Pinewood Castle

Polly Put the Kettle On

It's time for tea!

If you are a Catholic Mommy Blogger in Minnesota or across the border within driving distance of the Twin Cities consider yourself invited to:

The 4th Annual Blogger's Tea

Saturday September 18th

Noon

The Mad Hatter Tea Room

Anoka, MN

I am not going to send individual email invitations as in years past but I do need to call the tea room with our approximate number a.s.a.p. so please leave a comment to R.S.V.P. Please spread the word - copy and paste this on your blog, email friends, call friends, whatever, just tell anyone who wants to come that they need to leave me a comment by September 1st to let me know they are coming. The size of the tea room is a bit - intimate.

One more thing - even though the Mad Hatter's website claims that they "are unable to accommodate infants and small children under the age of three" we have brought nursing babies in the past and this rule has been overlooked. 

Hope to see you there!

Chance Encounter

News flash: Just met a reader in Costco! This is Rachelle! She and her husband have seven beautiful children and her baby is exactly the same age as our Little Prince. Small world!

Blogger's Tea - It's a Small World After All!

 Hopefully you have already found everyone's lovely posts about our 3rd Annual Blogger's Tea? If not, just check out my shared items for links.

I really don't have much to add except to tell you that only half the guests on the guest list were able to attend. Can you believe we are really getting to be such a large group? We pondered why that might be . . . cabin fever? It is definitely therapeutic to maintain connection with others when the temps dip below zero!

Here are some individual shots of the ladies (please forgive me for not linking)

Josefa - we recently discovered we are practically neighbors - small world!

Jamie-who-drank-too-much-tea! Do we share a small world story, Jamie? Maybe not, but we do seem to have much in common. Seriously, though, she is sacrificing a lot to have this fifth baby. Send some prayers her way for these last few weeks!

Sarah who won Meredith's book - she lives near my husband's grandmother - small world!

Meredith who won Karen's book. We discovered we are practically neighbors too! And our girls attended the same birthday party last week - small world!

Kristina who went to school with my husband - small world!

And Margaret. Small world - we used to go to the same Bible study way back before we were too busy with homeschooling. We used to see each other at the Latin Mass back then too. I was hopelessly  distracted by her daughter Cate's baby face during Mass. And get this, we both used to wear blue corduroy knickers back when we were on staff at Interlochen. We were there the  same summer but did not know one another. We must have crossed paths, though, because I worked a lowly food service job to be there so I probably saw her at least three times a day as she came through the cafeteria line!

See, here I am with 80's bangs:

Margaret, if you have an old Interlochen photo I would love to see it. You don't have to blog it. But we've already seen your 80's look so you have nothing to lose, right?

You've seen the whole group, right? God bless the lady who took seven photos with seven different cameras!

One more thing look what they had for sale there - aprons!

I did not buy one, but I did purchase some loose tea and scone mix for tea time.

Until next year . . .

Go Visit Margaret Today

 . . . because she has published an absolutely snort-and-belly-laugh post covering the highlights of our 3rd Annual Blogger's Tea!

She must have knocked herself out to find a blogging time slot over the weekend.

I, on the other hand, wiled away the day at the St. Paul Irish Fair (after Mass of course), came home, showered, ate pizza and went to sleep early.You see, someone is adjusting to her new toddler bed this weekend and is preventing the rest of us from getting enough sleep.

You know what this means, don't you? Hearing little pitter-pats as late as 10pm, seeing a rascally smiling face and returning the little cherub back to her bed. Ditto at 5am! At least she is not climbing out of the crib anymore and risking potential injury.

So head over and see what we were up to Saturday! It was a wonderful diversion from spending time with my sleep-deprived toddler!

Fishing Firsts

Sunshine's wish came true! She redeemed her ice fishing certificate from A Catholic Harvest just in time before the lakes thaw. A big thanks to Paula's generous husband is in order - he was the one who took them out on the lake. The non-fishing children stayed in to play while we ladies sipped coffee and had a great visit!

Name That MN Blogger

I've just returned from the 2nd Annual Blogger's Tea at The Mad Hatter. Before I divulge the names of those in attendance, do play along and see if you can guess. I'll even make it multiple choice. The winner receives . . . a new car! Unless you will settle for just, let's say - a favorite photo from my childhood.

