Beautiful...this albino peacock kind of looks like the snow we're getting in Colorado!

Pretty much nothing can make for a better day than finding out that two wonderful friends are expecting beautiful babies! What are the chances I would find out from both of them on the same day? Yesterday was very exciting! I see lots of babysitting in my future.... : )

You'll just have to guess who the lucky parents are until the news has spread....my only hint is that both couples are in Colorado. : )

Lots of random stuff going on...went to the Air Force Academy b-ball game last night. It was a great game and we won 65-57. This morning we had the most random and hilarious staff meeting e-v-e-r. I finally caved and started taking cold medicine today (after 2 weeks). Tonight I have to do homework again (Biblical School is back in session). I must admit that even though they're saying it will just be cold, I'm praying for a snow day tomorrow so that I have a 5 day weekend! : ) Oh, and Lauren and Chris just changed their wedding date, so their rehearsal dinner is going to be on my birthday : ), next year! Now I won't forget the date...and I'll get to be home for my birthday and spend it having fun with people I love!

Speaking of birthday's...this site will tell you what the Number 1 hit was on the day of your birthday. I have never even heard of the song from mine, but everyone else's was cool! Hope yours is good! Enjoy!

http://www.thisdayinmusic.com/member/birthdayno1.php

Snow Pictures. Enough said. And from what I hear there may be more to add later on this week! (but those might include me as a snowbunny rather than a hibernating bear...)

My car was strategically parked out of the wind, but others were not so lucky.

Yup. He's cute. : )

Blizzard #1: Yeah...that's a LOT of snow.

This is Carmel's favorite spot because he can see everything that's going on in the neighborhood. Check out the snow piled up next to him!

Christmas Pictures. : )

Check out those reindeer ears...: )

O'Christmas tree, O'Christmas tree....I had to put at least one of 'em up!

Phipps Conservatory- I just like this one...

me, mom and Jen at the museum...in front of the almost 2,000 plexiglass "people" art display

Drawing Fun. Bored at work? Have kids who like to draw? Check out this site: http://www.jacksonpollock.org/.

Went to the Carnegie Museum today and saw the Tiffany art gallery and the local modern art. The Tiffany stuff was great! : ) Then we went to the Conservatory...lots of BEAUtiful Christmas trees. So nice....pictures to come...

Merry Christmas! (a few days late) I've been a little busy. It took me two days to get from Colorado Springs to D.C. (quite a story). Somehow, my travels ended up with an evening in the Genereaux household, where I enjoyed a night of watching their extended family play Crazy Whisk (it's definitely inspired me to have a card game party soon!) :) and ended Sunday evening with a four hour drive home from D.C. to Pittsburgh with my parents. Even though Christmas dinner ended up consisting of Perkins turkey for the three of us, I was SO GLAD to finally be home! It's been nice to hang out with the fam, do some reading, and hit those after-the-holidays sales. However, after a stop-in visit from the Swiffer tonight, dinner with Laur, and a day with the cousins in Oakland tomorrow and maybe one more stop at the grandparents I think I'll be about ready to head home to my sweet home of Colorado. :) :) :) (where we are apparently going to be blessed with more snow...) Maybe that 5K New Year's Eve race won't be happening...
Soon to come...postings of pictures from the school's Christmas performances. So cute...

I love pictures of these two together. It's holiness touching holiness here on earth. : ) As part of my weekend away, we watched the movie Mother Theresa, which I highly recommend. It's realistic, comical, and most of all, it will make you want to move to India and be a missionary at this exact moment. I give it much higher reviews than the Therese movie. Trust me on this one. : ) At least give it a try....

Decafmusic. I think that is probably the farthest thing from the appropriate name for these two (and I suppose that's the point). They are absolutely hilarious! Too bad I had to watch it alone. If you've ever done anything with youth ministry before, or have given a thought to lifting your hand off of your lap....enjoy! This definitely makes me wish I was at the Vegas conference...
P.S. my favorite part is from 1:55-2:11...which I think is repeated throughout...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BTfrqAqShfQ&eurl=

A new look. Well, it's almost the New Year and I really don't like the color pink (it comes and goes in stages). So, it was time to give the site a little bit of a boost of brightness. : )

Today I downloaded one of the best (and most addicting) computer games ever, Snood. Check it out at http://www.womgames.com/index.php. I can't believe some people have never heard of this! It definitely got me through those summer high school and college jobs....

