Life in the Smith Home Lately

What a beautiful day we had today! It was in the low 60's, sunny, and a tad windy; the leaves on the trees are starting to turn and it felt wonderful to be outside.

When I came downstairs this morning I found Thomas poking toothpicks into a wadded up ball of foil. For a long time I have been frustrated with him using up all my scotch tape, cooking twine, or whatever else he could find on his various projects, but Paul keeps telling me "Holly, tape is cheap, relax!"

"Thomas, what are you making?" I ask.

"A prickle ball" he says with satisfaction.


Our day started with Dominic's first official soccer game of the season. So far they have just have just had practices and training sessions. The first real game was supposed to be two weeks ago, but it was rained out. As I mentioned before, it was a beautiful day, so it was nice to be out with Paul and all the boys at the soccer field. Dominic played well and was more engaged in the game than he has been in the past and his team won, 4 to 1. And actually they were playing the team that Dominic was on last season.

Last night I told Paul that this weekend I wanted [him] to paint our stairway going up to the upper level and the upper level hallway. We never painted those areas after we moved in 5 1/2 years ago, and there is a mural of scuffs and fingerprints all over them. So since we need to start thinking about selling the house some day, sooner hopefully than later, I figured that it was time to get that painted. As soon as we got home from soccer, Paul and the boys got to work with taping. As of tonight, we haven't actually started the painting yet - we'll get a little in tomorrow and hopefully finish it before the end of the week. And then I guess I need to find something to hang on the walls, so it looks nice. That's another whole challenge for me - home decorating is not my strength.

Like Dan, I have a lot of pictures I've been meaning to share for a while, so here they are :)

The boys and I had a nice fall walk the other day.


Dominic and Andre look like they are sparring here, but what actually happened was that Dominic was trying to aim his wooden gun, and Andre came along and started whacking it. Dominic was not upset or anything and we laughed when we saw how the picture came out.


Here are Dominic and Thomas on some pieces of sawed up tree trunk in the woods.


And here is Dominic successfully aiming his gun.


And here is "the Sweetie" as we call him, just being his usual sweet self. (In case you haven't heard me talk incessantly about this yet, Andre thinks his name is "Sweetie" and refers to himself in that way all the time.)

In case you can't see how sweet he is in that picture here are a few more :) (Sorry to be annoying.)


He likes the mp3 player. (I don't know what happened to his pants - I think Dominic took this picture.)


Andre is taking a drink out of my glass here during pizza making, thus the flour he has all over
himself.


And here he is all dressed to go out in the rain.

Every year Paul enjoys taking the boys to an event at the Dulles Airport called the Dulles Plane Pull, which is a fund raiser for something, although I can't remember what. This year, Bill and Linda flew in just in time for Paul to pick them up at the airport and bring them to the plane pull with them, which was nice for them. There are various teams who try to pull a plane, and the kids get to try to pull a school bus. This is a cute clip of the boys pulling the school bus (sorry it's sideways).




Last, but not least, these are some pictures Paul had asked me to post a REALLY long time ago; Easter, in fact. This is a cool project that Thomas and I did on Holy Thursday, while Paul and Dominic were at the Mass of the Last Supper, and the Sweetie was sleeping.



If you are interested in doing this craft, you can find the instructions for it here. It is based on Leonardo Da Vinci's rendition of the last supper. It was fun because while we were doing it, and afterwards, we were able to memorize and identify the twelve apostles. I think we must have made some bread too, which is why you see Thomas breaking the bread (like Jesus broke the bread at the Last Supper.) We were very proud of how nicely he colored the apostles and I think he enjoyed the project too.

Edit: The pictures are not top quality, but they were all taken with my cell phone camera. I cannot sleep right now, and I have pictures that I have been meaning to upload for a while. So I have decided to create a blog post.

The first set of pictures will be from Saturday, 10/8/11. This was Regina's birthday, so we went to the Harpoon Brewery to celebrate. Notice in the first picture the big crucifix on the brick wall. To beer fans, they make a pretty potent IPA. I happen to dislike IPA's, but I know many people like them.

