Silent Night

Mary Clare danced to "Silent Night" at her 2nd dance recital this weekend. It was so sweet! My parents came up to watch, but Steven had to work :( And near the end of the dance I realized I hadn't pressed record on the camera, so I only recorded the last 10 seconds of her dance :( I was pretty upset. But I'm sure there will be many dance recitals to come!

We are so thankful to have found her sweet little teacher, a homeschooled high schooler who taught the little girls at her house free of charge. It has given me the motivation to try to plan to teach Mary Clare and her little friends when we move back home. I took many years of dance, so I know I could do it and it would be fun for me and for the girls! I'm still hoping to take an adult class somewhere though. I really miss dancing!

Home Sweet Home!

Steven accepted a job offer today back in our hometown! We're very excited; he'll actually start the week before Christmas so there's lots to do to get ready for a move and buy a house, not to mention Advent and Christmas activities. We're just so excited that he's graduating and we'll be entering the next stage in our family life! I'll try to blog when possible, but if you see me on here too much, tell me I better go pack!!!

Oh Christmas Tree, Oh Christmas Tree...

How lovely are your branches! After several days of lighting issues and traveling, the tree was finally completed yesterday! My only worry is that Ellie will pull it over on top of herself. Here she is, my fun Texas-style tree!

Joyous Advent!

Blessings to you and yours this Advent Season! From today's Gospel:
“Beware that your hearts do not become drowsy from...the anxieties of daily life, and that day catch you by surprise like a trap...Be vigilant at all times and pray that you have the strength to escape the tribulations that are imminent and to stand before the Son of Man.” Lk 21:34-36

Unfortunately, my heart has become drowsy from those anxieties, and the days have been surprising me like traps. I pray that I will have the strength to trust more and more each day, even in the trying times, so that I can stand before Christ one day and know that my salvation lies in him. May I not be trapped in the next trial, Lord, but rely in you alone.

We have had a very exciting week! One of the wonderful things that happened was that our triplet nephews were born on Friday! They were only 29 weeks gestation, so they have a long way to grow before coming home, but we are praying they do well and beat all the odds. They were all around 3 lbs, so that's a great start! Last night I attended a beautiful Advent Evening for women where a mom of 10 boys spoke, and Mary Clare had a Christmas dance recital today. We're having another nice weekend with family and making plans for the next step in our family life.

We've gotten some of the Christmas decorations down, including the tree. I love gazing at my tree each day! But so far we have yet to finish it with lights or ornaments so this is how it looks:

Recently I've felt unfinished, like my Christmas tree. My "lights" have not all been shining, in fact most of them have been broken. The past few weeks I've allowed different anxieties to trap me, and have failed to let Christ's light shine through me. I've failed to spend time speaking with him and failed to trust in his plan for our family.

But what's beautiful is that he will give me new strands of lights. He will decorate my tree with colorful ornaments, beautiful ribbon, and memories and stories that will brighten my spirit. He has graced our family with blessings that we couldn't acquire on our own. He is SUCH a faithful God. I pray that next time in these situations I will remember his faithfulness and love, rather than doubt his ability to fashion my life according to his plan. He is always faithful, so why do I always fail to trust???

One way I will remember his faithfulness through Advent is through our Jesse Tree. It's in the very beginning stages, but I hope it is a rich tradition for our family. The other night I painted the first three ornaments on simple thin wooden ovals with acryllic craft paint. I had so much fun with my midnight painting project! These represent the Creation story (Earth), the Fall of man (apple), and God's promise to Noah (rainbow). They still need holes and ribbon to hang on the tree, and actually I still need a tree. I think I'll get a tabletop Christmas tree for the Jesse Tree this year, if I can't find an appropriate branch.

I hope to make a few more this year, with stories that will be meaningful to our family, particularly to Mary Clare. It should be fun! I'm also hoping to finally create an Advent wreath as well, and include some Advent prayers as part of our family activities in the coming weeks.

Well, it is now really Advent (12:02 am), so I'd better go spend some time reflecting with the Lord, instead of with strangers in cyperspace...

Joyful Sister of Life!

