We announced the 21 Winners of the Catholic Bloggers Birthday Giveaway!
We had a great response with nearly 3000 entries with many new likes and subscribers to the Catholic Bloggers Network and our Giveaway hosts!
We launched the Saints Celebrations Link-Up for 2014!
You can add your special Catholic posts about crafts, festivities and traditions to celebrate the SAINTS of each month!
You will find great ideas from other Catholic bloggers! January and February are now open!
We also organized our Celebrate the Seasons Link-Up for 2014!
You will find crafts, activities and traditions to celebrate the Seasons of the Liturgical Calendar!
Advent, Christmas and Ordinary Time are already open!
I have added some pages to my 2014 BLOG PLANNER!
I needed a place to record all my passwords (why do I have so many?)
and also to keep track of special Blogging Events and Giveaways I have signed up for.
I think as I work through 2014 with a Blog Planner…adding pages as I need them, I will have the perfect Blog Planner by 2015!
Want one? It’s FREE!  
While our Ford Windstar had its’ share of mechanical quirks and failures, it embarked on the junkyard rather unscathed with only a scrape or two.
Our Toyota Sienna has faced much more harrowing ordeals.
First, there was the scruuuunch to the trunk that it received only a few months after we got it, from the unforgiving arm of a gate, thrust into our reversing path, ~oh so quickly~ by a civil servant in our Nation’s capital…as we toured our friends through the sights of the Parliament Buildings.
Last winter, although we don’t know how or when it happened, the front bumper got mangled enough to lose one of those low corner lights.
As if these 2 bruises weren’t enough for the US Customs Officer to give me dirty looks crossing the border last November…
I crunched the back corner of the van, backing it around Bill’s old dating machine plastic Fiero, right into my Mom’s car as I hurried to register our youngest for swimming lessons. Entirely my fault…the dent to Mom’s car wasn’t too big, but the inverted basketball of a dent on the van left the side panel gaping open, having popped its’ little snaps.
It made me sad, every time I got into the van. Bill was starting to call the van our Big Potato.
Well…thanks to our awesome mechanic! Mario managed to magically revert the dent to it’s nice smooth finish for a mere $80, when estimates from a local body shop were sailing into the $1000’s. I think I love that guy.
There has been a little extra conversation about this book lately!
If you buy it through me here at the Arma Dei Shoppe, I’ll send you the FREE Progress Report I created with my daughter Kelly.
You can make copies and let each kid in your house log their Dragon Slayer skills!
Yes, it’s more expensive here at the Arma Dei Shoppe than on Amazon: Dragon Slayers: The Essential Training Guide for Young Dragon Fighters, but I’m sure you understand what it’s like for small Catholic Publishers and Bookstores these days.
…if you have already purchased the Dragon Slayers book somewhere else, but you’d like this nifty Dragon Slayers Progress Report, you can purchase the PDF here for $5.
Thanks for supporting Arma Dei: Equipping Catholic Families!
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I don’t get out much. I spend a lot of time at home. I frequent Walmart and Church, each at least once or twice a week and we have the very occasional social event…maybe once every month or two. For the relatively small number of people I bump into long enough to exchange a few words…
 I realize I receive an inordinate share of this question:
Are you done yet?
No, they are not referring to a meal I’m eating or if I’m just really, really tired, ready to give up. They are inquiring…for no apparent reason other than curiosity or chit chat if we plan to have more than our current 5 children. I don’t even think they are really concerned enough to donate to our kids’ education fund.
Maybe I am just really, really tired…but have YOU found any satisfying answers to this question?
Leave your answer in the comments…I’ll give the best answer a FREE Cathletics Craft Kit Printable!
(Click on Tshirt for original link)
I may just say that next time.
For more Quick Takes, visit Conversion Diary!
For fun I like, “Oh, we’re just getting started!” Seriously, I like “only God knows” because it is true. I feel it is more reflective of being open to God’s will, which may or may not include more children. But, oh how I hope it does include more!
So true… I normally ask them which child they thought I shouldn’t have had
For more answers that are very entertaining check out http://gardengoatquote.wordpress.com/2012/02/23/answers-rude-questions-large-families/
We just had our first, and everyone says nice things to us (of course, they include the true-but-ubiquitous line, “Your lives will never be the same!”), but I can’t help feeling… almost like an impostor. They THINK that we’re a nice normal couple, on our way to 1.9 children. Lord willing, we aren’t. 🙂
A simple “no” is usually my answer. Sometimes, I’ll say “God willing, no.”
The comment I get the most, by far is “You have your hands full.” I respond with “I’d rather have full hands than empty ones” and I’m usually met with either silence, or “you’re right.”
We get that all the time. I think, “No. Are you done being rude yet?” is a good comeback. 🙂
That is an awesome shirt! It wouldn’t make a bad bumper sticker either
I have 3, and I usually say I’d like more, but what I really want to say is: “I feel like I’m finally just getting the hang of this parenting thing, so it would be a shame to stop now!”
I used to get that question when all 6 of mine were little. I think people were just a little awed/terrified/amused at seeing me in the store with the baby in a sling, toddler in the cart seat and two kids hanging on to each side of the cart.
My answer to, “Are you done yet/ do you want more?” was an honest, “Yes, we’d love another baby, but you don’t get babies just by wishing.” Meaning, I don’t know if we’ll be able to have another. Which is true and it refocuses the discussion with the premise that each kid is not only valuable, but rare in the sense that you you may or may not be able to have even one. It also is a kind answer when the person asking sometimes isn’t able to have kids. And then we lost the 4 babies after our number 6, so it’s really true!
My answer to, “Are they all yours?” was a snarky, “Just the cute well behaved ones.” And once, when quite harried at the grocery store, I was asked if I was babysitting and I told them that I was NOT crazy enough to take 6 EXTRA kids to the grocery store. I loved the shirt!
Also, I also got reported (anonymously, of course) as having an unlicensed daycare! 😀
Ha ha ha! I love that shirt!
Ugh, sorry about your car troubles. I hate dents, scrapes, and terrible sounds when it comes to cars.
I do say that. All the time. :0) It’s my go to response.