Loooong Lent, Sweeeeet Easter

It has been a looong time since I have blogged, but I guess you could say that's because our family  had a looooong Lent that kinda turned our lives upside down.

In February, our 11-year old son Dominic was diagnosed with a bone infection (osteomyelitis) that resulted in a week long stay at the hospital, a month of heavy antibiotics, and a secondary infection (c-diff colitis).  The time in the hospital was very traumatic for Dominic...the pain, the narcotics, the withdrawal from the narcotics, the daily blood draws, the anxiety of not knowing how long he would be in the hospital or what would happen next...it all took its toll and I would have to say that we are all still recovering from the experience.  Please say a prayer for complete healing for our son because the journey isn't over yet, but at least we feel like we are on the right path towards health again.

Needless to say, it was a Lent we will never forget (even though we would like to).  But I trust and believe that God had a reason for all of it and we could truly see His goodness and blessings in the midst of the anxiety and pain.  I think Dominic will always treasure the kindness and gifts he received from people while in the hospital (especially the LEGO sets!), the memories of getting to watch the Olympics in a hospital bed, and the visit from Father Christopher who prayed over him and anointed him with oil.  As Scripture says, "God turns all things into good for those who love the Lord," so I have hope that much good will come from this difficult experience.

As I journeyed through the desert of Lent this year, I longed more than ever for the hope and joy of Easter to come.

AND INDEED IT FINALLY CAME!!!

It came with the reminder of Christ's victory over sin and death, and that one day we will be with Him in heaven because of His great sacrifice on the cross.  One day there will be no more tears or pain or bone infections or anxiety----only love and praise and joy!

It came with the arrival of Grandma and Grandpa who drove 12 hours to celebrate with us!

It came with my brother Jon's family visiting us from Portland for the first time.  How sweet it was to watch the cousins celebrate the joys of Easter together and simply to be with family!

It came with great food, great beer, and great wine (which were great indeed because we gave them up for Lent!) :)

And it came with LOTS of new SNOW!  Funny that it looked more like Christmas than Easter, but it sure was beautiful!

And now here are some beautiful pictures to highlight some of the sweetness of Easter:

Isaiah showing off to Grandma that he can READ!!!

Dominic giving us a cello and piano concert!

He is one talented boy!

I am eager to see how he will use his gifts and talents when he gets older.

Young and old, decorating eggs :)

Aunt Debbie and cousin Gwyneth concentrating hard on their masterpieces :)

Isaiah and Gwyneth making "eggcellent" Easter crafts

Me teaching the kids how to make Resurrection Rolls.

They turn out so delicious and help tell the Easter story to kids in a fun way!

My brother Jon, his wife Debbie, and their little girl Gwyneth 

taking a walk/ride around our property :)

Princess of the Mountain!

Debbie and Jon--what a beautiful couple,

what a delight to have them visit us!

Jon trying out our zip-line...and wondering what the weight limit is! :)

Jon giving Gwyneth a ride on the zip line.

What a brave and wonderful little girl!

Jon and Gwyneth riding the carousel!

Isaiah on the triceratops.

Natey reached the brass ring for the first time!!!

An ice cream snack at the carousel---yum!

Playing outside the carousel...cold but fun!

This is who I found first thing Easter morning.

At our house it's not an Easter bunny who brings treats, 

it's an Easter KITTY! :)

Debbie, Gwyneth, Jon, and Evan after Mass at the Cathedral

Our family after Mass at the Cathedral

Our family with Grandma and Grandpa at the Cathedral

Gwyneth happy with the shiny quarter she found in her Easter egg!

Evan and Isaiah showing each other their Easter treasures :)

Counting the Easter booty with Grandma and Grandpa watching the fun

The kids ready for the outdoor egg hunt in the snow!

Gwynneth asking the chickens where the eggs are hid :)

Looks like a chicken wants to steal an egg :)

A snowy and sweet Easter!

