Latest Masterpiece

All of our boys are very talented, and I love watching their different talents blossom as they mature.  Micheal appears to be very gifted in Math and all sports; Dominic is turning into a Lego-genius and quite a little pianist; Nathanael's true talents are yet to be discovered; and our son Joseph's most noticeable talent thus far is his artistic ability.  That boy can draw contentedly for hours!  Here is one of his latest masterpieces.  He's hoping to go fishing with Grandpa Pat this summer and make this scene come true :)

Picture Perfect Potty Training (well, almost)

Yep, we're still here in the bathroom for much of the day, so I thought I better capture a picture of this "fun" experience.  :)  Nathanael always likes to have a few essential items when he is using the potty:  a book or three, a sippy cup, his cool-guy glasses, and his new buddy "the pooping duck."  The pooping duck has been a huge asset to our potty training success lately.  It's a duck that my mom made for us years ago for Easter.  You fill it up with jelly beans or large M&Ms, and then kids give it a squeeze and marvel as the candy gets pooped out the back end! :)  Gross, I know, but kids love it, and it has helped motivate Nathanael to go #2 better than all the other bribery tricks we have tried.  Nathanael is doing great with peeing on the potty and staying dry throughout the day, but the pooping is still a challenge.  I hope with the help of the pooping duck, we will soon be able to have potty training perfected.  Until then, we'll just try to laugh, enjoy the ride, and take a few pictures along the way! :)

a praise and a picture or two

This morning I had a follow-up ultrasound at 25 weeks because my 19 week ultrasound showed that the baby's placenta was a bit too close to the cervix.  The doctor wanted to make sure that I didn't have placenta previa, which would make me a likely candidate for a C-section and pose some other risks as well.

 

Well, the good news is that the placenta no longer appears too close to the cervix!  What a relief!  We also learned that our baby is still very much a boy and very adorable.  He is measuring right on track in the 50th percentile.  My cervix is still long, which means I am not dilating or going into labor anytime soon (we hope).  In other words, everything looked perfect.  I was very much relieved, especially after the crazy symptoms I was having these past few weeks, and also because of my history of miscarriages and pre-term labor.  What a blessing to get these sneak-peaks of our little guy in the womb!  His profile and 3D image remind me so much of my other boys' ultrasounds, so I am guessing he will be a little carbon copy of his brothers :)  We are all eager to meet him, but we are praying that he stays put in my womb until full term!

 

Thank you for all your prayers!!!

 

 

Thankful Thursday

It's been awhile since I've posted a thankful list, but I've been writing them down in various journals...  So here's my litany of thanks, reminding me that God does indeed love me and is blessing me in big and little ways constantly if I but take the time to notice:

• Nathanael's petite and dimpled chin
• watching an inspiring movie:  "For Greater Glory"
• our great babysitter and piano teacher for the boys who only lives a minute away
• my son accepting his mom's apology for taking her frustration out on him
• hearing the phrase, "Love you, Mom."
• waking up to witness God's wondrous make-over of the trees---each one frosted with glittery white
• Mystic Monk coffee for Christmas (Jingle Bell Java flavor)...mmmmm!
• eating Perkins tomato soup all by myself
• watching our boys play board games with their daddy
• God giving me a spiritual director (something I have longed for for years)
• cleansing tears
• staying at a beautiful hotel with free breakfast AND supper
• boys having fun on a new ski hill with their daddy
• my Christmas present from Paul that the whole family likes:  an iPad
• gentle snow falling while being embraced by majestic white mountains
• keen awareness of my sin---ever grateful for God's mercy
• hotel swimming pools
• PBS kids cartoons
• pretty scarves
• 15 minutes of private adoration of the Blessed Sacrament
• sincere sorrow for my sins/crying through the Sacrament of Confession
• date night with my husband:  eating tasty tapenade at our favorite Italian restaurant, followed by a great movie ("The Hobbit")
• friends who help me in a pinch with babysitting
• feeling baby kicking
• pastel clouds over snow-capped mountains
• boys in the back seat belting out Billy Joel lyrics
• mercy
• playing "Apples to Apples" with the boys and giggling like crazy
• eating French Dip sandwiches at Arby's with my boys while daddy was away on a work trip
• reading a good book in my warm bed
• hearing baby's heartbeat
• getting a stain out of my favorite jeans
• a clean kitchen
• finding a huge sale on boys pants at Target (I bought 9 pair for $13!)
• grandma and grandpa rescuing me for a few days while my husband is away
• reading "The Hobbit" outloud every night with my boys, them loving it just as much as me
• staring a new sewing project

