Hallow's Eve festivities

Petey Pumpkin



Trick or treating at the nursing home








Superman and Kitty Ballerina take a candy break



Here is Dominic's first costume of the evening, my "homemade" hippie costume. He started pulling things off and then I just started wondering if he looked like a rapper, which would be fine, but was not our desired effect. So we went with plan B, his superman pajamas handed down from cousin Owen.




















Bronius and Dominic woke up early together to scoop and carve our jack o lantern! :) Dominic has a book about a jack o lantern who sneezes his light out and he is in looooove with it. When we get back from trick or treating at the nursing home tonight, we'll let him "sneeze" out the light inside the pumpkin! ;) We really enjoyed visiting the nursing home again this year, I think it will become an Oct. 31st tradition in our family for as long as we can keep it! I think it's a very special way to introduce one aspect of the corporal works of mercy to our children. It brings such joy to the residents to see these precious children waiting at their doors to hand them little homemade notes of encouragement! In my family, we helped with the Thanksgiving dinner at church for the needy, and we would sing Christmas carols at the nursing home on Christmas, and that was always my favorite way to share the light of Christ together as a family.

Pumpkin painting

Thank you so very much Melissa for a WONDERFUL autumn morning filled with eats, treats and crafts! :) And if that wasn't enough fun for one little boy to handle, Aunt Les spent the afternoon with us and we baked cookies and painted paper pumpkins with glitter to take to the nursing home on Halloween! :)

Weekends always go too fast!

Bronius snuck around the corner to take pics after the parents finally got to sit down and eat, and we noticed how suspiciously quiet it was!




















This one was particularly nice. We woke up early Friday morning to head to our Married Couple's Group reunion breakfast, and had the most amazing melt-in-your-mouth-secret-recipe pancakes, and all you can eat bacon. Only 3 of the 5 families came together, family W forgot about a garage sale they were supposed to help with and family C's baby came down with a bad virus! :( Between us all though, there are 8 children and 2 in utero (the ones I know about, at any rate!) in only about 4 years! It's so special to have grown as parents with these friends, especially when we started out as newlyweds in our bible study.

Afterwards we made a quick stop at the grocery store for dinner supplies, came home to have lunch, and then my brother came to visit with us before heading to his regular tailgating group (who feeds him more generously than I can most times!!!). We all had a quick nap, and my eyes popped open when I heard the car doors closing in the driveway. B (literally) leaped out of bed to greet my Mom, Dad and Grandma who were visiting for dinner. We went to the park, had a lovely dinner with warm apple pie for dessert, had a jam session, and everyone headed home to get Grandma back to the nursing home before "curfew." ;) And after a very full day of spending precious time with loved ones, Bronius and I opened up a special Mexican hot cocoa we were saving and drank on the porch under the stars and the harvest moon. Dominic had a hard time getting to sleep after all the activity and fun, but I could not have prayed for a more wonderful day!

Today after Mass, we brought corn dogs to the park for a picnic (I know, CORN DOGS? They're so good with mustard though! And they make them with chicken franks so I figure that's okay!) and then we fed the ducks, and walked around going "trick or treating" for sticks, acorns and leaves. Dominic had a blast! But skipped his nap (sighhhh) which didn't deter me from napping, apparently I was out cold these last 2 hrs. So Bronius jogged him in the stroller to the store and they're on their way home for dinner...better get something on the stove! ;) Looking forward to a very busy, but very fun week ahead! Blessings to you and yours!!!!

My accomplishment in a half hour!

Woo hoo, go Mommy! I found this little cardboard house at a craft store this morning for 12 bucks! Dominic insisted that we assemble it together before lunch, so I worked quickly, while my helper was opening doors and windows and folding in walls, (which proved to be no easy task). The coolest part about this house is that it can easily be taken apart or folded up when you're done playing. I bought some water colors for 99 cents to use on the house that Daddy and Dominic will have fun with on the porch tonight! :) Gotta scram, Dominic actually thinks I didn't just hear him do a quick trace on the wall with chalk just now even though I expressly told him to draw only on his play house..........:)

What All Saints Day means to us

On November 1, the Church celebrates all the saints: canonized or beatified, and the multitude of those who are in heaven enjoying the beatific vision that are only known to God. During the early centuries the Saints venerated by the Church were all martyrs. Later on the Popes set November 1 as the day for commemorating all the Saints. We all have this "universal call to holiness." What must we to do in order to join the company of the saints in heaven? We "must follow in His footsteps and conform [ours]elves to His image seeking the will of the Father in all things. [We] must devote [our]selves with all [our] being to the glory of God and the service of [our] neighbor. In this way, the holiness of the People of God will grow into an abundant harvest of good, as is admirably shown by the life of so many saints in Church history" (Lumen Gentium, 40).

