New Year's Eve

Well since today is New Years Eve, I am going to talk about the fabulous year I have spent with you! Well, a couple of my favorite times this year were.....


- Spirit Week at school
-Going to see the Fancy Nancy play with my sibs and cousins in Bellevue
-The Lenten Retreat
-Starting Volleyball ( which I am doing this [ or next ] year )
-Riding in a limo for Mary Catherine's Birthday!
-Going to Seaside, Oregon for spring break
-Playing Hooky with my cousin, Clare
-Going to Mary Catherine's first Communion
-Going to Wild Waves for Arianna's birthday
-End-Of-The-Year swim party!
-Swim Team, of course beating KENT - BEST DAY OF MY LIFE!!
-Going to Camp Hamilton..So much fun!
-Going to Volleyball Camp
-Doing a retreat at Palisades
-Starting Altar Serving!
-Starting bottle-capping
-Booing Houses
-Doing the School Newspaper
-Winning the Soccer Tournament!
-Of course getting my camera, blogging, and taking super cool picturesof flowers, kids, and a whole
bunch of other things. :)

I hope you had a great year! And I hope you have a great year this upcoming one....   :)

Mary Grace

Please Continue your prayers....

Please pray for The Strauss family, they have 7 kids, and 1 little boy due in February. :) Sadly, their daughter, Gloria, who was 11, passed away on September 21st in 2007 of Nereoblastoma. A few days ago, their 10 year old son Anthony was playing with a necktie and it got too tight on his neck, and as he tried to pull it off it got tighter, so he passed out. He was brought to Harbor View Hospital, and stayed unconcious until just after 3 pm,( December 29th )  during the Hour of Mercy, Anthony Strauss went home to God surrounded in prayer and song by his family and friends. Thanks for all your prayers...and please continue them for Anthony and the entire Strauss family...Funeral dates and locations for Anthony Strauss have been set: Wednesday, Jan. 4 at 7:00 pm - Rosary Prayer Vigil @ St. Philomena Catholic Church (Des Moines) Thursday, Jan. 5 at 10:30 am - Funeral Mass @ St. Vincent Catholic Church (Federal Way). 

 

Anthony is the little boy in the red shirt.  : )

WARNING : LONGEST POST OF MY ENTIRE LIFE, FILLED WITH PICTURES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Merry Christmas post. :)

Merry Merry Merry Christmas everyone!!!!!!! I hope you have had a wonderful day so far, feasting, spending time with family, loving-watching-the-surprised/happy-faces-of-the-people-who-you-gave-presents, and of course celebrating Jesus's birth! Oh yeah. And getting presents too....of course!! :) So Christmas has been a happy day for the Curran family. :) Annelise ( 2 ) and John Mark ( 6 ) got a bunk bed from IKEA from Santa, and a whole bunch of room decor stuff to redecorate and make themselves a brand new room in the playroom, ( which paint colors match perfectly, I might add ) and Anne Marie's big present was a singing machine thing, where it has a microphone, and you can play an i-pod in it, and you can sing along with it....which by the way, she is doing right now. :)John Luke woke up to a new bed, complete with a whole bunch of blankets, stuffed animals, and cute furniture and room stuff from IKEA to put in his room. :P  Mary Catherine and Arianna woke up to the same big Santa presents, mini DVD players, which they have been asking for FOREVER! My main gift from Santa Claus was three medium sized white picture frames for my room to frame my wonderful pictures that I have taken, and I think I am going to order like 10 pictures 8x11 prints, and switch them out every so often. :) My other big present was a boom box for my room, which isn't ginormous, and it has to speakers, whic I stacked on top of the main menu/settings/playing part of it. It has an alarm clock, a 5CD player, an i-pod player, the radio, and it is really clear and goes super loud, which I don't plan to use yet. :) We have already used it, we listened to Adventures in Odyssey, an audio tape that we all love, a new one actually that Arianna got for Christmas. I also got a whole bunch of really cute clothes, to adorable winter coats, boots, jewelery, books, and some other things, but you probably don't want to hear what I got! Tell me what you got! Email me at marygrace.curran@gmail.com ! We also sang Happy Birthday to Jesus ( and ate breakfast ) between opening Santa presents and Mom-and-Dad presents. As of right now, my siblings are all trying out their new toys, mostly games actually, ( which are really fun, we have been playing games all day! ) and organizing all of their presents in their rooms and stuff like that. We started working on John Mark and Annelise's room, which is really fun. :)  But the best part, was watching my parents open their presents! Me as well as my siblings were SUPER excited to watch my Mom and Dad open their presents, which was awesome! Last night, after the Christmas Eve mass, we all went over to my Aunt Martha and Uncle Greg's house, which was really fun. :) We all got one early present from " Santa  " and I got a necklace and earrings, but it was SO exciting to watch my Aunt Christine open her presents!!! She has special needs, and she carries around a mini doll of the American Girl Doll Addy, which she loves, and she has a mini wheelchair for her. The McKenna's, though, surprised hr and gave her the REAL American girl doll Addy and a REAL Amrican Gil doll wheelchair, along with the doll hospital kit, with crutches, a cast, and things like that, and it was SO awesome to watch the joy on Christine's face when she opened her presents! She was SO SO SO SO SO excited, I have NEVER seen her so excited! And she was excited for the rest of the time we spent at my cousins house, which was wonderful, and whenever we asked her about the doll or told her that the doll was awesome, she would get SUPER excited. Anyways, I hope you and your family had a WONDERFUL Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanza, or whatever you celebrate this time of year, and that you remember the real reason we celebrate this day, because it was the day Jesus was born!!!!!! Happy Birthday Jesus, and THANK YOU SO MUCH MOMA ND DAD FOR WORKING SO HARD WRAPPING, BUYING, AND SPENDING SO MUCH TIME ON OUR PRESENTS!!!Thank you thank you thank you!!!

