Cathedral ?

Just incase you happened to read this, then you may want to know that this is St. Vitus Cathedral in Prague (Praha). A beautiful city to visit indeed.

Lent

Does anyone know which Cathedral this is? I did a semester abroad in college and got to see this beautiful church. A bit gothic for my personal taste, but still.... pretty amazing!

Lent begins tomorrow. For me:

1) Daily Rosary

2) Go to Stations of the Cross AT THIS BEAUTIFUL CHURCH. (They have soup & stations! Yum!)

3) Visit the elderly in a local assisted living home with the kiddos. (This is something I have wanted to do for a long time - my kids are rarely around the elderly and the elderly rarely get to see kids - win-win!)

4) Fridays - no meat of course, but that is not much of a sacrafice for me, so I will at least do no sweets on Fridays and see how many days inbetween I can go!

Chocolate Chip Treasure Cookies

OK, I know lent is tomorrow, so not exactly prime time to post a sweet treat! But we made these for a friend today, knowing her she gave up sugar for lent, so she may have to freeze or eat up tonight!
Anyway, these are the best darn cookies on this side of the Mississippi - I am not kidding! This recipe is from Melanie's blog - love her recipes!

1 1/2 cups graham cracker crumbs (about 25-30 squares)
1/2 cup flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 14 oz. can sweetened condensed milk
1/2 cup butter, room temperature
1 1/3 cups coconut
2 cups (1 package) semisweet chocolate chips - (I used a tad bit less)
1 cup walnuts, chopped (optional)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a small bowl, mix graham cracker crumbs, flour and baking powder. In a large bowl, beat sweetened condensed milk and butter until smooth. Add graham cracker crumb mixture; mix well. Stir in coconut, chocolate chips and walnuts. Drop by rounded tablespoons onto ungreased cookie sheets. Bake 9-10 minutes or until lightly browned.

NOTE: I had to bake 1-2 minutes longer and I think it could have used a slight more amount of graham cracker crumbs.

I Heart Faces - Dance

I Heart Faces weekly contest

I Wanna Dance In this case - dance, spin, twirl...

I actually had posted this pic a few months ago here. She does not know this is "Dorothy's" dress from Oz! Just a great twirling dress!

Over and Over by Charlotte Zolotow

This is one of my favorite childrens books. Unfortunately, I am not a literature expert, but this book to me is simplistically marvelous! The originial copyright is 1957, (I happen to have an original copy!) and perhaps that is part of what makes this book so great - its simple nature from a different era. The words are so delicate, simple, & charming. The story is about a little girl who did not understand about time/seasons.
This book is a far cry from some of the Dora, Princess, Transformer, etc. lit that comes our way at times. For the record I rarely buy any "character" books, they are awful!

I just love the illustrations by Garth Williams. The watercolor paintings are so soft.

Truely Precious...

Don't you think?...

If you have a little girl, especially a girly girl, she will LOVE this book. My 5 yr. old son even likes to listen to it now and then. Of course it is available at Amazon here.

Melted Crayon Stained Glass Hearts

We made Valentine heart decor for our chandelier. The idea is for the light coming through them to look like stained glass. They are fairly simple to make.

Our chandelier is ready for Heart Day!


Purples turn quite dark - I liked the lighter shades.

All you need is Wax paper, crayon shavings from a little hand held pencil sharpener, and according to Martha Stewart, Kraft paper - whatever that is? I just used a paper grocery sack!

Simply place your crayon shavings inbetween the wax paper, fold in the edges about an inch as you are going to take a warm iron to melt the shavings. I placed my paper sack on my ironing board, then the wax paper/crayon shavings, then another paper sack and ironed. Cool a bit and cut. Easy Peasy, right?

Here is Martha Stewart's version: Crayon Hearts

A Kiss

Valentines Day is upon us, so naturally iheartfaces is having a kiss photo contest.
While I do not care to post images of myself, I adore what is happening here from last April. My little guy was giving me the BEST kisses ever! Can you see his OPEN mouth?

My Own Real Estate Agent

Kids play so many things. Mine often play restaurant, vacation, picnic, camping, recently church, but today was a first. Evan (5) & Lydia (3) played real estate agent. We happen to catch an episode of HGTV's House Hunters (I like that show) and apparently my children enjoyed it too as they watched the whole thing.

After the show I found Evan showing Lydia all the rooms of our house. You will be pleased as punch to know Lydia ended up buying the private home with the pool. Hmm, Evan must have been showing a different house then this one! Well, I guess the episode we watched was in St Thomas on a 3 million dollar budget...