During the year the Church celebrates one by one the feasts of the saints. On November 1, she joins them all in one festival. In addition to those whose names she knows, she recalls in a magnificent vision all the others "of all nations and tribes standing before the throne and in sight of the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands, proclaiming Him who redeemed them in His Blood."

The feast of All Saints should inspire us with tremendous hope. Among the saints in heaven are some whom we have known. All lived on earth lives like our own. They were baptized, marked with the sign of faith, they were faithful to Christ's teaching and they have gone before us to the heavenly home whence they call on us to follow them. The Gospel of the Beatitudes, read today, while it shows their happiness, shows, too, the road that they followed; there is no other that will lead us whither they have gone.


www.catholicculture.org

Josie's baby shower

Wow, pictures galore! I've just been blogging my little heart out these last few days. :) I wanted to post this picture of this wonderful group of women who have been there for me all through out my journey of motherhood. We usually take pictures of our kids together, but at Josie's shower we were able to take a group shot, very exciting! ;) Love you girls. (And Tamara, you were missed!!!!!)

Fun at the Fall Festival and Pumpkin Patch

Getting lost in the hay maze - hey Daddy!



Resting on the pumpkins



Posing with the pumpkins




Lunch at our favorite restaurant! Creamy tomato bisque soup for everyone!!! YUM!



Snooping around the Curios Shop



A very friendly pumpkin




Sacking out on a comfy bed at the antique store -what a day!

To make, or not to make

The time has come for me to decide if I will be making Christmas cards again this year. It was much easier last year while Dominic was still taking two naps, I wasn't pregnant, and I wasn't working or in school - none of which are true for me this time around! :) I really, really want to DO them again though. There was such a learning curve for me last year, and I am so excited about all the nifty techniques and tools and styles and ideas that I can try this year. It's art therapy! Maybe I'll just try making one set, and we'll see where I'll go from there...

Rockin out on the recorder

Here's Dominic walking around the house playing the recorder while Mommy rests on the couch after a whole morning of cleaning (note all the piles of trash in the hallway!)

Elena's rocking horse

Dominic loves Elena's rocking horse! I'm glad I got to capture on film!

Dominic at 27 months

Fun with shaved ice!



Hanging out with Daddy at Wienerfest, fundraiser for the local animal shelter



Typical attire, these days (always the rain boots, no matter the season)



Being patient while we wait for Nannie to wake up from her nap ;)




Uncle Liudas visiting from Lithuania to help transport Mamaite's artwork to NYC for her art show




Painting at the Children's Museum










This little child of ours is a blast! We are having so much fun with him these days. He is never happier when we're all together going for walks, or at the park, or sitting down to dinner, or playing in the living room before bedtime...I think he's just all about family time. His personality just shines when he is content! We've been working in a more concentrated way with him on discipline issues, and I'm so happy to see how well he is responding. Sometimes he'll put up an obligatory little (or big) stink but then he will always comply. With the new baby on the way, I definitely feel more of a time crunch to work with him on things that require my full attention right now. However,I definitely prefer having fun with him and enjoying his amazing personality and all that interests him!

In more fun news, here are some of the things he's up to this month:

- He talks non-stop about the "scary man" at the grocery store (lovely grotesque halloween decor that gives even me nightmares). He has recently processed real/not real, and he's not a fan of mannequins either. He likes scare crows because they have smiley faces. But if something has a scary face, or no face, he really is afraid. We've taught him to close his eyes when he sees something scary, or to tell us when something is upsetting him.

- On that note, he's very sensitive these days. Yesterday we sat outside to eat lunch and the wind blew our stack of napkins across the yard. Dominic chased frantically after them, crying, so upset by the wind's rude behavior. We helped him gather them all up - it was really cute.
- He loves singing songs and humming. He's always humming something in the car, or in his crib when he falls asleep.

- Basketball is his sport of choice these days, which makes my brother Uncle Steve happy to no end. We bought him a basket ball hoop to put in the backyard and he throws everything in there from chalk pieces to toys to grass -and anything that resembles a ball in any way. It's a GREAT way to enjoy the cooler weather we're having.

- He has a growing interest in "pretend" play (pretending to be shopping, playing doctor etc) and his attention span has grown with his interactivity with books, puzzles and conversations.

- He is very observant at church, and while it's very difficult for him to be focused and we have to keep him engaged in the service by explaining things (or taking breaks to talk about the stain glass windows), we bring biblically based board books and activities for him to engage in during Mass so that he understands how we're supposed to be spending our time at church.

- We're working on talking about babies and how we play (or sometimes can't play) with babies. Dominic seems really interested to be a helper and a teacher. I'm really excited to see what the next few months hold for all of us!