Signing out,

Mary Grace.


Also, what would Christmas be without any pictures? Well, actually it might be a normal Christmas for some families, but is my family normal? No! And do I love taking pictures ?Yes! And is this the one year anniversary for me and my camera? YES! So I would think tha we had some pictures, right? YES!!!! Okay, here they are.......enjoy!   :P

 All of us kids waiting in anticipation on the stairs!

 Arianna with her new Diary of a WImpy Kid book.  :)

 Anne Marie looking really excited about new sewing threads!

 John Mark looking at his new toy from Mom and Dad

 The Christmas Tree!

Some presents.....

 John Luke tearing through a present

 Everyone opening gifts!

 My Dad on Christmas morning with Lucinna, happy about his new, ( and warm :)  Patriots blanket

 My dad, John Luke, and John Mark at the Christmas Eve mass.

 Annelise and Preston and the Christmas Eve mass

 Arianna and my older cousin ?Bethany

 Christine, Elyse, and Arianna

 The little cousins

 Me and Clare McKenna, my cousin.  :) ( p.s. g on HER blog, littlemisscupcakecutie.blogspot.com )

 Me, ( yeah I know I look creepishly weid haha ) Clare, and Anne Marie

 Annelise excited about getting a new doll! ( she named it Sally, and got new doll clothes for Christmas! )

 My Uncle Richard handing out a present.

 John Luke and his new backpack!

 Anne Marie and Robert, my little cousin.  :P

 Me holding a present..it wasn't actually the one that I got so..I am not really sure..haha

Christine and My Uncle Richard ; Christine is obviously excited about the stuffed animal do ghtat she got. :)

Gingerbread Houses . . . GIANT Gingerbread Houses

On Wednesday, My mom, me, and my younger siblings all rode The Lightrail train from Tukwila to Downtown Seattle. The kids were all really excited about riding The Lightrail train because it was their first time besides Anne Marie....mine too! So when we got to Downtown Seattle we were on our way to The Sheraton Hotel to see the GIANT gingerbread houses when John Luk says, " Mooom! I am freezing! " and my mom was like, " where is your coat? " He said " I left it in the car. " Oh, no. So we walk into the next store that we see, Old Navy or something like that, and bought him a coat. So after that little mishap, we continued walking to The Sheraton, where we waited in line for about a half an hour to see the Gingerbread houses in a competition that famous chefs created. Okay, not famous. But you know what I mean. So we looked at all of these cool houses, took a picture in front of a train track tree, grabbed a Candy Cane, and went over to The Pacific Place and got lunch, then went back to the train station and headed home. It was really fun, although the Lightrail was a little high at some parts that made me think we were going to topple off of it!

 All of us at the train station

 The boys on the Lightrail

 Sorry this is really blurry but look at the picture below...

 Wowie wow wow! 1,016 pieces of gum on the one above

 Look at the detail..I love gingerbread houses!

 A train with mint presents..look at all of the detail!

 I don't really know about this guy...

 my favorite picture that I took of an Australian GBH

 The floor made out of one of my favorite candies...Andes Mints! And boy, were there a lot of them!

 An Australian Christmas...with kangaroos!

 A Harry Potter GBH..I think

 Gingerbread house for Canada

 Grand Central Station GBH

 GCC with the little yellow guys from Despicable Me

 GCC Tree made out of gum sticks!