My dear friend Sister Mary Clare (one of Mary Clare's namesakes!) visited this week. We got to see her give a beautiful testimony to a college group and then spent some time the next morning visiting at the student center with her and a group of friends and their kiddos! It was a memorable experience of LIFE with children everywhere and our joyful Sister of Life basking in it all. Then we walked to an on-campus daily mass and ate at the dining hall! That was humorous, eating with toddlers in a college cafeteria! Such a fun day!

My first college friend!
We were in "fish camp" together and I remember her with her bible,
spending quiet time in prayer each day on her top bunk in the cabin.
We became great friends and lived together in a Catholic community.
I hope our friendship will continue over the years and the states.
Please pray for her ministry to women in crisis pregnancies.

Friends and kids visiting with Sister:

And the girls' favorite part of the day...
eating at the on-campus dining hall and getting rainbow popsicles!
See Sister in the background...
I wonder what the students were thinking...
Four beautiful young nuns eating in a public university cafeteria!

"Too the Zoo Again! Just can't wait to go to the Zoo Again!"

We went back to the zoo last weekend with the family. It was a fun trip with beautiful weather, only problem was the horrible crowd; it took us about 20 minutes to find a parking space!

Cousins

The famous Super-Aunt Jill (who comments here sometimes and is probably my most faithful visitor!) with the kids at the aquarium. Imagine dozens of children yelling "It's NEMO!"

And one of the most favorite attractions: meerkats.
I don't think you can see them in the pictures; I'd never heard of them.
But they're like little prairie dogs and the kids love to watch them!
I love the way Mary Clare is gazing at her cousin E in this picture.
She adores her older cousin!

More of Thanksgiving week

Ellie loves grown up shoes these days. Too cute!

Another of sweet Ellie-Lu on her cousin's bouncy horse. She loved this!


This is why I don't have a Christmas card picture that I like yet! I have to bribe Mary Clare to get her to take a picture (hence the Lifesaver), normally she runs from cameras or makes funny faces. Then Ellie either runs away right when I have them posed, or she is fussy and wants to hold her blankey and suck her fingers. We'll see what comes of my Christmas card attempts!


For mom: I love this one! (these are my parents w/ my bro and his wife)

He's in the Navy Now!

My little brother left for Basic Training yesterday. He'll be gone for a few months and will miss Christmas with the family :( Please offer a little prayer for Brice and his wife Allison (they've only been married 6 months!), and for our family who will miss him so. But hopefully it will be a beautiful new adventure for their family! Here are Brice and Allison with the girls last week:

Some Thanksgiving pics

The cousins loved icing their sugar cookie turkeys!







And here's our game of "Cocktail Party". We each pick a person or thing (we had a Thanksgiving theme), and we go around guessing who everyone might be...no skill really...we just try to guess who might have chosen turkey or sweet potatoes or whatever. Well, we rigged it so Steven would win and get his Apple Gift Card graduation gift.

Here he is nailing one person after another, thinking he's winning the game:


"I am the champion!"


And finally, he gets the gift card (many thanks to the B family and V&E!) and realizes he has been duped! We got him good!


More pics to come...still getting the hang of this iMac thing!

Mac Daddy!

He bought his iMac. We have officially turned into a Mac computer-using family. So I'll have to relearn the photo stuff and will try to post some of our Thanksgiving pics this weekend (wow, it even does spell check for me here!). We're about to go to daily mass where we'll have the blessing of seeing a friend of mine who is now a religious Sister of Life named Sister Mary Clare! Five of the Sisters are visiting here this week and I'm THRILLED to get to see my old friend :) Hope everyone is recovering from Thanksgiving. I'm still hyped up but that's because I'm hoping to finish all my Christmas shopping and Advent preparations this week. Lots to do!

Thanksgiving!

"I am the Good Shepherd...I know mine and mine know me."

I am most thankful for my Good Shepherd who loves me so.
I am thankful for my family, especially my husband and daughters who bring me joy every day.
I am thankful for my Church, which offers me a tangible means of experiencing Christ through the sacraments.
I am thankful for my friends, who teach me how to love and show me how to be a better mother.
I am thankful for my home, my clothing, and my food. God has been gracious indeed!

Steven being the youngest in the family, we're not in charge of much. Rolls and ice! But I really wanted to make something homemade, so I made knot rolls (using a fabulous Challah bread recipe) and sugar cookie turkeys which I'm hoping to let the kids decorate. Now in Steven's family there are 7 nieces and nephews ages 1-5 with triplets on the way. The holidays are going to get more and more fun! We'll probably have a kickball game, and spend time visiting my in-laws' newly remodeled home and my sister-in-law's possible new home! It's going to be so much fun, now with his parents and 3 siblings all living within blocks of each other.