Included in the price of the tour ($5) was a small beer glass and semi-unlimited samples (in 20 minutes). This picture shows the taps at our sample bar. From right to left: UFO (UnFiltered Offering) Hefeweizen, UFO White (similar to Blue Moon/Shocktop), UFO Raspberry Wheat (pours pink), UFO Pumpkin (only available at the brewery, excellent brew), Harpoon Cider, Harpoon Belgian Pale Ale (I think), Harpoon Dark (I think), Leviathan Imperial IPA, Leviathan Triticus, Harpoon Octoberfest, Harpoon IPA. We walked home.

This is a Dove with a damage wing. I found itfoundering in the street on St. Francis' feast day, so I picked it up and set it on a tree branch.

This next set of pictures is of Boston College. First is St. Mary's chapel/Jesuit residence on campus. They have three daily Masses, 8, 11, and 12 (sorry Dad, none early enough for your tastes). I usually go to the 8 before Greek, or the one of the two afterwards. I try to remember to pray for all of you, especially my nephews, nieces, and God-children every day. I have more pictures on Regina's camera, which I will post later. However, you should still be able to see that it is a beautiful chapel.

This is Gasson Hall. It is a beautiful building and it makes me happy to be at BC each time I walk by. Most people pronounce it similar to the word "Gas Can," without the hard "C" and replacing the "a" for an "o." I prefer a more French pronunciation with the stress on the second syllable.

This is from the front. There is a functional bell tower, and a gold covered eagle in front. The "eagle" is a gift from someone is Japan, either the government or someone else who could afford a large gold eagle and marble pillar gift. I used quotes on eagle because it is actually a statue of a hawk. Our mascot is an eagle (we call him Baldwin), but someone in Japan must not have understood the difference.

This is a bad picture of the inside of Gasson. I am on the second floor looking down into the center, under the bell tower. There is a state of St. Michael the AA, surrounded by four statues of Jesuit saints, who in turn are backed by frescoes of more Jesuit saints (martyrs I think).

This is the road that leads to the front of Gasson. It is lined with very large, beautiful oaks, and I have been taking pictures every week or so. Once the leaves are done changing colors, I plan to post all of the pictures to show the transition.

Here are some cute photos of Severus that I took back in Florida. I wanted to emphasize his smallness by placing him in small receptacles.

This is of a turtle that crawled under Regina's car. Over the summer, when we were staying with Mom and Dad, I saw a turtle on Lake Mills Rd while driving home one day. I decided to stop and move it so that it didn't get killed. I pulled over adjacent to the turtle, and it promptly crawled under my car and got stuck. Because the shoulder was lower than the road surface, the uni-frame of the car sloped down towards the edge of the road. This gave the turtle less clearance on the passenger side of the car, and it wedged itself in between the road and the car. I don't even remember how it managed to get it unstuck, but I do remember that I eventually decided to drive away because it would not come out and I could not reach it. (I must add that I probably entertained the idea of bringing it home for soup at some point during this ordeal).

Two more, and then I will try sleep again. If these need an explanation, please let me know.

Potty Practice

Here is an amusing video that we shot last night. We had just found our video camera that we hadn't used in a long time so we decided to film some "normal family stuff." A few minutes earlier we had been "practicing" using the potty with Philip.

Here are some pictures of things we have been up to lately. Nothing too exciting. Just loving the fall weather!

Here's Philip with my grandparents when we went to visit Virginia a few weeks ago

Last weekend we went to a pumpkin patch and farm

Philip wanted me to take some pictures of us together

Playing in the rain. He picked a piece of border grass from the planter and wielded it like a sword

Philip's first day of school. Playing with cars and saying hi to the other kids as they enter the classroom.

Good Morning

I hope everyone is having a wonderful morning. This morning all of my kids decided to catch up on sleep at the same time. This was a rare treat for me since they usually stagger it and someone is always up by 7:15 or so. And since friday is a catch up day for school and a day to run errands and work on otherwise neglected housework it was a perfect day for this.

Anthony was the first to wake up and we had a bit of reading time on the couch. He was facsinated with a book about Butterflies and Catterpillers. Then he found another book about farm animals which you can see him reading in the video below. His favorite animal is the cow. When we visit the Dairy Farm for milk he can stand and watch the cows eat their hay all day. And they are the friendly sort of cows that will come up and eat grass from the kids hands so this makes it all the harder to drag him away.

Cider Donuts 2.0

We are headed out to Ipswich, MA to find more Cider Donuts. This particular orchard also has many, many types of fruit wine and cordials, so we may be heading back with some of that as well. We will post pictures when we get back.