God is good!

From our home to yours,

HAPPY EASTER!!!

Belated New Year's Letter

(Here is our annual Christmas/New Year's letter for those of you who aren't on our family's mailing list.  It's very belated at this point, but it's the thought that counts, right? :)

                                

Our 2017 was filled with more blessings than the snowflakes that currently cover our property (there are over 2 feet of them!)—and we hope that yours was too!  This March will be the second year that we have lived in our home in Montana City, and I have to say that the “honeymoon phase” still has not worn off.  I continue to wake up most mornings with a heart overflowing with gratitude to God for the blessing of our home and land.  It is such a joy to watch our boys climb on big boulders, mountain bike around our trail, zip-line through our pine trees, and watch all the wild animals that visit us each day.  So far we have seen a mountain lion, a bobcat, mule and white-tail deer, bull and cow elk, marmots, some bear tracks, and too many bird varieties to list.  We had lots to be thankful for in 2017.  We had lots of challenges too (I probably shouldn’t list those!)J. But I try to remind myself that God is good, all the time. May we praise and trust Him both in good times and in bad!

Paul is still with the FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) for the 11^th year.  He enjoys what he does and is now in a position where he teleworks from home, which is a great bonus.  I love it when he is able to come upstairs to refill his coffee cup and steal a kiss from me in the kitchen. J  This year he was asked to join the school board at our kids’ Catholic school, which was quite an honor, and he sure seems to enjoy helping the school prosper.  He helped design a new parking lot for the school and facilitated putting in new playground equipment this past summer.  Other hobbies he enjoyed this year were mountain biking, making chokecherry wine, and cutting firewood from our forest.  I like being married to a handsome lumber jack! J

Joseph is 16, a sophomore at St. Andrew Catholic School, and the highlight of his year was getting his driver’s license!  He is sure growing into a handsome and holy man, which really hit me this past summer when I saw him giving his brother Isaiah a ride on his shoulders while we were hiking at Glacier National Park.  I realized he only has a few summers left with our family, so I will try to treasure every minute of it.  His passions include:  baseball (especially pitching), violin, piano, downhill skiing (especially trick skiing in terrain parks, much to his mother’s dismay), mountain biking, 80s music, and drawing.

Michael is 14, a freshman at St. Andrew’s, and the highlight of his year was harvesting 2 deer during hunting season.  He loves being in the great outdoors—whether he has a rifle in his hand or a camera. He is growing like crazy, and even surpassed his older brother in shoe size.  His interests include:  downhill skiing, hunting, wildlife photography, 80s music, basketball, and baseball (especially playing short-stop).  Which reminds me that another big moment for Michael this past year was winning the city baseball tournament with his brother Joseph.  It was so special that they were able to be on the same team, which might not ever happen again, so I think it will be an unforgettable memory for them.

Dominic is 11, a 5^th grader at St. Andrew’s, and the highlight of his year was either going to grandma’s house or Glacier National Park over the summer.  Seeing mountain goats up close is pretty awesome, but so are grandma’s cookies! J  He also got one of the sweetest teachers on the planet this year, so that was a high-point for him.  His hobbies include:  LEGOs, video games, downhill skiing, sledding, card games, board games, cello, piano, and did I mention LEGOs? J

Nathanael is 7, a 1^st grader at St. Andrew’s, and he says the best part about his year was going to school and playing with his friends.  He is becoming a BIG BOY so fast!  This year he got BIG new front teeth and can read BIG chapter books—that’s BIG STUFF!  His BIG interests are:  LEGOs, Garfield books, sledding, video games, baseball, and just having fun with his brothers.