I've got to pack up everything and get us all dressed to go to Thanksgiving Mass, then we'll be off..."to grandmother's house we go!"

My meager Thanksgiving contribution:

Another Reminder:

Do not bring children shopping. Especially to stores like TJ Maxx that have carts that 3 year-olds like to push around with their baby doll in it, running into other people and filling the cart with things we aren't buying. Do not go to the wall of toys for children to admire. And don't attempt to go in the dressing room with a toddler and preschooler, because they WILL run wild, laughing and slamming doors, and finding someone else's lipgloss to eat. When your daughter wants to carry a toy through the store in "her" shopping cart, DON'T let her. Because when you get to the check-out and ask her to give the toy back to the checker, she WILL throw a screaming fit and run around the store hiding from you.

Thankfully I'm not too self-conscious or I would've been REALLY embarrassed, dragging my crying children out of the store. Learned my lesson. Children will only go grocery shopping and not to stores with toys. If there are toys in the store, we will NOT go to that area. We WILL discuss ahead of time what we will be purchasing and that will NOT include a $15 toy dog cage. We will also NOT go shopping when it's lunchtime and children are whiney. How can shopping still be a stress relief for me? I have no idea, because most people would steer far clear of situations like that after a day like today. I'll probably try again on Friday :-/

Reminder to self:

When you let the kids go wild with paints at the kitchen table, and they're covered in paint from head to toe, and you have a loving husband willing to give them a bath....

PLEASE remember to prepare the spaghetti dinner before you send them to the bath. Or else you'll just end up at the bath again (and this time with a screaming baby who for some reason was terrified of her parents' bathtub)!

Christmas Planning

So I'm trying to decide if it's worth it to fix up this dollhouse for Mary Clare. It's my old one and is big and beautiful, but the more I look at it, the more I realize it needs a lot of work. I'm wondering if I'd be better off just buying this and saving the "real" dollhouse to fix up when the girls are older. (By the way, I just read that Wal-Mart will no longer support controversial organizations and the AFA is recanting it's suggestion to not shop there the days after Thanksgiving!) I've already bought some Fisher Price Loving Family dolls and furniture because the wooden stuff just breaks too easily with the little ones. Maybe I'd just be better off buying a new house too (Steven, you're not reading this are you?)...





Ellie will probably get this for Christmas. I was so surprised to find a tricycle where her feet would reach the pedals! She LOVES bikes, almost as much as balls, so she will be thrilled!

Ooooh, but looking further I see something she would really love! It's so much fun being a mommy and thinking of just what your kids will like for Christmas.

But more importantly, I hope to get started on some Advent planning so we can really focus on the season and preparing for Christ's birth. We'll also be celebrating St. Nicholas Day on December 6th, which is coming up soon! We're still figuring out exactly what our family traditions will be, especially as regards St. Nick/Santa. Mary Clare is old enough now to know what's going on and we can't just avoid Santa this year. Although I did avoid the Santa Wonderland display when mall-walking today; I just wasn't ready for the questions at what that huge castle and throne were. Maybe I'll just tell her the throne is for Jesus, and make sure to ONLY go to the mall when he's not there! Don't think that would work for long though. She's too observant and inquisitive.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

My Favorite Dress

I absolutely love this dress, a hand-me-down from my niece. Smocking really makes my heart melt! Isn't she a doll? This is after church on Sunday.

Grandparents are Great!

The girls love their NeNe and PaPa and were also very excited to spend the weekend visiting with my two aunts! We had a nice relaxing visit and enjoyed the going away party for my brother who enters the Navy next week. We're looking forward to more time with family this weekend!

Thankful Thursday (a day late)

Our Thursday was truly a day to be thankful for friendships, for the creatures God has given us, and for the gift of holy priests! Here are some pictures of our trip to the zoo with some wonderful friends.


