Tell me a little about yourself, your family, your other hobbies… I’m hoping to coast on the fact that I’m Canadian…for the intrigue. I live near Toronto, Ontario and I’m a Mom to Emily, Kelly, Joseph, Bridget and Adam. I survived architecture school, retaining enough information to secure a couple building permits and build a few small projects including our own house addition that we have been blessed to fill with our 5 kids. My favorite part of the addition is the tall chateau-style roof, housing a finished loft where I stash craft supplies, Christmas presents (don’t tell the kids) and the Catholic products we have created as part of our home business, Arma Dei. When and why did you begin blogging and where would you like your blogging to go?Just when I finally learned how to create a regular website and get www.ArmaDei.com up and running, I discovered how user-friendly blogging can be and how relatively painless it can be to present the crafts and creative projects I’m working on. www.EquippingCatholicFamilies.com quickly became my preferred site to not only promote our Catholic family business, but to show off our crazy family projects and let others benefit from the time I have put in, the ideas I have come up with and the templates I have made. I also just realized…I think I’m blogging for the buttons! I love designing blog buttons, especially for link-ups, enticing people to share their creativity and promote each other’s blogs. I hope people will discover my blog buttons and use them on their own sites! Any link-backs to my site would be appreciated! A button, anyone?!?Most favorite buttons: Proud of these too: Can you tell us a few things that most folks don’t know about you? We removed a wood burning stove from our house and use the stone corner platform for a stage, regularly hosting open mike, mainly for our own family.I am the only member of my family who doesn’t leap for the spotlight to perform a song or imitation.I prefer banana boats to smores.My husband’s late Uncle Hugh created the Kool-Aid Walking Pitcher guy who crashed through walls with refreshment.We are the only people I know who shovel the snow in our backyard before our driveway, in the winter. We create an annual luge run in our backyard that winds around a backyard hockey rink and inevitably hosts a Superhero, Olympic or Knight birthday party for our son, Joe.I was given a hand-knit white angora hat by the closest living relative of Pope John Paul II. She knit the hat for me with the angora that was left after knitting socks for the Holy Father! Incidentally, JP2 received a copy of my book during a private visit with this cousin (who lived in our little town) during the 2002 World Youth Day in Toronto. His message to us was to continue our Catholic family apostolate. No pressure!I used to have a crush on Kiefer Sutherland (as Jack Bauer) but I kept that to myself… after I found out that my husband’s cousin was best friends with Kiefer’s sister, growing up in Toronto. It’s ok, my husband knows. Tell us a bit about Kelly’s comics!I am in awe of a girl named Kelly. She’s my 12 year old daughter and she has been drawing her signature comics for 2 years now! Just look at those expressions and poses…and the storylines! She began with a drawn scrapbook of her Grandma’s life with 9 siblings, capturing expressions and likenesses of family members that we still find inspiring. When her brother Adam was born, she began drawing comic strips of what our little baby did when we weren’t looking!…fixing the lawn mower, teaching crafts to seniors, parachuting…lots of adventures! She has drawn Adam in the Oval Office with Obama, guest appearing on the Ellen show and hanging out in NYC. She also illustrated a special Faith Journal that we published at Arma Dei called Hand in hand with Jesus and her “Up and Adam” comics are currently being published in Faith & Family Magazine. Check out the Kelly Comics facebook page or her “First Adam-ated Feature Film” I understand that you have a surprise photo to show Tom. Can you tell us about it?Although I hounded my brother to look for this photo from the 1980’s when he worked at a Toronto hotel, (I think during the shoot of Three Men and a Baby), I somehow {sheepishly} found this authentic photograph in a box of treasures I have kept since high school! I know, SHOCKING! =) Don’t worry…the text is just added to the jpeg…I haven’t scarred the original photo, or Tom’s mustache. I probably should return the original photo to my brother, but I don’t think he will mind me sending you a good scan…for you, your Green Room archives or Tom’s scrapbook. The blogging community is full of wonderful folks. Can you tell me what blogs inspire you? (They don’t have to be craft related).Blogs that inspire me have frequent, quality posts with excellent photography, intriguing crafts and DIY projects that make me think “why didn’t I think of that!?”, lots of subscribers, well-populated linkies and yes, cool blog buttons!Can you tell us a little about what you are promoting right now? I’m promoting our Catholic books, Cathletics (paper) Craft Kits, and Cathletics playing cards (which can be used as flashcards as well as regular cards). Our teaching tools and gifts are designed to help Catholics teach and celebrate the entire Catholic Liturgical Calendar along each child’s Journey of Faith, through fun activities that kids like to do anyway! EquippingCatholicFamilies.com offers free activities and crafts (including free printables) for family-building and often Faith-forming activities, routines, {awesome birthday party programs} and family traditions.

Five Links…of projects I’d like to be working on today.

1. I have the washers and I have the metal stamper.  I’d like to add the names of virtues on the washers and award them to my kids, my friends…and heck, the cashier or bus driver when they show signs of the virtues.