Oh! Fun kid game I played with the 3's class today. Line up sets of chairs behind one another to look be the "bus", "train", etc. (man was it funny to watch them carry their chairs!). Have index cards with holiday stickers on them (2 cards with each sticker). You need an even number of players... Place a card next to each seat, say "go", and then have everyone find the person with the card that matches theirs and sit next to them. If you play with older ones, eliminate the last kids to sit down. With younger kids, everyone "wins". Repeat.

Heels were definitely invented by men. Yes, I'll give them the fact that they look cute and give you some height (much need in my case), but gosh darn it, who the heck would invent something so uncomfortable? After about 10 trips either up and down the stairs with bags of clothing for the Marian house and/or to the elevator with the same bags, my feet hurt. : ( And these are my comfy, low heels. Obviously not invented by someone who had to actually wear them.

An Advent pondering: "Look at the example of Mary. When the angel of the Lord comes to her, she doesn't say, 'Behold, I am sufficient to raise the Son of God. I have what it takes.' Rather, Mary said, 'Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be done to me according to your word (Lk 1:38). Mary does not say she is adequate to the task, but rather, she is available. That is what God asks of us."

-Kimberly Hahn

God has a sense of humor. So last night Catherine said to me "Maybe....you should read that book," (the one about choosing a Good Husband) which was followed by a lot of laughter. And today, I am searching the internet I find this book called "How to Avoid Marrying a Jerk (Jerkette)". Go check it out: www.nojerk.com. Are you kidding me? This must be a joke....or maybe the joke is on me and God is speaking loud and clear. Maybe I'll have to go back and look at those notes from last weekend....

Overview of the week... Wowzers. The past week flew by for sure. I have an exam creeping up on me in Catholic Biblical School tomorrow morning, I had a meeting for my 2nd grade teacher's on Monday night, Wednesday I chaperoned the youth ministry's volunteer project at Samaritan's Purse Operation Christmas, Thursday was the Diocesan St. Nick's luncheon (yay for only half a day of work and getting to eat lunch with my Haley and Drew!), Thursday night was XLT (yay for getting to see Ryan O'Neill and hear him give an amazing talk!), Friday I went to Mass with my favorite class of 3-year old's (I definitely needed my kid time), did some Christmas decorating, then in the evening Haley, Colleen and I had a yummy dinner, decorated Christmas cookies and watched the new Pride and Prejudice (since Haley and I hadn't watched it this month), and yesterday I tried to organize my life a little, read up about grad. schools, served at Mass, and then went to a dinner party at Breanne's with yummy food, a much needed conversation with Catherine (thanks!) and a hilarious game of Cranium (I snorted a lot because I was laughing so hard, my team lost, but we definitely won the prize of being the most comical---I'd be on the Dinuzzo team any day!). Phew! I am pretty sure that's a run-on sentence. And now you know why I don't have time to ski even though I live in Colorado! : ) I hate to break it to you, but this week is looking similar to last week, so I wouldn't count on me posting away!

Tomorrow is my last session of religious education for almost a month. I have pretty mixed feelings about this. While I love to the lull in the busyness of all the people that I get to serve because it gives me time to catch up on administrative tasks, I get pretty sick of sitting in an office by myself pretty quickly. : ( I'm one of those people that needs that balance between the two. Speaking of...it's 8:42am and people are going to start drifting this a' way..... gotta go!

It's Monday. Everyone have a great week! Last week was not-so-great for me, so I am determined that this one is going to be better. (I'm pretty much certain that I won't have time to think about it if it stinks anyway because I will have all of Tuesday and Friday night to think about it---otherwise, I'll see ya around town, literally!) I think it's about time that I get to reading that book on "Boundaries" that is sitting on my shelf...and that I need to figure out some better way of discerning the next step in my life. Haley and I went to a Discernment Day on Saturday and it was good, but didn't quite have the "ah-ha" effect that I wanted. I still feel torn in about 10 different directions....and she admitted in the car on the way home that she can see that. So...I think that brings me back to square 1. *sigh* You never know what tomorrow will bring! And the week could hold anything, because after all, it is Monday...