 Grand Central Station Gingerbread House
At the end in front of the Train Track Christmas Tree

Thank You!

I just wanted to ive a BIG thanks to all of my blog supporters and the people that read my blog! I am so happy to say I have gotten a high number of views this week, and boy would I love to have that keep getting higher. If you read my blog on Google Reader, well thanks for reading my blog anyways, but you are missing out on all the polls, music, and festivities of my blog! So please just for a Christmas present come and go on my blog for real, and vote on the polls because I would really like that. :) and if you have a blog that I don't know about, or would like to make a blog and wuld like advice, ( not that I am an expert, I am not. haha. ) please please PLEASE send me an email at marygrace.curran@gmail.com ! And you can also visit me at this address : haha just kidding! I would never actually give you my address, no offence to nice people, but there are robbers and stalker people out there! Okay sorry I am getting off topic, but isn't that really what blogging is about?! Showing your true self to everyone else that is boring. like me. well sometimes  I am boring, haha. ( did you like how I made some of the words highlighted and in different fonts?! )

Christmas!!!

Okay, I think I have mentioned this a couple of times so far, but Christmas is literally the day after tomorrow tomorrow! ( 3 days ) Today we went Christmas shopping for our siblings, and finished wrapping our Kris Kringle presents and presents for everyone else.  Tonight we are giving everyone our final Kris Kringle presents, and then tomorrow night we are giving everyone presents. Then on Christmas Eve, the 3 girls right under me are singing in the chirch choir, and we are bringing up the gifts at mass.  :) Then we are going over to my Aunt Martha's house for Chistmas Eve dinner, and are getting one present from " Santa " and me and my cousin Clare are doing a gift exchange .  =D on Christmas morning, we are making a birthday cake for -whole else? - Jesus! And are opening presents from mom and dad and Santa. Now, all this talk about presents, make sure to remember that Christmas is about when Jesus Christ came to the world to save us from our sins, and so that we can live with him forever in heaven! It is also the time for giving, not recving. Now, if you dont buy presets for your family, you are totally missing out. You may not think it, but giving presents is a lot more fun then recieving, no kidding! I love picking out presents, and wrapping them, and putting them under the tree, but most of all watching the recipent open them!!! buy presents, and you won't regret it! =P Well, I have to go now, so if I dont post before Christmas, have a Merry one! 

Okay, okay.

Alrighty, Grace. I think you convinced me. I couldn't stand no color, and where was that Christmas music? I do like thelayout of the other template, but my personality is shown better here, and the other one was a little bit confusing. :( . Anyways, I hope you enjoy my blog any way it is, and another thing : We went to downtown Seattle on the Lightrail train yesterday and looked at the gingerbread houses at the Shariton hotel! more about that later. Until then, i am going Christmas shopping! :P

New Design

I thought I would be brave and try the new google blog design, I hpe you like it. If you don't like my favorite kind of the blog view, look at the top of my blog. There is the section that says " magazine " , and you can test the other kinds. There is sidebar, a picture kind, and like 5 others.I know there is no music, decorations, polls, or stuff like that, but I like it  like this because it is a lot " cleaner ", and it is more simple and still absolutely amazing at the same time. So. If you want to send me feedback about them, go ahead and do that at marygrace.curran@gmail.com. Thanks! Mary Grace

Christms Trees around the world

Here is a cool fact about the twelve days of christmas!

From 1558 until 1829, Roman Catholics in England were not permitted to practice their faith openly. Someone during that era wrote this carol as a catechism song for young Catholics. It has two levels of meaning: the surface meaning plus a hidden meaning known only to members of their church. Each element in the carol has a code word for a religious reality which the children could remember.

-The partridge in a pear tree was Jesus Christ.

-Two turtle doves were the Old and New Testaments.

-Three French hens stood for faith, hope and love.-

-The four calling birds were the four gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke & John.

-The five golden rings recalled the Torah or Law, the first five books of the Old Testament.

-The six geese a-laying stood for the six days of creation.

-Seven swans a-swimming represented the sevenfold gifts of the Holy Spirit--Prophesy, Serving, Teaching, Exhortation, Contribution, Leadership, and Mercy.

-The eight maids a-milking were the eight beatitudes.

-Nine ladies dancing were the nine fruits of the Holy Spirit--Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Faithfulness, Gentleness, and Self Control.

-The ten lords a-leaping were the ten commandments.

-The eleven pipers piping stood for the eleven faithful disciples.

-The twelve drummers drumming symbolized the twelve points of belief in the Apostles' Creed.

