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 do on Instagram. So . . . probably, I should do these more often. Anyway, there’s never before seen stuff too, for those of you who ARE on both. So just keep scrolling.

Preparations for this year’s Hooley are underway around here. Evites went out a couple of weeks ago, but this weekend was the “tidy up all the various piles of stuff in all the corners of the house” stage of preparation. I’m not sure how other folks mange to keep their counters cleaned off on a regular basis. For me, I need to throw a party to have the motivation to do it.

We have lots of parties, so they get mostly cleaned off somewhat frequently, but this is our biggest party of the year, so it’s also my most thorough “visible to the naked eye” clean up of the year. I save cabinets, drawers, and closets for our big Holy Week Clean out. But this weekend the kids and I cleaned off the garage surfaces, and the kitchen counters, and the various desks and shelves and bookcases all over the house. And I sorted and put away all the fabric scraps that live in a bin under my sewing desk. It’s thankless, but at least we had some fun tunes to listen to, and I always love how my house looks when it has empty corners and clean flat surfaces.

Now to keep it looking like this for a whole week . . .

Frankie and I made Sunday breakfast together. Batter went in. WAFFLES came out. It blew his mind every single time.

He just doesn’t have that filter that some folks have. So when he doesn’t like something, he makes sure you know about it. But his joyful moments, when they happen, are equally unrestrained. Which is pretty awesome.

It has been just about forever since I posted what I wore Sunday here on the blog. So here it is:

Anthropologie dress and sweater. In case you missed it, yes, that’s a bump, and it’s officially halfway cooked. I’m twenty weeks now. And I know I say this all the time, and then relapse, but I really, really am feeling better these days. Maybe I’ll get to have a bit of a pleasant second trimester after all, before I get huge and it’s 110 degrees here.

Lulu is standing in that photo, finally, at fifteen and a half months old. She started walking last week too. I am, admittedly, biased, but I think it’s the cutest thing ever.

The other thing I’ve been working on for the party are some printables that I wanted to share here.

As with all my printables, you are welcome to right-click on the image and save it to your computer for your own personal use. You may print the images and or upload them and have prints made for your personal use or to give as gifts. (These are sized for 8×10 but will print well much bigger.) You may use my images on your blog, just please link back to my blog. If you would like to sell my images, please contact me first.

St. Patrick’s Breastplate is a really beautiful prayer that’s completely
appropriate for year-round use. I designed it in two parts, each of
which could also be used alone, and in three color schemes.

And I made these squares to have printed as stickers at Tiny Prints. You could also print them on sticker paper at home, or do whatever else you’d like with them:

Finally . . . I have a winner for the amazing CCC animated film collection giveaway, and it’s . . . Julie Hoover! Congratulations Julie, I hope your kids enjoy these saints and heroes movies as much as mine have.

If you didn’t win, you can still order Patrick: Brave Shepherd of the Emerald Isle for 50% off through March 17th using the special promo code: STPATRICK50. And be sure to check out the St. Patrick’s Tea Party Playdate post for all the details on how to throw a liturgical year-themed playdate, and see this post for an Irish Folk Music playlist and lots more St. Patrick’s printables. 

P.S. I’m also at Blessed is She today, talking about how not to do Lent.