24 week milestone

 



I'm happy to report that I have made it to my 24 week mark without being put on bedrest.  With my last pregnancy, I was put on bedrest at 21 weeks, so I was apprehensive how things would go this time around.  I do have frequent Braxton Hicks contractions, but nothing too regular.  At my appointment this week they checked to make sure I was not dilating, which I wasn't, so that was good news.  The bad news, however, is that I have been having other troubling symptoms for the past couple of weeks that have my OB a little concerned.  I've been feeling a lot of pressure or tightness in my chest, difficulty breathing, and heart palpitations.  With my blood clotting disorders, the doctor immediately wanted to make sure I wasn't having a blood clot in my lungs, so I had a CT scan to rule that out (thankfully!).  Now my OB wants me to see a cardiologist to do an ultrasound on my heart and to monitor my heart using a Holter monitor/EKG device for 48 hours.  Ugh!  I am hoping my symptoms will disappear before my appointment with the cardiologist so that I can cancel it.   My husband has been gone for a 2 week business trip, so I wonder if that caused extra anxiety which led to the symptoms I was having???  I am trying to take better care of myself this week by removing all caffeine, drinking lots of water (which I am terrible at!), and trying to rest and trust God as much as I can.  I'd appreciate any extra prayers you could send my way too--for peace in my heart, healing if there is something that needs to be healed, and for this sweet growing baby to be perfectly healthy.  THANK YOU!

Our Special Saints for 2013

Our family is continuing the special tradition of choosing a patron saint to be our special intercessor for the new year.  A friend of mine who has a special devotion to St. Faustina first told me about this beautiful tradition a few years ago when she shared the following excerpt from Faustina's diary:

"Jesus likes to intervene in the smallest details of our life, and He often fulfills secret wishes of mine that I sometimes hide from Him, although I know that from Him nothing can be hidden.  There is a custom among [the sisters in our convent] of drawing by lot, on New Year's Day, for special patrons for ourselves for the whole year.  In the morning during meditation, there arose within me a secret desire that the Eucharistic Jesus be my special patron for this year also, as in the past.  But hiding this desire from my Beloved, I spoke to Him about everything else but that.  When the sisters gathered for breakfast, we blessed ourselves and began drawing our patrons.  When I approached the holy cards on which the names of the patrons were written, without hesitation I took one, but I didn't read the name immediately as I wanted to mortify myself for a few minutes.  Suddenly, I heard a voice in my soul:  I am your patron.  Read.  I looked at once at the inscription and read, "Patron for the Year 1935--the most Blessed Eucharist."  My heart leapt with joy, and I slipped quietly away from the sisters and went for a short visit before the Blessed Sacrament, where I poured out my heart.  (entry 360)

So, just like we've done the past few years, Paul, Joseph, Michael, Dominic and myself each wrote down 5-10 saint names and placed them in a hat...  Here are the results of the saints that God desired each of us to have:

Paul:  St. Rose of Lima
Maria:  the Sacred Heart of Jesus
Joseph:  St. Dominic of the Rosary
Michael:  St. Mary Magdalene
Dominic:  St. John the Evangelist
Nathanael:  St. Joseph, the foster-father of Jesus

This year I was blessed with a grace similar to St. Faustina's experience, which convinced me that God really does intervene even in the smallest details of our lives, like which saint we draw out of a hat.  Prior to drawing my patron for the year 2013, I had a sudden desire to draw Jesus' Sacred Heart.  For the past few weeks Jesus has been giving me the grace of a keen awareness of my sins and how much they hurt His Sacred Heart.  By "keen awareness" I don't just mean a knowledge of my sins, I mean a completely overwhelming feeling of the weight and ugliness of my sin to the point of tears...lots of tears.   I've never experienced anything quite like this before.   I call this a "grace," but it really isn't something I would wish to experience again.  It has been painful and very humbling to say the least (especially when I turn into a puddle of tears in front of people!)  During this same time period, I was also given the great grace of God sending me a Spiritual Director, a very holy and humble priest, to help guide my soul towards holiness.  The same day that I drew the Sacred Heart of Jesus as my Patron for the year, I also had my very first meeting with my new Spiritual Director. When I shared with him Who I drew for my Patron, he smiled and said he had a gift that he was planning to give me...  He left the room and returned with a beautiful picture of the Sacred Heart of Jesus that he recently brought back from Rome, blessed personally by Pope Benedict XVI.  My Spiritual Director said that he, too, has a special devotion to the Sacred Heart and had wanted to give me one of these special pictures as soon I asked him to be my Spiritual Director a few weeks ago.  This gift truly confirmed in my heart that Jesus truly was calling me to receive spiritual direction and calling me to draw nearer to his Sacred Heart this year.  God is so very, very good.