ELIGIBILITY: Only one requirement: you must not have been present to enter or win!!!

Here are your choices:
A) A Catholic Harvest
B) The Crazy Mama
C) The Knight's Wife
D) St. Brigid's Academy
E) Lord Make Me a Saint
F) Minnesota Mom
G) Aspiring Homemaker
H) To My Infinity - a new blog!

Were these two with our party?

Knight Comes to the Aid of Pinewood Castle

Remember when our neighbor's dead pine tree blew over onto our playset?

After months of haggling with our neighbor's insurance company our claim was finally settled and the replacement half shipped. Well, most of it. Not all of it. Cedarworks is working on the rest.

Chivalrous to the core, the Knight of the White Cross and his squires applied their brawn and brains to the dismantling of the old structure and the building of the new. For six hours they toiled for the reward of beer and burgers at the end of the afternoon (root beer for the under-aged).

 

The pages and princesses found their amusement in the remaining amenities of Pinewood Castle's backyard: the sandbox, wagon rides, the kiddie pool and the sunflower house. The royal ladies were treated to a fairy dancing show, using the sunflower house as their stage with the Knight's young page as Master of Ceremonies.

 

After the royal banquet celebrating the work well done, the royal familes parted in the evening twillight, returning to their respective castles for a well-earned night of rest!

S is for Splash!

It's "S" week here so what could be more perfect than meeting Paula at a Splash park?

Our afternoon in numbers:

ONE - boy who repeatedly was told to pull up his swim trunks

TWO - moms who were able to lie in the sun, sip soda and chit-chat like we were teenagers

THREE - girls who were taught how to make crowns and bracelets out of clover blossoms

FOUR - legs of the trip: to the splash park, back home, a silent ride back to the splash park to find the beach bag left behind on a bench by a nameless child and a back home again

and FIVE - wet and happy children!

Pinewood Castle Hosts a Visitor

Guess who came for a visit today? Vocation of Motherhood and family!

What a lovely time we had over lunch, outdoor play, a walk around the path and a trip to the library. We happened upon a friend of mine who was looking for books for her boys and boy did we ever have suggestions for this gal! She either walked away totally empowered or completely overwhelmed. Hopefully empowered, given that Mary was kind enough to draft up a list.

What a blessing and a comfort it was to talk over life, marriage, children and homeschooling with a like-minded friend. The joys, the struggles - we found so many in common. If only she lived in the same town so we could get together more often like we did today. Actually, she used to live here - but before I moved here!! Argh!

I do need her to come back soon with her boys for a group photo. I thought that blogging was helping me remember to take photos more often, and I do take more photos of things like flowers and notebook pages and food. It's those really important ones I forget like people who drive an hour to come for a visit!

Meeting IRL!

Can you tell this photo was taken by a short little person?

Jamie beat me to the posting punch today! Just when I was blabbing the other day about how difficult it can be to get together with other Catholic moms, this opportunity to meet Jamie, participate in the homeschool Mass and meet a group of other homeschooling mothers actually worked out! Thank you Our Lady of Fatima!

The only big bummer was missing out on seeing Paula, who had planned to come as well. She didn't make it because - can you guess? -  her daughter got sick last night! Sounds familiar . . .

It was cold and rainy too (will this Okie girl ever stop whining about the Minnesnowta weather?)

But that was nothing compared to being graciously welcomed to the year-end homeschool Mass and participating in a May crowning of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Jamie even made last minute arrangements for Dancer to be included in reading the petitions with the other recent first communicants and was thrilled to be able to wear the dress a second time and receive her 2nd Holy Communion! Another blessed surprise occurred at the end of Mass when the priest led a devotion to Our Lady of Perpetual Help - the very same patroness of the church my grandmother (who made the dress) attended. Here's a photo of the door that I took on our recent trip to OK:

Well, if you want to know, Jamie is as sweet and kind and with it as you might imagine from reading her blog. Her home and backyard are even more beautiful than her photos portray and her children are a testament to her loving and dedicated parenting. Of course we had plenty to talk about - even more than we thought. I can't wait to see her again and hope that the hour drive to for the homeschooling group will be do-able next year. There's much less traffic driving her way than into the Cities, so I will pray for the Lord to show me what to do - just like a good friend of mine recently advised (thank you Pat!).