Broccoli, Catholic Schools Week, and Red Belts

One of my favorite go-to meals is to throw whole-wheat rotini, canned chicken, frozen broccoli, and alfredo sauce together with some garlic bread. The boys and I love it. It's growing on Sophie. She's a picky eater, in a funny way. She's not a fan of having her food all mixed up. She likes noodles, vegetables, and meat. It just all needs to be separate and plain. When she brought her plate into me the other evening, I asked her why she didn't eat the broccoli (she left all the stalks in her bowl). She told me, "I only like the broccoli that goes like this:
Picture the fingers wiggling. It was way cuter in person, but this picture is pretty darn adorable.

Last week we celebrated Catholic Schools Week. I am so proud that our children are fourth generation Catholic school students on both sides of our family. I've often been asked about my choice to teach and to send my children to a Catholic school. For me, it's not about academics (although they are superior at our school). Our faith is a large part of who we are as individuals and as a family, and I love that our children are surrounded by that faith all day long. They are taught by adults and friends with children who share our values. I enjoy teaching in a place where I can share my faith. It's a huge financial sacrifice for us, both in my salary and in tuition, but I would rather starve than send them anywhere else. I love Catholic Schools Week, and it always falls during my birthday which is awesome. We get a week celebrating everything I love about education followed by birthday cake!

One thing we talk about during CSW is vocations. I teach that a vocation is a calling from God. A calling to religious life is amazing, but not everyone is called that direction. On vocations day, the children got to dress up like a future vocation while researching, writing, and sharing information about it.

Aidan chose to be a chef. I'm not sure why, but it was a nice change from 'train engineer'.

Andrew, of course, was a fire fighter. His report was amazing. He's a slightly above average reader and an average writer, so I was blown away by what he came up with. I was so proud of him!
Sophie, meanwhile, is going to go to the convent at age six - according to her doting daddy.
We did celebrate my birthday in all the craziness of the past week. We ate dinner at a Hibachi grill (mmm...sushi) and my mom made a homemade rum cake. For my birthday, I got a keurig (awesome!) and some money that I used to order a new school bag from Thirty-One. Tony and I also had a date night with some friends to see a play at Actor's Theatre, before which Tony fixed me an awesome dinner from scratch.

Tonight, Andrew received his new belt from TKD. We are so incredibly proud of his hard work. There have been battles to get him to class - he often doesn't want to go. But the look on his face when he got his red belt was priceless. He has one more level to go before he can test to become a black belt candidate. Wow.


So, that's what we've been up to. How about you?