I'm going to try to include a video of Dominic playing doctor with teddy bear, I'm sorry if it's long, I have no patience for editting! ;)

Butterly delicious!

I made a wonderful discovery at the grocery store today....Central Market now has a line of All Natural, No preservatives, frozen Indian foods!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Indian food has always been and will always be my comfort food, since it's usually what my family eats when we're really all together around a table, it's just always been a treat. This is ALMOST as good as my Mom's cooking, and now I can have it out of my own microwave in 3 minutes!!!! :) I love watching Dominic gobble it up too! Today I tried one of my favorite mild dishes, Butter Chicken (tandoori-style chicken in a creamy, buttery, tomato sauce with lovely undertones of garlic, ginger, paprika, tumeric, lemon oil and all kinds of goodies - which is why I rarely make Indian food, because it depletes my kitchen of every ingredient, which is why it's SO GOOD). I also bought Chicken Korma with Basmati rice and I'll try that tomorrow for lunch. I just wish the sodium content wasn't so high....oh well. It'll be a once in a while treat!

Mommy Q&A

Dominic is taking one of his hedging-on-three hour naps, and I *should* be studying for midterms, but this just piqued my interest. Feel free to copy it and post to your blog, I'll come visit!

*Photo credit: Linda de Linde, Megan's amazingly talented Mother!






1. How long have you been a mom? Since July 10, 2005

2. How many children call you Mommy? 1, and another will in May!

3. Girl? Boy? Both? One boy so far.

4. Did you know what you were having? Yes.

5. How old were you when you became a mom? 25.

6. How long were you in labor? 13 hrs of hospital labor.

7. What’s your favorite thing about being a mom? Getting to live my childhood all over again! Seeing the world as an exciting place of discovery every day.

8. What’s your least favorite thing? Cleaning! (it was that way before kids though!) Waking up early - never a strong point for me, but it's a labor of love!

9. Do you want more kids? Absolutely. We both come from families with four kids spaced closely, so we always thought four sounded good. We'll take what God gives us!


10. Do you plan on having more soon? May 2008!


11. Barfed on? Does this count spit up? Because it SMELLS like barf so it should count! True barf though, twice. In the same hour.

12. Is your child named after anyone? My Dad's Dad, Walter Dominic. Also, St. Dominic, a saint who is known in the church for his charismatic preaching as a priest that moved hearts to Christ around the world. We wouldn't mind if Dominic followed in his footsteps ;)

13. How did you come up with their name(s): See above.

14. When your child gets in trouble, who is the bad guy? Sadly, me. I never wanted to be the bad guy!

15. And who is the good guy? Mr. Good times, of course! (aka Daddy) No seriously, we work together.


16. What is the longest you have been away from your children? Probably about 7 hrs when I took a ridiculous mini-mester summer class this summer. DH's Mom was gracious enough to keep Dominic! We're working up our nerve to do an overnight trip for New Year's sans Dominic. It's tough for both of us. We just like him being around!


17. Bedtime routine? If I cooked dinner and I'm cleaning the kitchen, DH usually offers to do bathtime and teethbrushing. If I didn't make dinner, I jump right in with bathtime and let DH have some downtime. It's not really that formulaic. It's probably 50/50 every night. Then we read a few storybooks, DH takes him out back to say goodnight to the moon and stars, and I do the final tuck in with a prayer or quick song.


18. Are your toes painted? Yes, teal, since about April. I should find a Fall color I think.....maybe burnt orange..... :O


19. Last movie you saw in the theatre? "Becoming Jane." I was nervous with the intro, but fell head over heels for it by the end. Perfect movie to see with a sister or girlfriend, BTW!


20. One thing you will not give up just because you’re a mom? NAPS! Blogging! Wearing dresses and other highly impractical girlish attire.


21. One thing you did give up now that you’re a mom: Feeling sorry for myself. Hahaha. That's not completely true. Sleeping in on the mornings.


22. Best mom perk: Getting a chance to do the MOST important thing a human being could ever do for another human being. It just doesn't get any bigger than that.


23. Snack that you sneak bites of from your child: Blue corn chips with avocado! Tuna melts squares on sprouted bread. Caramel apples! (this was all yesterday - haha)


24. When the kids are napping, you are: NAPPING - without a doubt! First I do a quick mid-day pick up, then check on the status of my school assignments online to evaluate how much I have to do in the evening and get my stuff organized, and then I plunge in to a nap on the couch.