By the way, if any of you readers would like me to draw a saint name for you, I'd be more than happy to do so...  Just post a comment below that I will reply to, or you can send me an email if you'd prefer to correspond that way: (pmhurlbert@gmail.com).

New Year's Blessings

Once again, our family ends the year overflowing with thankfulness at the number of blessings God has given us!  Of course, He sent some challenges and crosses too, but we are learning that even those can become blessings if we rely on God’s grace to carry them.  One of our biggest blessings this year was the news that we are expecting another sweet son in the spring.  He will fit right in with his older brothers!  May God give Paul and me the grace to raise these boys to become holy gentlemen to love and serve Him as they grow up!  As we begin a New Year, I asked each member of my family to brainstorm what they were thankful for in 2012 and to ponder what might be some goals for 2013.  Here is the list we created, and perhaps you’d like to do the same with your family—

 

Paul:

·       Thankful list for 2012:  my compassionate wife, a healthy family, my broken wrist healing from my snowboard accident last February (I’m sure my jump in the terrain park looked cool though…until I landed), a good paying job with the FAA, and the exercise of taking my gun for long walks in the fall mountains for no apparent reason.   

·        Goals for 2013:  not to break anything while skiing this year (I’m retiring from my snowboard), a big (ok ANY) elk for Joseph’s first year of hunting, to welcome a new son into our family, and to win the weight loss competition with my brother Dann.

Maria:

·       Thankful list for 2012:  my holy husband who points me heavenward, great-behaved boys that make me smile every day, my supportive girlfriends who encourage me in my faith-journey, bubble baths, graces from the Eucharist, learning how to snow ski, and two books that have changed my soul for the better:  1000 Gifts by Ann Voskamp, and The Diary of St. Faustina.

·       Goals for 2013:  to pray the rosary and Chaplet of Divine Mercy every day, to laugh more, to do some quilting, to love my family and my Savior more perfectly, to help others love Jesus more, to learn how to take better pictures for our family blog: (www.atotustuusfamily.blogspot.com).

Joseph:

·       Thankful list for 2012:  skiing the backside of Discovery Ski Hill, catching a 20 inch walleye with grandpa Pat, pitching in my baseball league, learning to play the violin, hanging out with my school buddies, altar serving, practicing archery with daddy, and mountain biking with friends.

·       Goals for 2013:  to ski more double-black diamonds, try out new ski hills, shoot my first deer or elk, become better at baseball, catch a world-record Northern Pike, make more paracord bracelets, and to grow in holiness.

Michael:

·       Thankful list for 2012:  skiing, becoming an altar server at the Cathedral, playing baseball with my classmates, going hunting with daddy, going fishing in SD with grandpa Pat, going to Silverwood Amusement Park with my friend Alex, camping in the mountains, and going mountain biking with my friends.

·       Goals for 2013:  to grow closer to Jesus, become better at skiing, baseball and piano, to be kinder to others, learn how to catch more fish, make more paracord bracelets, and to be a helpful big brother when the new baby comes.

Dominic:

·       Thankful list for 2012:  going to South Dakota to play with grandma, grandpa, and my cousins, starting Kindergarten at St. Andrew Catholic School, learning how to read, playing baseball, snow skiing, and building with Legos.

·       Goals for 2013:  to catch some big fish, go to grandma and grandpa’s house, play baseball, do more camping, and become better at playing the piano.

Nathanael:

·       Thankful list for 2012:  big brothers to play with, playing with anything that has wheels, reading books with mommy or daddy, my teddy and monkey to snuggle with at night, and a cat to chase around the house.

·       Goals for 2013:  to be a good big brother to the new baby, to be 100% potty trained, and to stop throwing tantrums when I don’t get what I want.

We pray that God blesses all of your families abundantly this year and helps you to see all the gifts you have to be thankful for!  This season reminds me that the greatest gifts of all to be thankful for are Jesus’ sacrificial love and His abundant mercy—to bring us those gifts is why He came to this earth on that Holy Night so long ago.  May we embrace those great gifts with all our hearts in this New Year, and may we learn to constantly say like St. Faustina did, “JESUS, I TRUST IN YOU!”