Isaiah is 4 and is doing preschool at home with mommy.  The highlight of his year was hiking like a champ at Glacier National Park!  This was the first year he didn’t hitch a ride in the backpack-carrier, which made daddy’s back happy and it also made Isaiah feel like such a big boy.  He sure is getting big…and smart too!  He likes to announce to people that he can count to 1000.  Next year he will start Kindergarten!  That means I will have no more kids at home during the day and I will have to decide what I want to be when I grow up! J

For now, though, I am very content being a chauffeur for my sons, spending time with my faith-filled friends, skiing, hiking, taking pictures, mountain biking, and blogging our family memories (www.atotustuusfamily.blogspot.com). In this New Year, I am also going to try to trust God more.  That may sound simple and silly, but I know it’s something God desires me to work on.  I’m really good at stressing out—I’m not so good at trusting God to work things out. L  I’ve been re-reading the Diary of St. Faustina, which is so inspiring. For those of you who have never heard of St. Faustina, she was a simple nun from Poland who Jesus appeared to in the 1930s numerous times and asked her to write down His words that He wanted the whole world to know. He tells her that one of the things He desires most from people is their trust in Him.  Allow me to paraphrase from St. Faustina’s diary a few ways we can trust Jesus more:

·        to trust that He loves us unconditionally—we don’t have to be perfect to please Him; He is pleased if we simply accept His love and mercy, and try to love Him however imperfectly in return! 

·        to trust that no sin of ours is greater than His mercy—he actually delights in forgiving us and never tires of it either!

·        to trust Him to take care of everything, believing that He will work all things towards our good, so we never have to be anxious about anything!

Jesus wanted the world to know this so much that he asked St. Faustina to have an image painted of Him with rays of love and mercy pouring from His heart with the words, “Jesus, I trust in You” at the bottom of the image.  May that become the daily motto for us all!  I’m sure it will lead us closer to Jesus, fill our hearts with peace, and greatly console His heart too!  May you be open to all the graces God wants to lavish upon you this year!  Please keep in touch and stop by if you’re ever in our neck of the woods.  Our door is always open!

 

Love through Jesus, our Savior, Healer, and Trustworthy Friend,

          ~Paul, Maria, Joseph, Michael, Dominic, Nathanael, and Isaiah

 “Tell all people, my daughter, that I am Love and Mercy itself.  When a soul approaches me with trust, I fill it with such an abundance of graces that it cannot contain them within itself, but radiates them to other souls.  I am offering people a vessel with which they are to keep coming for graces to the fountain of mercy. That vessel is this image with the signature: "Jesus, I trust in You." The graces of My mercy are drawn by means of one vessel only, and that is — trust. The more a soul trusts, the more it will receive.”

(Jesus’ words in the Diary of St. Faustina: paragraphs 1074, 327, and 1578)

Recent Messages from Our Lady of Medjugorje

January 25, 2018, Message to Marija

"Dear children! May this time be for you a time of prayer, so that the Holy Spirit, through prayer, may descend upon you and give you conversion. Open your hearts and read the Sacred Scripture, that through the testimonies you also may be closer to God. Above everything, little children, seek God and the things of God and leave earthly ones to the earth, because Satan is attracting you to the dust and sin. You are called to holiness and created for Heaven; therefore, seek Heaven and the things of Heaven. Thank you for having responded to my call."

February 02, 2018 Message to Mirjana

"Dear children, you whom my Son loves, you whom I love with an immeasurable motherly love, do not permit for selfishness, for self love, to rule the world. Do not permit for love and goodness to be hidden. You who are loved, who have come to know the love of my Son, remember that to be loved means to love. My children, have faith. When you have faith you are happy and are spreading peace; your soul trembles with joy. My Son is in such a soul. When you are giving yourself for the faith, when you are giving yourself for love, when you are doing good to your neighbor, my Son smiles in your soul. Apostles of my love, I am turning to you as a mother. I am gathering you around myself and I desire to lead you on the way of love and faith, on the way which leads to the light of the world. I am here for the sake of love, for the sake of faith, because with my motherly blessing I desire to give you hope and strength on your way - because the way which leads to my Son is not easy. It is full of renunciation, giving, sacrifice, forgiveness and much, much love. But this way leads to peace and happiness. My children, do not believe lying voices which speak to you about false things, false glitter. You, my children, return to the Scripture. I am looking at you with immeasurable love, and through God's grace am making myself evident to you. My children, set out with me. May your soul tremble with joy. Thank you."

