Merry Christmas!

 As I sit here and rack my brain to try to sum up the month of December amidst questions and requests while everyone is technically supposed to be in their rooms "resting", I keep coming back to the idea of suffering because this month I have prayed and wept for friends and acquaintances who are suffering in some way.  A classmate of Brooke's who is spending the 2nd Christmas missing an otherwise healthy dad who dropped dead one day, broken marriages and families, people who are feeling lonely missing someone they care about, plans made and plans that have changed without our input.  There is so much suffering if not in our own hearts and lives, in the immediate circle of people we know and love.

One of the gifts given to me as a result of a painful year parenting my Brooke is that I am so much more in tune with the suffering of others.  Gut wrenching, nerve wracking emotional unrest in a family where day by day you live holding on by the white of your knuckles, uttering prayer after prayer for your child and for your sanity will do that to you.  That's what it did for me anyway.  Add in the fact that I spend half of the year without my husband which is lonely gives me a glimpse into the lives of those that suffer.  I get the widow. Have a kid hanging on by a thread?  I get that too.  We all come in contact with real life "Lifetime" movie dramas played out right before our eyes except they are real.  Real people with real wounds. 

I can only speak for myself, but until I had suffered so intensely over my daughter, I went on about my day hearing of people suffering, but it didn't really affect me to the point of action.  That's where love is, in the action.  I feel like I live with a gaping wounded heart that is not sick, but vulnerable.  When I hear of the difficulties of others I pray and I cry.  My heart is broken today for a dear friend of mine and her family.  They are suffering so greatly and I pray that God will have mercy on them in their time of need and comfort them with peace that surpassed all understanding.

How then is it that we can celebrate the birth of a Savior who came to us as a baby to save us from our sin when we are surrounded by misery?  Did He not come to take away the misery? I'll tell you how, it's because the story isn't finished yet.  The plans we make with out limited vision and knowledge of what we think will make us happy isn't necessarily what's good for us anyway.  When confronted with difficult situations in life we can do two things: be angry over our "unjust" circumstances or to flex and bend to conform ourselves to the plans God has for us.  God is good all.the.time. We can unite our suffering with the Cross and it becomes a gift to help us grow closer to God in this life. If he doesn't take care of the suffering now, He will do that in the after life.

 Besides all the weepy tears I've shed this month there is so much to be thankful for.  Snow comes to mind right away because from the beginning of the month we've had so much fun playing in the snow.  Not one, but two snow days to enjoy!  I took the kids to a local park with a mammoth hill.  We have new neighbor kids so I took those three kids to the park in addition to our 4.  When the neighbor kids were inquiring about the size of the hill, I admitted to them that I was worried that it was a little too big for my taste.  Being boys, they got really excited because they knew it was going to be something special, and it was.  The photos don't do it justice.

 My little Nashy Boy is T.R.O.U.B.L.E.  It seems like I'm living with Dennis the Menace.  He wants to do everything by himself, he is a bully, he breaks things, he wakes up almost every day between 6 and 7 and yells through the crack of his locked door "I waked up!".  He's also has been either pitching a fit because he's not getting his way or he's just crying because he's exhausted.  I laid him down for his nap at 11 AM yesterday and he slept until 2:30! 

 Stella's hand me down Littlest Pet Shop collection turned hallway lamp decorations.

 Luke turned 7!  We had a small family dinner party on his actual birthday.  My almond flour recipe even doubled doesn't make enough cupcakes to fill up the cupcake stand so I improvised with Weeble Wobbles. :)

 Luke got a Rainbow Loom set and is now a crazy bracelet making machine.

 Nash and The Potty Chapter 2....He is hot and he is cold.  He'll go many, many days pooping and peeing in the potty without any accidents and then he'll pee himself twice in one day.  I don't have time to follow him around and I do get distracted therefore forgetting to put him on the potty (while he shouts, "No, I good!!") only to find out 20 minutes later that his pants are wet.  I think all toddlers should come as a two pack for double our parenting pleasure. :)

 I'd like to introduce you to my nemesis this winter, The Sock Pile.  Luke, Stella and Nash take off their socks in random places all over the house and leave them.  I have waved the white flag and now throw them into this random corner where our foyer meets our school room, the hall bathroom, and the living room.  It's a nice accessible place where I put all abandoned socks now.  When we go to leave, I tell the kids to pick a pair of socks from the pile and when I do the laundry I tell Luke to go get the pile and put it in the laundry room.  I thought about keeping them all until they run out of socks, but it is just not worth the battle.

