Embroidery

I have never embroidered. I have quilted, crocheted, cross-stitched, and sewn on a machine, but I have never embroidered. Recently I came across an amazing website embroidery website, and it is just so wonderful that I had to share! It's called Mary Corbet's Needle n' Thread.

I have enjoyed this site for so many reasons. I was first attracted by all the resources for beginners: a video library of stitches, tutorials (I've found 2 tutorials so far, one on lettering and text, and one on shading), free patterns (some with stitching recommendations). As I looked further, I saw pictures of her work, which I believe are breath-taking! Look at this project that she completed for a priest's vestment - be sure to scroll down to see detailed pictures. (Did I mention that she's Catholic?)

She seems to post something new every day. Some days it is an update on a project that she's working on. On other days she posts about other embroidery that she admires. Today, Holy Saturday, she posted pictures of a vestment of St. John Vianney and discussed it's embroidery.

I've so much from this site so far. I've found it very inspirational! So, I just had to share, especially since I know there are several of you who enjoy sewing, too!!

Will I start embroidering now? Well, time is always my biggest obstacle :) However, obstacles exist to be overcome! Maria and I (maybe Cati) will be trying our hand at some simple embroidery. Perhaps you'll see some of our efforts on the blog in the future!

Wishing a blessed Easter to you all!!!!

She's standing!

Elena started crawling a couple of weeks ago, and during the past week she has really been working on pulling up. As you can see here, her hard work has paid off!

I still haven't taken a video of her crawling, but here she is standing...

Do all of your babies love tissue, too?

All of my babies have loved tissue and toilet paper. They love how easily it tears apart, and if given the opportunity, they will quickly make a HUGE mess with it!

Peek-a-boo!

Listen carefully and you will hear Chiara blowing bubbles in her cup of milk with a straw :)

Spring Break in CT

St. Vincent College had Spring Break last week, so we drove to CT to visit the Rosamonds! It's great to live so close to them now - it's ONLY a 6-hour drive!

The kids had lots of fun playing...

pushing Mary Grace in a box



both of the babies playing

The kids had lots of playing with the train set...

...and Keva planks. Here's a tower as tall as Maria!

Maria writing words for JP to read - one of his favorite pasttimes!

Drawing pictures...I think this may have been Matteo's first truely representative drawings that I could recognize. It's the Earth with trees on it.

After we put the littles ones to bed at night, we let the older kids stay up a little later. They enjoyed reading and playing Banangrams!

There's a very important rule at the Rosamond's house - CLOSE THE BATHROOM DOOR AT ALL TIMES!! Unfortunately, our family just couldn't remember this rule, so JP enjoyed several impromptu baths :) On the last day we were there, I think he had 4 or 5 trips to the bathtub!

The day before we drove up to CT, Elena and Chiara came down with colds. Elena needed breathing treatments again by the 2nd day and Chiara had a double ear infection by the end of the trip. Elena stayed her usual happy self, but Chiara was pretty miserable :(

So, after looking through all of our pictures from the trip, I realized that we didn't take a group picture of all of the kids! How did we forget that, Kel ??

Also not pictured is the adults having lots of fun chatting and playing late night card games :)

Thanks for everything, Kelly and Chad! We had a wonderful trip!!!

Inspired by the Winter Olympics

We've really been enjoying watching the Winter Olympics together in the evenings during the past 2 weeks. There's been a lot of talk around here about the "Snow games" as they've been dubbed :)



So, I dug up some pictures and videos of the kids enjoying time with winter sports. We may never be Olympians, but we sure have had fun!

Happy 5th Birthday, Matteo!

I can't believe he's already 5! (I probably begin all birthday posts with that sentence.)

We had a really fun day celebrating Matteo's birthday today!


There was cake, of course :)


And balloons - from Aunt Ginny :)

Cards and presents!

From Uncle Rob...

A telescope from Aunt Mary, Aunt Dot, and cousins Katie and Heather. It is my duty to watch the instructional video that came along with it after I finish this post :) We're all really looking forward to using this!!

A fun musical Star Wars card from Grandma and Pipa.

And, a Winter Olympic Wii game from Grandma and Pipa. This was thoroughly enjoyed this afternoon by all the kids....Don't tell anyone that I gave the kids the afternoon off from school to play Wii - terrible teacher, I know!

Elena enjoyed the wrapping paper.

Cars from Aunt Ginny. These are some of the coolest cars ever made. The pieces all come off and interchange with the other cars.

All of the kids enjoyed them!

Happy birthday, sweetest boy!! We love you!!!!

Please take a look at the post below to see pictures from Matteo's previous birthdays!