New Year, New Saints, New Photos

Happy New Year everyone!  Our family has a fun New Year's tradition of picking patron saints instead of resolutions for the New Year, a tradition we borrowed from St. Faustina's convent.  I read about this tradition of picking a special saint to get to know and to ask for their special intercession throughout the year in The Diary of St. Faustina, and it has become a fun and meaningful tradition for our family.  Every day on our way to school we say a rosary, followed by each person calling out the name of their saint that they picked on New Year's day.  It never fails to make me smile when I hear my boys (especially the little ones with their sweet voices) call out their saint, and then we all say "Pray for us!"  It's a fun and holy way to start each day and to start our New Year.  Let me know if you'd like me to draw a name for you.

Here are the saint names we picked (or perhaps I should say God picked them for us because He knew we would need the intercession of this particular saint for a reason):

Paul:  St. Elphage
Maria:  St. Rita and St. Blaise (yes, I needed two saints...it's a long story)  :)
Joseph:  St. Bernard
Michael:  St. Apollonia
Dominic:  St. Gemma Galgani
Nathanael:  St. James the Greater
Isaiah:  St. George

I also have a personal tradition of picking out a "word" for the New Year to meditate on and try to live out during the year.  I think it was Ann Voskamp that got me started with this tradition.  I think that Ann prays for a special word to come to her in prayer or be revealed to her somehow, but this year I decided to use Jennifer Fulwiler's "word of the New Year generator" :)  You just click a button and a word is given to you!  Kinda fun :)  The reason I like it is because if I try to pray and think of the word that God wants to give me, I'm always over-analyzing and second-guessing myself to determine if this is really my word, or if I just thought of it myself and wanted that word subconsciously.  I know, I know.  I drive myself crazy with how I over-think everything...imagine how my poor husband must feel!  :}  So anyway, the word generator is a better choice for people like me, and here is my word of the year:

FALL

Yes, it's the word "Fall."  At first I was like, wait...what??? That word made no sense to me and I didn't like it.  And I was tempted to pick a new word...  But I stopped myself and tried to ponder what God might want me to embrace spiritually with this random word.  And the first thing that came to my mind was St. Therese.  I had recently read about how St. Therese tried not to ever get discouraged when she "fell" into a particular sin or weakness, but rather trusted like a child in her Father's mercy and simply asked Him to pick her back up again.  She trusted completely that He would run to her, pick her up, and quickly forgive her and keep loving her---no matter how many times she fell.  Just like a tiny child trying to climb up some stairs and falls over and over again, the daddy would keep picking the child up, encouraging her to try again, assuring her that he will always be there for her if she falls.  That's how it is with us in the spiritual life.  We keep trying to climb the stairway of perfection to please God, but we keep falling.  And God keeps picking us back up, encouraging us to try again, and is deeply pleased (not disappointed) when we ask Him for the graces we need to climb the stairs and the mercy we need when we fall (which is bound to happen to all of us no matter how hard we try).  So, with that analogy in mind, I think the word "fall" is perfect for my soul this year.  I have a tendency to easily get discouraged when I fall, beating myself up interiorly, worrying about how I must have disappointed the Lord, rather than trusting in His boundless mercy. 

So that's my goal for 2018: 
to TRUST in God's goodness and mercy when I FALL... 
and to NOT GET DISCOURAGED.  