Christmas is Coming Up

Christmas is coming up this week, on Sunday to be specific, so it technically counts as next week, but it is in a week.  :P I have been hanging around the house, and my mom left to IKEA today to get my brothers this really cool bunk bed, one that I wish I would have had when I was a kid. I re-decorated my bedroom, not like really really did, like as in " I got a new bed and new furniture and re-painted, etc. " , as in I switched comforters for my bed, took some of the Christmas decorations down, and re-did my entire bulletin board, which is really big, and took a long time, but was totally worht it! It is really really cute, with some adorable quircky pictures, sayings, clippings, photo's, and other do-dads. Email me telling me about what you are doing for the season, I would love to find out about you and your family, especially if you are a girl around my age, ( 12 ) , and if you have a blog, I would LOVE LOVE LOVE to see it!!!!

Thanks for reading,


Mary Grace Curran <3 <3 <3

Christmas Concert

Our school recently had it's annual Christmas concert, which I wasn't going to go to since I was sick, but I mustered up all of my energy and went, coughing-all-the-way. And now  caught it back .And I am sick over break. I knew I shouldn't have gone. But on the bright side, it was a GREAT concert, with lots of beautiful songs, and I know people say every year is " the best one yet " but I haven't really thought that the past years, but this really hit the spot. It was an amazing concert, and with all that practicing from the individual classes, to every other day in the afternoon for two hours, to the final dress rehearsal, to finally the final night, I'd say we St. Vincent students better be pretty proud of ourselves!

Christmas Faves... :)

My favorite Christmas.....

Movie ?  It's a Wonderful Life, or Elf.

Song?  White Christmas, Winter Wonderland, Baby it's cold outside, The Christmas Song. 

Treat or Dessert ?  Peppermint Bark

Book ? I have this really cool book I got from St. Nick in 2008 and it has all of these wonderful, true, Christmas stories

Poem ?  A visit from St. Nick. And another bonus about that, I memorized it! Yup, the WHOLE thing. :)

Present that I ever got ? Well, last year was my camera, ( of course ) the year before my i-pod, two years before that my Felicity American Girl Doll, year before that my " Princess " pillow in the shape of a crown ( Which I still have ) and castle sleeping bag with a secret compartment, and then one year in between all of those, we got these really awesome tents, which were like character themed, and I remember sleeping in the one that the girls got, with Mary Catherine and Anne Marie, and I had all of my Christmas presents in them .  : )

Drink ?  Peppermint mocha

Christmas? Well, every year I say " this is the BEST CHRISTMAS EVER! But I think my favorite Christmas was the year I got my Felicity doll and these really cute room decor organizing bins that I still use to this day! Thanks , Mom and Dad, and of course Santa! ( these all past gifts are my favorite Santa gifts. he usually gives us the biggest and best that we still have.  )


I hope y'all have a blessed Christmas if I don't see you or talk to you before then.   :)

St. Nicholas Day!

On December 5th, ( at night ) we put our shoes out so St. Nicholas could come and fill e'm up with oranges and little nuts or candies andother Christmas surprises! Sorry it is so late, I have been really sick with the flu. Elch. Anyways, we all woke up to a couple of cute Christmas ornaments, the girls all got an artsy-fartsy kind of angel ornament, and we also got another one that fits our personality. I got an ornament that is a bookstore. :) I know. It was like love at first sight. Haha. We all also got some money to spend on Chrismtas presents, some amazing Christmas books with wonderful pictures, songs, stories, and poems, and of course chocolate! Some sugar cereal, oranges, and other only-a-few-times-a-year-foods were waiting for us. Here are the pictures that I took before heading off to school........

 Annelise about to take a bote of chocalate..or something....

 My stash of goodies. :)

 The angel ornaments that we got

Arianna's goodies.   :)

SICK

The flu has hit the Curran house! No wait, it just hit me. Poo. Yes, I am sick at home, as I have been all week, and have caught the regular flu symptoms-runny nose, ear-ache, very bad sore throat, fever, and body-aches. I am feeling a little better than I did on Monday, and tomorrow is my schools Christmas concert, that we have been practicing for for about 2 months, it is like the biggest thing that we do all year, and all of the classes sing Christmas songs, and the select choir sings amazing Christmas songs, it lasts two hours, and it is really fun!  So I really hope that I can get better by tomorrow or tomorrow night!


Thanks for reading,

MG

Tree festival

My mom went to a tree festival and here are some of the trees that she saw!

 this is probably my favorite one....so colorful, cheery, and christmasy!

 my fave. one up close!