those personalized children's books where you fill out a questionnaire about the child and get a book back. It said something like "Only KENDRA and her best friend KRISTEN could save their...
I wanted to go see The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, because Iris said it was good (and made such a pretty cake). BUT that was sold out, so we went to go see the husband's first choice instead: Lone Survivor. UPDATE 2024: The recipe originally linked above is no longer...
First things first, can you spare a moment to say a prayer for Bonnie's son and Micaela's friend? And now for the quick takes . . . --- 1 --- Heather sent me a link to an article that claims that the eldest children in big families are exploited by their...
Here's why I don't like babywearing: 1. I can't physically do everything I'd be able to if I had a baby who slept in a swing or bassinet: like sew, or exercise, or bathe, or unload the dishwasher, or not be touching someone. 2. It can get a little achy. 3. They...
movies. It's a movie about the creative process, and the investment of creators in their creations. It's a movie about charming doggedness triumphing over crabby nitpickiness. But mostly, it's a movie about fathers. A really good movie about fathers. The Big Story of...
If despite reading my review of the first installment of Peter Jackson's Hobbit trilogy, you (as I did) still held out hope for improvement and wanted to see the second movie: The Desolation of Smaug, here's what I have to say about it . . . If you like no-look...
I mentioned this technique in a post in which I used it on Miley Cyrus, Robin Thicke, and MTV, and I can't remember hearing much about any of them since, so I'm going to assume it was a big success and they've all decided to turn their lives around. In which case,...
It's pick on three-year-olds week here at Catholic All Year, which is odd since I don't even have a three-year-old right now. But I have had five three-year-olds previously, so I can say with some level of expertise, that those guys are generally up to something....
Guys? I need everyone to promise not to tell Grace about this post. She pretty much explicitly forbade its writing. But I wrote it anyway. INTJ and all that. Here's the thing: I really DO think twos are better than ones, and better than threes as well. I have written...
Well, as it turns out there's still time to enter the baby pool to win a copy of Haley and Daniel's new ebook: Feast. (Since I haven't had this baby yet.) It isn't even my due date until Wednesday, so I really shouldn't complain. But I will anyway, just a bit. My...
Advent is fast approaching, preceded by Thanksgiving of course, and (around here anyway) a new baby. Last week, I shared how Advent traditions have changed in our family. We really try to focus on Advent as a time of waiting and preparation. So, rather than watching...
Hey all, I'm super excited to be guest posting today for my friend Haley from Carrots for Michaelmas while she finishes up the edits on her Liturgical Year Cookbook. The Three Most Important Things I Do Before Having a Baby If you’re expecting me to say things like...
I'll never forget reading Ender's Game in the ninth grade and realizing that, probably, like Ender, all of my own awkwardness could be solved by getting selected for battle school where I would learn that my problem the whole time was that I was just smarter and more...
I've already posted about some of the spooky books we like to read/listen to around Halloween, but there are also some shorts and movies we like. Here are five of our favorites, then I need YOUR advice for where we go from here! 1. The Legend of Sleepy Hollow The...
Kaitlin from More Like Mary wrote me asking about how we deal with toddlers' picky eating habits. I fired off a quick email back to her before I remembered the super-frustrating food allergy issues her family is dealing with. Our family does not have any allergies or...
I'm pretty sure you're going to want to thank me for these awesome links, so: --- 1 --- I wasn't surprised when my Open Letter to Breaking Bad and Flannery O'Connor inspired other posts, but now I'm going to go ahead and take credit for the existence of a whole new...
Well, since at least 1812. That's when the Grimm brothers set out to scare the dickens out of generations of children. But clearly these stories, and the concept that scary stuff is good for kids, existed well before they started gathering the stories up. What we...
Here's another installment in my occasional series of answering Caitlin's questions! It's our goal to allow our kids, even though there are a lot of them, to have enough access to extra-curricular activities to experience the fun and exercise and enrichment and...
In the comments of a kind of random post about some Latin quizzes I made, Tamar and Caitlin asked me how I manage a homeschool day with four different grades, a preschooler, a toddler, and one in the oven. I guess the real answer is: Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't....
I'm going to start this by saying that plenty of people do not discipline as early as I do. Which is fine. I am a firm believer in doing what works for your family. I also believe that the level of discipline in your home is up to you and can be changed at any time,...
It has been an interesting week on the ol' blogstead . . . --- 1 --- One of the main goals of my blogging has become trying to affirm the different but still good choices that different moms make. My audience is mostly other Catholic moms. We share the primary goal of...
So, in the comments of Sunday's post about vacuuming, Sarah and Elizabeth and Sarah Marie asked for my two cents on getting babies to sleep. As you wish . . . "Sleep like a baby." Seriously? Who started that saying? Have they met babies? I don't know who Leo Burke...
It's not you, it's me. I get that. I totally get that you guys are brilliant and challenging and that people love you. But I don't. I just can't. You guys are huge bummers and you make me want to drown myself in the bathtub to escape the futility and pointlessness of...
When it comes to being addressed by children, I prefer "Mrs. Tierney" to "Kendra." I also prefer "Mrs. Tierney" to "Miss Kendra," on account of me having all these kids and preferring to give off more of a married vibe (although I do secretly like the Austen-ness of...
This is not going to be one of those posts where I tell you what to do, because so much of this is going to depend on your particular kids and their particular environment. But I know it's something that young moms struggle with, that I struggled with, that I continue...