We spoke too soon. On Saturday, as we left IHOP, the remark was made "Isn't it supposed to be winter?". The sun was beating, you barely needed a sweater to stay warm, and we were headed to get Carmel and go to the park. And then came Wednesday morning...and after a snow day and quite a bit of wind and falling fluffy stuff, we are in a state of white bliss here in Colorado! Today the sun is shining and the sky is a crisp blue, so we'll see how much of our 6-8 inches are left by the end of the day. Stay warm! : )

The Bachelor: Rome. Well, folks, there must be something that we're all missing (or at least everyone I watched the show with). Prince Lorenzo chose Jen at the end of the season, much to our surprise. A pillow clencher for sure! I was definitely favoring Sadie, but I had an inkling that he would choose Jen anyway. Good luck to him dealing with her Papa! Quite a frustrating episode---if they showed that guy sobbing in his blue shirt one more time I think I was going to throw a pillow at the TV and turn off the show! (it was cute & maybe touching the first time, but every commercial break for 2 hours gets to be a little much)

No more TV until Thursday when we get to see what unfolds on Grey's after the intense confession of Dr.Burke and Christina.... My bet is that Derek Shepherd gets Chief of Surgery. Or will they throw us through a loop and give it to Addison Montgomery? Oh...now that would be intense.

My new favorie treat! The newest edition to my work stash (but not for long!)- I definitely suggest that you try them this holiday season. : ) They're very similar to Girl Scout Peppermint Patties, but better!

I'm back.

For reals this time. Thanks to a long weekend and Thanksgiving break I've finally had time to stick to that New Year's resolution of keeping in touch with everyone. (sorry... : ( ...I've not been so good at that) After many conversations about how my blog is missed by those in my family who are internet savvy individuals and the situational detachment from my friends, I've decided I need to get back on here.

Today wasn't too exciting. It's the first day back after Thanksgiving....how many days until Christmas break? : ) Speaking of Christmas, the presence of Christmas lights and music are sending me into a flurry of joy. No joke. I think my co-workers think something is wrong with me. I already got a comment on my funny smirk today, and we're still in November!

This isn't really my story, but it has to do with one of the kiddos at our school, so I'm stealing it from Colleen. It'll probably make "story of the week" for me. Second-grader A was reading the creation story from the Bible during religion class. (yeah, when it starts out that way you know it's gonna be good!) Second-grader B needs some explanation. He's a pretty imaginative little fellow who is sometimes out of place because he does quirky things. Well, this second-grader B decided that he was going to "act out" the creation story as it was being read. Imagine a classroom full of children listening attentively, while one child reads, and another (who is supposed to be attentively listening like everyone else) begins to wave his arms in the air as the sky is created, move his hands around his mouth as God speaks, and make wave motions with his arms as the water gushes upon the earth. *sigh* If only I had been there.... (but we decided it's better I wasn't because uncontrollable laughter would have occurred)

Here's another cheesy, yet sort of heart-warming kid story. (compliments of the Christ the King homily yesterday) A little boy is at the doctor and he is throwing an absolute fit about having his examination. He doesn't like all the instruments that the doctor has with him and he will not allow the doctor to even touch him. The doctor tells him "I see Elmo coming out of your ear!". At this point the boy lets the doctor to use his instrument to look into his ear. His next comment is "Oh my goodness, did you know that Oscar the Grouch is living in your nose?", so the little boy allows him to examine his nose. "Cookie Monster! Did you see Cookie Monster in your mouth?" and the doctor can then put that odd-looking popsicle stick in the young boy's mouth. The doctor then says to the boy, "You know what? I think that Barney has snuck into your heart!" To which the young child responds "No way! Jesus is in my heart. Barney is on my underwear!"