Wordless Wednesday: Mary’s Month

Okay, just a few words. On Instagram, I’ve been doing a picture each day, which I’ll continue through the year. This month, though, is Mary’s Month, and (with the exception of St. Joseph the Worker’s feast on May 1), I’m doing a picture of the Blessed Virgin Mary every day.  You can see them on Instagram’s app under my name @CatholicMomVA, or, if you don’t have a smart phone or iPad to view it, you can also go to INK361, a site that allows you to view Instagram photos online.

Here are a few of the pictures I’ve uploaded so far:

Mary Among the Lilacs

Madonna and Child

Our Lady Prays

Our Lady of Perpetual Help

Wordless Wednesday: 250,000 Plus & No One Reported It

Update: Welcome readers of the Anchoress’ blog! Feel free to poke around a bit. (And many thanks to Elizabeth for linking to me!)

My girls with their friend, who comes with us to the March.

The girls with some of the Dominican Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist. We met up with some of their postulants near the end of the March.

My husband, standing behind the girls, shows his pride in the Knights of Columbus.

This Sign was Carried by a College Student

True! Such a Clever Sign!

There were several of these in pink and blue, many with baby announcement balloons.

My daughter made this sign for 40 Days for Life and carried it proudly at the March.

These were fantastic! Carried by young and old!

I loved this sign, too! Notice the Canadian flag?

This group of college students all had home-made signs that were clever and well thought-out.

Same group as before, more of their thought-provoking signs.

My 12 year old loved this sign and asked me to get a picture of it for her.

For some good information on the March for Life, which is being ignored (again) by the mainstream media, despite there being well over 200,000 people there (again), head to these places:

• The Anchoress: Pro-Life Marchers Roundup (UPDATED)
• St. Blogustine: 2011 March for Life in Washington, DC (with lots of links)
• Jennifer at Conversion Diary: Observations from the Walk for Life (the West Coast Walk happened January 22, the anniversary of Roe v. Wade, and they had about 50,000 people who weren’t talked about, either)

Wordless Wednesday: Dandy-Lion King in My Garden

I went out and took some pictures of the blooming flowers in my garden yesterday. Pioneer Woman ran a photo contest with macros as the theme, so I decided to enter a couple of shots. Here’s one of my favorites, though it’s not the one I entered. Click on through to see the others, if that’s your kind of thing.

More here, on my Flickr account.

Wordless Wednesday: Surprise Pair

I was sick enough Sunday morning that I missed Mass. Palm. Sunday. Mass. Big Girl sought out an EMHC to bring Jesus to me (I cried when the family was leaving as I asked), but while I waited, in the just-after-the-rain I saw a beautiful cardinal in the tree.

No, not that kind of cardinal. The bird.

Anyway, I had gotten my camera out earlier when I was trying (unsuccessfully) to snap a shot of the red-breasted robins’ red breasts, and so I took a few pictures. Partway through, I realized that I’d also gotten his mate, who was barely visible in the branches below him. This was the first shot I snapped that, when I looked, I saw her.

Here are a few more shots of the cardinals, in case you like that sort of thing.

I played around a bit with color on this one, and cropped it in close.

I actually did NOT touch this one up at all. Straight off the SD card. Honest Injun!

I did finally manage to get a robin, red breast and all, so I cropped in and boosted the color a tiny bit. (I’m only working with iPhoto here – no Aperture or Photoshop Elements or Photoshop – so I’ve only got some basic customizing I can work with. One day, I’ll get some fancier stuff.) I love his beautiful red breast and the tiny, bright-yellow beak. Robins are some of my favorite birds because they are heralds of Spring.

I &hearts Mac

Dear iPhoto,

I cannot believe that I didn’t think to look under “File-Print” for options on printing. You have a beautiful interface for taking digital photos and printing them for framing (or for our nifty wall display)! I am now printing far more pictures than I actually need for the display, which will mean that some of my children’s artwork will need to move.

No worries, though; I think they’ll forgive me and we’ll move things around again later.

I love you, iPhoto! Keep being awesome!

Love,

Christine the Soccer Mom

Amazing Snow

I was fooling around late one night and found this post filled with pictures of extreme snow. Here are a couple of my favorites, but please click through – it’s a very long post with some really awesome pictures!

Snowed under in the most epic way (somewhere in Switzerland):

Snow being cleared from the Trans-Labrador Highway in northeastern Canada:

(Personal note from Soccer Mom: This puts those cars with a foot of snow on them in perspective. I still say, “CLEAN IT OFF!”, though.)

There are also pictures of some beautiful ice formations:

Bizarre and Terror-inducing Icicles

Here is an impressive ice formation – Hard Rime Ice, most often seen atop mountains in winter -

Go see more at Dark Roasted Blend.

We’ve Got Snow!

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Yeah, big deal. So does half the country. But…I’ve got beautiful pictures of the snow!

I decided there’s only so many “kids building a snow fort” pictures I can take, so I started playing around with the snow on the trees and the scenery. Hope you enjoy these photographs!

The view from our kitchen.

These are the neighbors’ willow trees. They are beautiful in snow and ice.

I love their twisty boughs.

Building a snow fort.

I was traipsing around the front yard when I noticed that the inner boughs of the evergreen tree had these snow patterns on them. Beautiful!

Al the Snowman™, who wields the Staff of Global Warming™.

Another view of the woods on the hill behind our home.

Picture Time!

Can I share some pictures from our trip to Tennessee?

That’s Little Girl on the swing. And that second picture? It adorns my desktop right now. I’m kinda proud of that one.

More posts later, perhaps for Wordless Wednesdays.

Extra Picture

I really like this statue outside of Mary, Queen of the Universe Shrine.  It’s from France, originally made in the 1700′s, and stands in the Rosary Garden.  Gazing at it while reciting the Hail, Holy Queen is quite the experience.

March for Life, Part 4: Clothing

There were some neat T-shirts, sweatshirts, and stickers adoringing people, too.