Pray for me!  :)

And last, but not least, here are some new pictures of our wild and crazy family :)  We had a sweet photographer named Crystal Nance take our photos.  She did a great job and was so patient with us regarding scheduling conflicts, editing, etc.  The photos are a concrete reminder to me how quickly our kids are growing!  Joseph and Michael look like young men already, and even my baby looks so grown up (especially in the photo where he is standing with his hands in his pockets).  All the photos remind me just how blessed I am to have such a holy and handsome husband to provide for us, 5 holy, healthy, and handsome boys, and this gorgeous property to live on.  Thank you, God, for all these blessings and even the ones I do not see!

Advent and Christmas Recap

The Christmas season is now over, and I'm finally getting around to posting our Christmas photos!  There are so many photos that I think I will just let them do most of the talking...

Hiking in search of the "perfect" Christmas tree.

(We learned there is no such thing as a perfect tree,

but it was fun searching!) :)

Snowball fights as we searched...

Kids seem somehow cuter when they are outdoors...

...and also when wearing snow pants and flannel shirts :)

What a joy to take in the gorgeous view and fresh air!

I love living in Montana!!!

Paul thinks he found the perfect tree...

...and Isaiah thinks he did too!  :)

Heading home with our "nearly perfect" tree...

...and our nearly perfect kids--ha ha :)

Here is our tree covered in lights.

There is just something so magical and wonderful about Christmas lights.

I love waking up each morning to this sight.

We continued our Advent tradition of placing hay in the manger

for each good deed, hoping there will be plenty of soft hay

for Baby Jesus to sleep on when Christmas arrives.

We also did the fun tradition of moving the Wise Men each day of Advent,

imagining them following the star to find the newborn King.

Isaiah was my biggest helper moving the Wise Men.

He also liked to hide them and have me try to find them :)

Each night at dinner we would read from Ann Voskamp's Advent devotional

and then place an ornament on our Jesse Tree (followed by a piece of candy). :)

And each evening before bed Paul would read our Advent adventure book

by the author Arnold Ytreeide.  Our whole family looked forward to the book each night

 (even our teenagers...although I don't think they'd admit it) :)

I'm embarrassed to admit that this was the first year we decorated cookies.

Cooking is just not my thing, and little boys just don't seem to get excited about cooking either.

But, I think this will become a new tradition because it was so fun (and delicious).

Finding treasures in the stockings Christmas morning!

And there was lots of soft hay for Baby Jesus on Christmas morn :)

Hopefully all of our good deeds and attempts at preparing our hearts for Christmas

consoled Jesus' heart and made Him smile :)

Watching children open presents is always a joy!

Isaiah happy with his new LEGO set!

Natey happy with his new LEGO set...

We should have bought stock in the LEGO company long ago :)

Dominic is happy with his new gift from his god-parents.

Thank you Dann and Rachel---you are always so generous and thoughtful!  God bless you!

Isaiah and Michael checking out their new gifts.

The littlest 3 had a LEGO building party for much of Christmas day :)

Isaiah proud of his mini X-wing fighter that he built (mostly) by himself :)

Joseph was happy drinking Coke and laughing at Garfield comics on Christmas day :)

Grandma Jean (Paul's mom) came to visit for Christmas.

She had fun hanging out with the older boys...

and the younger boys :)

Here is Grandma and the little ones waiting for our hotel room

at Fairmont Hot Springs to become available.

Funny how both young and old are entertained by electronics these days :)

All in all, it was a wonderful Christmas.  It was great to spend time with Grandma Jean/Mom H.  We especially loved her marvelous cooking!  She is one talented lady in the kitchen, which is a gift to me because I am not :)  And she is always so generous when she comes to visit, insisting on paying for everything, which is also a beautiful gift.  I pray that God will bless her generous heart abundantly!  Paul and the big  boys did some skiing at Discovery and Great Divide.  I loved soaking in the hot springs at Fairmont with the little boys and sleeping in most mornings during Christmas break :) We hope your Christmas was grace-filled and fun-filled too, and that Jesus found room in your hearts to fill you with His love and mercy and graces for the New Year!!!