25. Where are your children now? Napping!


26. Favorite place to buy maternity clothes? Hmmm. Motherhood and Old Navy.


27. If I could do it over, I’d do this differently: Spend more time cuddling and rocking with the baby and not worry about time ticking by. Focusing on the gifts of my child and not the challenges. Sticking to my routine, but not being afraid to be flexible (I'm going to have to change with number 2, that's for sure!)

Tiny Dancer

We saw our little dancing bean today at my 10 week appointment today!!!! Just like Dominic, this one was bouncing about (and sporting Michael Jackson moves, as Bronius believes).

Admist the hustle and bustle of our daily lives, my heart skipped a beat to observe this new life forming quietly within, and such a feeling of peace came over me. What a tremendous miracle the gift of life is! We praise God for giving us this new life to love!

The sneaky chef

www.thesneakychef.com/















About a year ago, my sister Sarah told me about this cookbook called "The Sneaky Chef" which is all about making purees of fruits and vegetables and "sneaking" them in to your child's favorite foods. I got on the bandwagon this summer and made Dominic's chocolate birthday cupcakes with purple puree (blueberries and spinach) and nobody noticed! ;) Our struggle with veggies has actually been a non-issue really, ironically, it's fruit that Dominic does not prefer to munch on. However, with yogurt, applesauce and smoothies, it's much more appealing in different forms. Dominic seems to be fine with brocoli, carrots, peas, corn, potatoes, onions, squashes, and even spinach leaves. He won't consume them in mass quantities, but they're going down the hatch nevertheless!

Preparing meals has been my LEAST favorite task while being pregnant. I love to cook when I'm not pregnant, but it's almost completely joyless for me at the moment. Not to mention that veggies are completely unappealing to me. So I'm thinking of cracking out this book to make purple, orange, green and white purees to sneak this good stuff in my OWN food. Maybe I won't notice. ;)

I got re-inspired to do this by watching the first 10 mins of Oprah today. She was hosting Jessica Seinfield, who sneakily came out with her own version of this cookbook! Kind of shady if you ask me, but her recipe for spaghetti pie might win me over. I think her book cover is more fun too ;)







www.deceptivelydelicious.com/

Exploring the Natural History Museum

I always get so excited when Fall comes around, there are so many family and community activities which are offered. It was nice to have a normal Saturday today again, and to have something take our minds off of the sad week we've had. I got to bring breakfast to a good friend of mine who delivered her 2nd little boy this past week, and it was SO nice to visit with her and meet her little man! Then we headed out to the Natural History Museum to check out the exhibits, and enjoy "Boonville Days," a celebration of that era of history in our community. Here are some pictures of our adventures. Now we're off to Senele's house for dinner to greet Bronius' brother visiting from Lithuania. Gotta wrap up quick, I hear the car startin'! ;)









Bronius and Dominic next to a Python!



Beautiful mural of God's creation




Keri, I finally know what a chuckwagon is now!



What my tummy will look like in 6 more months ;)

DeLonge Family Slide show

On the journey home

It's unreal to me that the whole world is still moving all around me, because my whole family is standing still in silence as we hold on to the last moments of my Grandfather's life. Grandpa Harold started his journey home to heaven today at 2:20 pm, surrounded by his devoted daughter and his beloved wife. The rest of the family had all left his bedside at about 1 pm to head out to get lunch and naps, and I'm just so thankful that I was able to spend those last few moments helping my Mother to care for him. All of my siblings have been taking turns helping my parents care for Grandpa with the hospice equipment in their home over the last 2 weeks, and I will never forget these grace-filled moments, where I had the opportunity to minister in small ways to a man who was so close to God. I am so thankful for the chance to re-live all my memories with him in slow motion, slowly saying goodbye to this blessed soul that God shared with us. Most people do not get that chance. Thank you God for giving us this time with Grandpa. I know you are holding him in your arms and bringing him in to your kingdom rejoicing.

www.haroldedelonge.blogspot.com

Khania and Aaron

With misty eyes from my driveway I just waved off one of my oldest and best friends in the whole wide world. Khania and I met in elementary school in South Florida and after both of our families moved to different neighborhoods in our hometown, we ended up living in the same neighborhood in high school, which brought us even closer as friends (until I moved to Texas senior year, which of course devastated a great deal of the population of my high school, especially me). Khania is an architect and artist in NYC, and she came to visit us with her wonderful boyfriend Aaron who is also an architect and artist in NYC. He is visiting the area for a high school reunion, so it was a stroke of luck that we were able to see them this month!!! :) We had a wonderful time introducing them to Mexican food, kolaches, country drives and other Central Texas wonders. Here are some pictures of our time together. We will miss these lovely friends so incredibly much until we see them again!


Aaron & Khania








Khania & I





Khania, Me & Dominic




Khania & D on a train





Dominic painting




Aaron painting




Dr. Dominic!




Khania in the rocket