Mini house tour

I moved Davy into Addie's room. One of my favorite things on blogs is seeing pictures of people's houses so I'll share every minute detail of their room with you. You're welcome. ;) The last picture is of their little mini prayer corner in which the intention was to say good morning and good night to Jesus, but it's not going so well. One day.
I had planned on just moving Davy when he was sleeping through the night or one year old, but my husband finally convinced me. I thought of his 90-year-old grandpa who says he has trouble sleeping at night because he's alone. He used to sleep with his brother as a child/teen and then with his wife. So I thought I'd ask Addie and leave it up to her. "Adelaide, can Davy sleep in your room?" I got not only a yes, but the most enthusiastic yes, yes, yes I've ever seen. I would say it hasn't affected his sleep for better or for worse, but WHOA BUDDY did it affect Addie. She had a hard time going to sleep a few nights and naps. But now we're getting back to normal.

And because this is a house tour, here is another section of the house I'm very happy with. Addie's godmother and some friends gave her a big binder to put her drawings in, with markers, crayons and colored pencils to go along with it. It was such a thoughtful gift.

Three

Our baby girl is three and we had a fabulous party to celebrate it with. It was kind of like a college party with lots of people crammed into a little apartment. We were just missing a keg. ;)

I wish I had taken a picture of the table. There are just things you forget. I do have a picture of the simple decorations, which I think turned out great. See first picture of number three with balloons and hanging balloons. I also love the second picture of her dancing during musical numbers. We played pass the parcel, duck duck goose and musical numbers. Good party games.  

I made brie bites with filo dough, brie cheese, walnuts and honey, this easy feta dip, this chocolate dipping sauce for bananas and strawberries, this mud pie, and a blueberry cake and a carrot cake from my two favorite cookbooks.

Of course, it was soooo much easier with my mom being here, from the chopping of things to the clean up.

I love hosting parties (even though I get really stressed out before and yell at everyone...) and love being invited to parties. Hooray for summer almost being here and more parties!

Article

I have an article up on CatholicStand called "The Stories of a Snack, Capris, a Mint, and a House":

http://www.catholicstand.com/the-story-of-a-snack/

Stories of inspiring people.

Quiche recipe

I have made a quiche recipe (from my favorite cookbook) so many times now that I have adapted it to make it my own. I thought I'd share it with you, since it's easy and delicious and my two-year-old likes it. Anything that has spinach and my two-year-old likes must be repeated often.

First, poke holes in a quiche pastry and bake it in the oven (175ºC/350ºF) until it's slightly golden. This is the secret to preventing soggy crust.

Wilt a bag of spinach (pour boiling water over it, then strain it) and mix with four eggs, a carton of cream (200ml), a can of tuna, salt, pepper, oregano and parsley.

Spread a thin layer of pesto on the bottom of the quiche pastry. Pour in the spinach/egg mixture carefully, distributing spinach evenly and making sure it doesn't pour over. (If the quiche is too empty, you can mix in more milk or cream.)

Bake until golden on top, usualy 20-30 min. I always make two at a time.

Sacrament for the world

I am slightly obsessed with Bishop Robert Barron's podcast. I loved this one about how this dualism of body and soul/mind, where you can manipulate your body however you want, is very old. Older than Christianity. He mentions Plato (before Christianity), gnosticism (4th century heresy) and the nominalists in the 16th century. He explains philosophy in such a simple way. I loved this one in which he explains how God is not a being among beings, but the cause of being. And this one in which he suggests if you want to have something to say, read and pray.

I also loved this questions and answers episode and thought the way he described the sacrament of marriage was so simple and beautiful. I am so blessed to live this sacrament. It also reminded me of this article I saw on The Public Discourse which says your marriage is the greatest project of your life.

I wanted to write Bishop Robert Barron's explanation here:

"It's a peculiarity of Catholic sacramental theology that marriage is not so much a sacrament that we receive but rather a sacrament that these two people become. A sacrament is a sacred sign of God's presence. What the two young people do in front of the priest is they exchange their vows, they pledge their love to each oher and the priest witnesses that. And he witnesses the fact that they are becoming thereby a sacrament of God's love in the world. It was of course Paul that said that, marriage is a kind of 'mysterion' he said, it's a mystery. And that's rendered in Latin as 'sacramentum', a sacred sign of God's love in the world. And that's why people get married in the Church. Like I said it's not just because they fell in love. Any secular romantic could look at the two of them and say, 'oh those two kids are in love, isn't that great?' Well, it is great, but it's no reason to get married in the Church. You get married in the Church when you say we're willing to be a sacrament for the world."