Spring 2022 Highlights

I realize I'm WAAAYYY behind again on my blog, but I will do my best to catch up quickly :)  I think only a couple of people even read my blog ("Hi Mom and Aunt Marge"), so hopefully I'm not disappointing too many people when I fall behind on blogging, but I'm determined to keep up with my blog for posterity's sake.  I'm trying to turn my blog each year into a book of our family highlights.  Don't ask me how many years behind I am on making books.  If it's meant to be, it will happen someday. :)

Spring is always a busy time of the year for us, which is why I rarely find the time to blog.  Spring for our family is filled with Easter joy, a couple of birthdays (Michael and Isaiah), as well as baseball for the youngest 2 boys (Nathanael and Isaiah), and track for our high school boy (Dominic).

First, the Easter joys...

At least one of my kids still likes to decorate eggs with me :)

Isaiah showing his beautiful drawing of Jesus on his egg.

The Easter baskets ready to be discovered on Easter morning.

Traditionally, we have the Cronk family over for Easter dinner and an egg hunt.  

I forgot to get pictures of the dinner or the egg hunt,

but here is Dominic teaching the Cronk girls how to play Catan :)

We also had some birthdays to celebrate this Spring.  Michael's birthday came first (April 3rd), but sadly he was in Aberdeen at college, so I don't have any pictures of his birthday celebration.  I think he went to Grandma and Grandpa's house and they gave him a birthday dinner.  I came a week or so later to be with Michael as he got his tonsils out over Spring Break.  No pictures of that either--ha ha!  It was a brutal recovery.  Apparently, the older a person is, the rougher a tonsillectomy is.  I stayed for a week to take care of Michael, but a couple of days after I left, Michael had a scary event that involved a sink full of blood and a trip to the ER for him and my terrified parents.  Everything turned out fine, but it was scary and I wish I could've been there to help.  But all's well that ends well, and hopefully he will have a lot less sore throats next year.  His first year of college was rough with lots of sore throats, a case of Covid, a dormroom full of scabies, and a few other bumps in the road.  Next year is bound to be better.  He's really looking forward to playing baseball for NSU as a sophomore since he had to red-shirt his freshman year due to a paperwork issue with the NCAA.

Isaiah also had a birthday in April (the 26th), and I captured some of the highlights with my camera :)  Isaiah chose to have his party at our local indoor trampoline park with some of his classmates.  It was WILD, but he was a happy birthday boy...as you can see:

"Happy Birthday, sweet freckled Zay-Zay!

You are such a JOY in our family and to all those you are around.

Shy and kind you are, with a heart overflowing with love for Jesus.

You make your momma's heart overflow with pure happiness.

I'm so glad God gave us YOU!

May you grow closer to Jesus every year 

and keep sharing your kindness with the world!

Love,

Mom

P.S.  I'll save the Spring sports photos for the next post :)

Fall Flew By...Here's a Flurry of Photos :)

Happy Fall Y'all!  (Oh wait...it's actually winter...oh wait, it's actually 2022!).  Oh well, I'm behind schedule again, but I'm still persevering at getting these photos on my blog for posterity sake---even if they are late!  :) 

Our Fall was full of blessings and it sure flew by!  We had the start of school.  Dominic started a new school at Jefferson High School in Boulder.  The little boys are at Montana City School for the 2nd year in a row and THEY LOVE IT!  It is such a great feeling in this momma's heart every morning when the kids are happy and excited to go to school.  I am not a big believer in public school (I know it my heart that Catholic School or homeschooling are usually better options), but so far it has been a good experience for us so far and I feel this is where are kids are supposed to be (for now anyway).  We will just keep taking one year at a time, continually asking the Holy Spirit to guide us.

Another big Fall highlight was Isaiah being trained as an altar server.  He is our youngest, and after having watched all 5 of my boys be trained to serve at the Lord's holy altar, I must say that it is one of the most precious memories in my heart that I will treasure of each of my holy sons who love the Lord.  Some of my sons like serving more than others...and I must say that I think Isaiah seems to like it most of all.  He is so proud to be serving, wants to serve every weekend, and totally takes the job seriously.  So precious!

Another big Autumn event was Dominic's first year in high school cross country.  He made the VARSITY team as a FRESHMAN!!!  At almost every meet he improved his personal best time, and he got his very best time at the State Championships with a great time of 18:30---that's basically a 6 minute mile averaged over 3.1 miles total!)  He had an awesome coach (such a positive, Christian guy who taught the kids to have fun while working hard at the same time), and he met some great friends (which was such a blessing since he didn't really know any kids at JHS as a new coming Freshman).  We are so proud of him and are so happy that he loves running so much!  I guess he is taking after my older brothers who are marathon runners :)

Here is Coach Karson with the team at the State tournament

And, of course, we had our big All Saints Day Party on Halloween.  This year we had 4 other families join us, so that made things extra fun!  It was very cold outside, but we were able to do a couple of games outdoors before coming inside for the rest of the festivities.  Dominic chose to be St. Hubert the hunter, Nathanael was St. Pope JPII, and Isaiah was St. Sebastian.  They made Saint-O-Lanterns based on the saints they chose to be, and I think they turned out quite well this year.  We really love this tradition, and so far they have never seemed disappointed about not participating in trick-or-treating.  The always get plenty of treats by the end of the evening, and good wholesome fun with other Catholic families.

Paul: St. Pier Giorgio Frassati

Maria:  St. Grimonia (Irish hermitess)

Dominic:  St. Hubert

Nathanael:  St. JPII

Isaiah: St. Sebastian

The Cronk family kids all dressed as saints

The kids playing a St. Patrick relay race game, 

trying to get all the snakes out of Ireland the fastest!

Our St. Sebastian Aim for Heaven Game

(kids are supposed to aim for the "heaven target" NOT for St. Sebastian :)

This is the "Ping Pong Purgatory Game" :)

The goal is to bounce a ping pong ball into the white "heaven" cup (filled with candy),

or at least the green "purgatory" cups (1 piece of candy), 

and to avoid the red "hell" cups (no candy).

Nathanael playing "Toss the Halo on the Saint"

The youngest Cronk kid hitting the pinata :)

CANDY TIME!!!

Happy Feast of All Hallow's Eve!

And last but not least, we celebrated Nathanael's 11th birthday this Fall.  He wanted to invite his best friends over to play football, spike ball, and some crazy indoor games.  They had a blast, and I am so happy God has blessed him with such great friends at his new school!

Happy Birthday Nate the Great!

This year you somehow became "Nate."

You will always be Nathanael to me though :)

Even though you changed your name,

I hope you never change being YOU...

You are holy, kind, crazy-smart, athletic, and competitive;

You are helpful at home, very loved, and a great friend!

You are double-sticks (11 years old!)

and I hope God blesses you DOUBLE this year!

I love you more than all the baseball cards you own,

plus more than all the cards you wish you had!

Love,

Mom