Happy 16th Birthday Catherine Therese!!

Posted by on
Although you'll never read this my sweet Catherine, I love you. 16 years ago you changed our life forever. All of your siblings have done this in their own way but you have done so in a very special way. You have made me more empathetic, compassionate, and much more prayerful. Your smile lights up the world around you and we are all blessed by it.  It's not easy living with a saint. You remind me of my weakness and limited time on this earth. You challenge me to go deeper within myself and find what the Lord is trying to teach me...usually patience. You are made in His image and likeness but He uses you so that I can see my own beauty, goodness, and shortcomings.  You struggle mightily against me with every bath, diaper change, and wardrobe change. I struggle mightily with Him against all the changes He wills in my life. You depend on me and your mom for even the simplest of things. You teach me to depend on Him for everything and not rely on my on strength. You teach me that I
0

Election Day

Posted by on
Our boys were very excited last night at dinner when Nicole and I were discussing "going to the polls." What they heard was that we were "going to the pool." I hated to break the news to them but it gave us an opportunity to talk about what mom and dad were going to do. I asked everyone who liked ice cream to raise their hand. We tallied up the votes and those who like ice cream beat those who didn't 4 to 1 (Samuel didn't count since he is only a few months).From there we explained in a way that they could understand what we were going to be doing.

Unfortunately, Nicole started campaining for ice cream while I stood strong against it. She brought up my voting record of 9 times out of 10 voting for popcorn over ice cream. The boys were not happy with this and stood by their mom. I then grabbed some crayons and drew my lovely bride 9 months pregnant sitting in the midst of a tub of Chocolate Chunk. Above her was a cow handing her money to eat the ice cream. She retaliated with by getting two tin cans and a piece of string and proceeded to "call" the boys to ask for their support in voting for ice cream. She also lied and said that my crayons were paid for by Orville Redenbacher. This went on till late in the evening. The boys said that they didn't much care for voting anymore but would rather go to the pool than to wherever we were going.

That night as I tucked the boys into bed Anthony looked me dead in the eye and asked, "do you really not like ice cream?" I told him that I liked ice cream now but at the time I didn't. He told me that "I should make up my mind and stick with it." As I was leaving Christopher reminded me of what I always tell him, "Dad, you should just tell the truth, it's easier to remember." I don't think we'll have any politicians in our family. At least hopefully not the kind we see today.

Comments

Post a Comment