Wishful Thinking

Tonight I am wishing that:

• my kids would stop their litany of coughing
• my husband would be home instead of traveling for work all week
• I would've been more patient and joyful with my kids and spent those extra few minutes reading to them, cuddling with them, talking with them about their day...instead of herding them off to bed as quickly as possible

Tomorrow (with the help of God's grace) I will be:

• thankful for my children's steadily improving health and this opportunity to serve them and give them extra TLC while they are sick
• thankful that my husband has a job---a great job---and that he provides so well for his family and is home more often than many other husbands are
• the patient and joy-filled mother that I know I can be if I ask the Lord to help me...I will spend those extra few minutes reading and cuddling and listening instead of harping and sighing and waiting for it to be bedtime
  

My Valentine

Well, this weekend was not quite as twitterpated as I had hoped it would be, but I have to say that my sweet Valentine was just what I needed him to be. All three of our boys had nasty colds all weekend, and I spent the evening of Valentine's Day at the Urgent Care Clinic with our youngest. Dominic's cold turned into croup, and he was having a hard time breathing and swallowing whenever he would have a coughing spell, which was very scary for him and his mommy! None of our kids have ever had croup, so this was a new experience for me. After 2 1/2 hours at Urgent Care, the doctor decided to give Dominic a steroid shot to reduce the swelling of his throat. Dominic was not impressed, but the shot quickly worked its magic (thank-goodness)! So, while I was in a tizzy all weekend, hovering over sick kids, dispensing cup after cup of cough meds and Tylenol, and basically being a grumpy-worry-wart, my sweet husband held us all together. He did the dishes, the laundry, and even the cooking---all without complaining and with a calmness that I truly needed. How frequently I fault him for not showing enough emotion! Apparently God knew that I had enough emotion for an entire household, which is why He gave me my perfectly-even-keeled husband and a houseful of boys! :) Anyway, I find myself more thankful for my Valentine this year than ever before---not for any amazing gift he surprised me with, but for the amazing gift of who he is, which keeps surprising me more year after year.

Bragging About Birds

I have spent the last month working with the 2nd grade students on their auction project for the school. Their teacher is a bird-lover, so she and I came up with the idea of having each child select a bird to paint onto a ceramic plate. Sounds simple...but it was a lot of work. I'll spare you the stressful details regarding all the hiccups we encountered during the project and simply let you enjoy the beautiful results. I am so proud of the students and they are so proud of themselves! The only sad part is that the kids don't get to keep their plates after all that hard work. The whole set of plates is going to be sold to the highest bidder at the school auction. Of course I hope the plates earn a handsome price for the school, but my bigger hope is that whichever parent wins the bid will keep their child's plate and kindly give the other plates to their rightful owners. I am so happy this project is complete and that all the plates turned out even better than I expected. "Thank you, Jesus!"

Here is Joseph's beautiful ring-necked pheasant.
He picked this bird in honor of his South Dakota roots :)

Here are the proud 2nd graders showing off their masterpieces!

Superbowl Sacrifice

While most husbands in America were watching the 44th Super Bowl last night, my sweet husband was watching the movie "Cars" for the 44th time. Bless his heart. I think he truly would have enjoyed watching the game, eating tasty appetizers, and drinking a beer, but we don't get any channels on our TV. Poor us. In all honesty, we only miss watching TV a few times a year, and the rest of the year we are very happy it is not distracting us with its worldly messages or stealing away the little family time we seem to have these days. I truly feel blessed that I have a husband willing to "take one for the team" and sacrifice that innate masculine desire to watch football and to settle for spending quality time with his family instead. I think he looks rather happy and content in these pictures, don't you? If he was bitter about not watching the game, he sure hid it well :) Thanks, honey!

"Thanks for watching Cars with me, Daddy!

I love being with you."

When Winter is Bringin' Ya Down...

...PUT UP A TENT AND BRING SUMMER INDOORS!