The girls and the giraffes in the background:



Elephants! The new baby had just been named "Mac" the day before! He was the largest elephant born in captivity, hence the name. Everyone was SO excited to see the elephants:



There is a nice Children's Zoo area with a petting zoo. My girls are pretty scared of animals in general, so it was shocking when Mary Clare asked "Mommy, can you help me go in the petting zoo?" They each gave this little goat "Flora" a quick pet, and that was it! But I was proud of them:



The rhino was SO big and SO close!



Flamingos are fun!



The orangutans were really fascinating to watch!



We're missing 3 of Lillian's kids here, but here's most of the group of kids from yesterday. Such a fun outing!




We got home from the zoo just in time to tidy the house and prepare fajitas for Father Brian. We'd scheduled him for dinner about 2 months ago and the day finally arrived! He is an AMAZING young priest and one of the best preachers we've ever heard! He had some beautiful stories to share and it was great to learn more about him.

The girls warmed up to him very quickly and by the end they were reading stories (here they're reading "Angel in the Waters") and climbing all over him! We're so thankful for the gift of holy priests.

Zoo Tomorrow

Have you heard this kids' song?
"Mommy's taking us to the zoo tomorrow, zoo tomorrow, zoo tomorrow.
Mommy's taking us to the zoo tomorrow, we can stay all day.
Going to the zoo, zoo, zoo. How about you, you, you?
You can come too, too, too. We're going to the zoo, zoo, zoo."

I think I'm more excited than they are! Should be a wonderful day to visit with some friends and share God's beautiful gift of wildlife with the girls. Mary Clare hasn't been since she was about 1 1/2 and Ellie has never been. I'll post pictures when we get back.

Please send up more prayers for Steven as he continues his interviews and his last month of classes! Yay! I can't believe it's almost Thanksgiving. Where did 2006 go? I'm looking forward to the new blessings of 2007!

Contemplative and Conquering

I heard a talk last night on these 2 aspects of the Christian life. I thought I would share some thoughts that jumped out from my notes and got me thinking about my prayer life.

CONTEMPLATIVE AND CONQUERING:
-Christ was a man of prayer and action.
-We must learn about prayer at the Eucharist and spend substantial amounts of time there, asking for great love from the Lord.
-Our dreams and hopes should be born at the Eucharist, problems should be brought to him there and thanksgivings given there.
-Contemplative and conquering are what we should become: contemplating Christ, and conquering ourselves as he teaches us how to love.
-We should let him conquer others through our own self-giving.
-We should continually be receiving and giving, a cicular process of filling ourselves with Christ and giving him to others.
-Our Lady was a true example of being contemplative and conquering. At the wedding feast she told us to turn to Christ and do whatever he tells us.
-We must persevere to find perfection in him. Pope Benedict XVI said, "We were not created for an easy life, but for great things, for goodness."
-When asked how he can sleep at night with all the problems and crises in the Church, our Holy Father responded, "I sleep very well, thank you." That should be an example to us that we should sleep well and rest in the promise that Christ has already defeated death. If we can just be open to the graces he desires for us, we can do great things through him, and allow his Kingdom to reign in our hearts and on the earth.

Your Kingdom Come!

Children's museum

Yesterday afternoon we visited the area Children's museum for the first time with some friends. The girls enjoyed coloring turkeys:



Mary Clare, the princess surgeon. Gotta love the life-sized Operation game!



And of course the day wouldn't be complete without Ellie getting attached to a ball. She's saying "BOOOOL" here:



A weekend without Daddy always seems to be an adventure! Ellie had a big fall on her head in a rocket ship in the museum and wouldn't play for about 15 minutes. Then after the museum, we went out to a Mexican restaurant with our friends. Ellie started coughing and choking on a tortilla chip. Then she was gagging and not breathing so I did the Heimlich on her (Yet after just googling Heimlich to make sure I was spelling it right, I realized I did it wrong. I thought I was supposed to hit her back and put my fist under her ribcage. Guess I need a refresher course!). Then last night Mary Clare awoke once again with coughing fits throughout the night. After a trip to the steamy bathroom at 2am, she finally slept through the night. I think the girls are really allergy-prone. I'm hoping it's mostly the issues of moving to this area, and maybe with our hopeful move things will be better in 2007. If not, I'm starting to think MC might have asthma :-/

Awaiting Daddy's arrival and our late evening Mass. Not sure how this is going to go with the time change. Ellie's almost asleep on the floor already.

He's home! Yay!