A very happy and blessed Easter from our family to yours. Here's what our day has looked like so far . . . And here's what we wore Easter Sunday . . . Lulu - eighteen months Dress and sweater: Boden Hat: made by a friend Shoes: Target Frankie - three Shirt: Old Navy...
Happy Palm Sunday! Hosanna! Easter is one week away! Just in case you haven't finalized your family's Easter baskets, I thought I'd give you a glimpse of what is going to be in ours' this year (and yes, I pretty much JUST took care of all of this) . . . I've been...
I don't do these family glimpse posts as much as I used to, because I tend to share that stuff on the Catholic All Year Facebook page and on my Instagram account now. But I forget that not all of you are all those places. And I share different stuff on Facebook than I...
This post contains affiliate links. See my disclosure policy. I like photo Christmas cards. I wrote all about it last year, and included some of the Holy Family's OWN photo Christmas cards. So when the good folks at Joules Clothing were kind enough to send over some...
Here's hoping everyone had a happy and holy Pentecost! It can be hard to motivate to celebrate the liturgical year at home. Especially on a weekend which already saw sporting events, multiple team parties, and a birthday party. But, now that we've been doing this a...
I had such fun reading all the answers to Friday's Liebster post, that I've decided to make a regular thing of it, at least as long as you folks are up for participating. Here's how it will work. (Unless I change how it will work. As with a Liebster Award, in...
Dear people who are good at NFP, Have you ever found yourself saying things like, "Oh, I don't really even have to chart, I just KNOW," or "I'm sorry, what did you say? I was just noticing myself ovulate," or "You just need to try Creighton, it's made of...
Maybe it's the new baby, but Advent has FLOWN by in our house. Christmas is almost here! I just had to re-type this because I'm pretty sure I have to say my favorite part of our Christmas celebration is the Mass. But a VERY close second is our At Home Family Nativity...
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...
After last week's What I Wore Sunday post, my friend Mandi pointed out that it seems like, even at the pretty darn pregnant phase in which I find myself now, I don't really wear maternity clothes. And she's right, I don't. It's not really something I set out to...
As a parent, I want to figure out how to pay enough attention to each child so that he knows he is precious and valued, but not so much that he ends up an entitled brat. Fortunately, we have enough kids that I think it would be really, really hard for us to err...
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...
As you may have noticed from earlier blog postings, the kids and I were out of town for the summer. The husband came back and forth a few times to visit, and did his retreat-type stuff for the year, but I figured the time with the kids out of the house would be ideal...
Blah, blah, blah, stuff happened, I found myself 24 and single. My dad (who reads this blog, but I am going to say this anyway) was a super-weirdo about that sort of thing and started immediately panicking that I would become an old maid. He kept trying to find guys...
Just to further confuse those of you who thought we lived in LA, but then thought it seemed liked we lived in Chicago, I'm currently blogging at you from Ames, Iowa: home of the Cyclones and my lovely sister and her family. We're on a vacation-in-a-vacation as it...
Dear Mom With Two or Three or More Small Children, Your life is hard right now. I know, I've been there. You wanted these children, or maybe you didn't at first (oops) but you do now, and you love them like you never imagined you could love anything, but also they...
I love backyard birthday parties. That's what we had when I was growing up, and that's what we throw for our own kids now. Anita jumping for joy at her 4th Birthday Party, held yesterday in the lovely Chicago backyard of my generous in-laws (we're visiting for the...
A couple of weeks ago, in a Sunday post about Kids and Modesty, I made kind of a throwaway mention of the fact that I consider nursing in public without a nursing cover to fall into the category of immodest. Since you guys have such excellent reading comprehension, it...
One of my least favorite children's movie conceits is the whole "Dad's an idiot, but if junior can just manage to disobey him loudly enough, he's sure to come around" thing. (See: Mary Poppins, The Little Mermaid, How to Train Your Dragon, Ratatouille, Happy...
I think it's easy to fall into one of two errors when dealing with kids and modesty. One is the idea that the human body is bad and that we must ensure that our children hide their 'naughty bits', the other is a reaction too far in the other direction: that we...
So now that Mother's Day is winding down and all the kids are in bed, I can take a minute to consider their usefulness. Their usefulness beyond serving my mother and I and our dates a lovely dinner at Tierney Bistro for Mother's Day, I mean. My number one goal as a...
Not MY ten year reunion, but still . . . I have thoughts. The husband and I were married in August of 2001. <so. many. tangents. resisting . . . okay, here we go> We left immediately for the honeymoon, then were back in San Diego just long enough to move our...
Let's face it, as awesome as it is to have all these kids, it does make some things more complicated. Mealtimes, driving, traveling, okay, most things I guess. But it's worth it, of course. All my efforts are rewarded with love and laughter and jewels in my crown...
The Dove Real Beauty Sketches took Facebook by storm last week: filling my newsfeed with passionate comments about how TRUE it was and how all our daughters needed to see this. I have some thoughts. Baby Jack posing with some rival soap. 1. This is an ad for...
This is the second in a series of posts on our family trip to Italy. If you missed it, the first is here. Well, first thing after we arrived in Rome and checked in to our apartment near the Vatican, we had to head straight for St. Peter's Square. We've been...