The boys were becoming a bit stir-crazy and whiny, so in an act of desperation I suggested putting up our family tent in the living room. (Winter in the West gets to be a bit long, so folks have to get creative.) The suggestion was met with wild applause and willing hands to help. Within minutes, the tent was up, and then the next 6 hours were spent filling it with pillows, blankets, stuffed animals, books, flashlights, and even jets and aircraft carriers! Hours and hours of entertainment (not to mention free-time for Mommy)! It was so fun for me to hear all three of the boys giggle, read to each other, help one another arrange their sleeping quarters, and eventually snore side my side. It warms my heart to watch all three of them love each other so much and play so nicely together (most of the time)... :} I pray that they always remain the best of friends.

History and Mystery of Candlemas

It seems like every year I grow in the understanding of my faith, in large part because of the beautiful feast days that the Church celebrates. I think the Church created feast days and holidays for that very reason---to help us remember the history and embrace the mystery of our faith so that we can better live it and share it! The following excerpt gives some of the history of today's feast day: The Presentation of Jesus in the Temple, also called Candlemas. It gave me a lot of insight and inspiration:

At the end of the fourth century, a woman named Etheria made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Her journal, discovered in 1887, gives an unprecedented glimpse of liturgical life there. Among the celebrations she describes is the Epiphany (January 6), the observance of Christ’s birth, and the gala procession in honor of his Presentation in the Temple 40 days later—February 15. Under the Mosaic Law, a woman was ritually “unclean” for 40 days after childbirth, when she was to present herself to the priests and offer sacrifice—her “purification.” Contact with anyone who had brushed against mystery—birth or death—excluded a person from Jewish worship. However, This feast emphasizes Jesus’ first appearance in the Temple more than Mary’s purification. The observance spread throughout the Western Church in the fifth and sixth centuries. Because the Church in the West celebrated Jesus’ birth on December 25, the Presentation was moved to February 2, 40 days after Christmas.

At the beginning of the eighth century, Pope Sergius inaugurated a candlelight procession; at the end of the same century the blessing and distribution of candles which continues to this day became part of the celebration, giving the feast its popular name: Candlemas.

“Christ himself says, ‘I am the light of the world.’ And we are the light, we ourselves, if we receive it from him.... But how do we receive it, how do we make it shine? ...[T]he candle tells us: by burning, and being consumed in the burning. A spark of fire, a ray of love, an inevitable immolation are celebrated over that pure, straight candle, as, pouring forth its gift of light, it exhausts itself in silent sacrifice” (Pope Paul VI).

This imagery of our lives being like a candle, burning with Christ's love in an act of "silent sacrifice" as we share that love and are ultimately consumed by it really touched me. It seemed to give meaning to the loving sacrifices I make as a wife, as a mother, as a believer trying to live the Gospel daily. Today, as I ponder Mary presenting baby Jesus in the temple and having her heart pierced by Simeon's prophecy, I am reminded of the silent sacrifices we mothers make. We daily must give our own children to the Lord, praying that no harm comes to them, hoping for their salvation, and often having our hearts pierced when our children suffer or when we lose a child in the womb or before we think it is their time. I pray that Mary helps me to burn with the love of her Son as I strive to live my vocation, and that I continue to burn brightly even when my heart is pierced again and again.

Tooth Fairy Tonight

Michael was beaming when I picked him up from school today, running at mach-speed down the sidewalk and waving a baggy in the air containing his first lost tooth. He has been waiting for this day for a long time. The past few months he had been lamenting the fact that he hadn't lost a tooth yet even though everyone else in his 1st grade class had---even his much younger cousin Elizabeth had lost a few! Oh, the horror of being a late bloomer for a boy (especially a highly competitive boy like Michael)!

Anyway, back to the beaming image of my one-tooth-less-son at school...

I immediately asked how it happened, and he exclaimed, "I lost it in my banana at lunch!" I laughed out loud and shook my head. How does a child lose a tooth in the softest fruit on the planet? I guess it is fitting for our funny and flamboyant son to lose his tooth in such a funny, flamboyant way! Congratulations, Michael, for your 1st grade coming of age event! I hope the tooth fairy can brave the bitter cold weather tonight...hopefully tooth fairies don't fly south in the winter! ;)