 My mother in law has very generously bought gingerbread houses for the kids to decorate for the last few years.  The kids love them and look forward to them.  I, on the other hand, am such a party pooper that I'd rather go to the dentist.  It makes a mess and there are impatient kids who need my help immediately if not sooner and then there's me with no patience for the project to begin with.  Mark, God bless him, took the bull by the horns and broke them out while I was getting ready on the eve of Christmas Eve.  It really was the gift that keeps on giving. 

Stella told me a joke last week that still has me laughing.  It goes like this...

Stella: Mom, why did the chicken cross the road?
Me: I don't know, why?
Stella: So it could die and be roast beef!!

I started cracking up because that joke doesn't make sense what so ever and when I told the joke to Mark over the phone, it reinforced to Stella how funny it was.  She thinks that joke is hilarious.

Ta-da!  Check that off the list until next year.  :)

 We opened gifts on Christmas Eve morning because Mark had to leave for work on Christmas morning at 7:45 AM.  After the gift opening madness of a few years ago where I was not so lovingly shouting at all the kids because they were tearing into their gifts faster than I could snap photos, I decided to abstain from photographing any opening of Christmas gifts.  I realize I don't care if I capture their face as they are opening presents because the presents aren't what's important anyway.  I am much calmer and so everyone is much happier too.

 I bought Brooke a nightstand at a consignment shop for $25 and my dad painted it this beautiful raspberry color.  I also bought a really cute drawer pull at Hobby Lobby to replace the plain one and I can't for the life of me find it!

 Nash got a bed tent just like Luke's.  He loves it, but it's too bad he won't lay in it in the morning after he wakes up.

 He also got a recycling truck that has 20 small plastic "recyclables".  Not good planning on my part.

 I'd like you to meet "Our Lady of Weeds".  Mark said no good Catholic family could be without a statue of Our Blessed Mother in their yard so he bought me one for Christmas.  I jokingly told him a few weeks before Christmas if we ever had one in our landscaping, she'd be "Our Lady of Weeds" because to say we are a little lax on our weeding is pretty generous. 

 On Christmas Eve we went to Mass in the afternoon followed by dinner at our house with Mark's parents, my brother-in-law Steve and our friends Cathy and Anna.

 Nash loved that I let him drink out of a fancy glass.  I bought them at a thrift store for 25 cents a piece to put dessert in for Thanksgiving and so I broke them out for Christmas as well just for drinks.  It's a good thing he stills wears a diaper at bedtime!

 Brooke got a donut maker and she and Luke made gluten free donuts out of a gluten free cake mix on Christmas Day.  Brooke told me, "Mom, I didn't know what oil to use so I prayed to Jesus and He told me this one (vegetable oil) would be fine."  It was so hard to keep a straight face, but who can blame the poor girl when we have coconut oil, olive oil,and grape seed oil too! 

 My parents, my sister and two nieces and my nephew came over on Christmas for dinner.  One of the other cousins gave one of our kids these glasses which I decided we would all take turns posing for pictures with them.  It was a hoot!

 Luke said that my dad actually looked good with them on which cracks me up because he was serious.  But then again, Luke also said my sister was a "pretty fancy lady" because she liked to look at houses and magazines about houses.

 We texted this picture to Mark who was diligently working to get people to and from their loved ones on Christmas and the days following. Starting from left...Stella, Brian (my niece's BF), Stephanie, Nash, Carly, Brooke,  (nephew) Jamie, and Luke.  Behind the couch, (my sister) Michelle, and my parents, Sandy and Bill.

 Cousins!

This is the real present, God becoming man loving us and showing us how to love so much that we are moved to action. Speaking of love in action, I just finished a book called Kisses from Katie, a memoir of a young lady who listened to God calling her to care for orphans in Uganda.  She passed up the typical American life of attending college after high school to live on a different continent to care for and love hungry/sick/abandoned people that God has put in her life.  It's an amazing love story, think modern day Mother Teresa, doing simple things for God. You should be warned that this book is not for everyone.  If you like life to be comfortable, then you might want to pass on this one.  However, if you are wanting more, then this book might just inspire you to act yourself. 

I hope you all had a blessed Christmas and I pray that you will know the love of Christ this coming new year.  Many blessings to you and yours!

Eucharisteo:The Heart of Thanksgiving

 Ironically last year about this time I attended the Fall Banquet of the Catholic school Brooke now attends with my friend Cathy.  The speaker, Allen Hunt (Author of Confessions of a Mega Church Pastor) kept reminding the audience not to forget that we Catholics are a people of the Eucharist.  The non-Catholic Christian, Ann Voskamp, in one of my very favorite books ,breaks down the actual meaning of the word Eucharisteo in an interview.  See the full interview here. 

eucharisteo—it comes right out of the Gospel of Luke: “And he took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them…” (Luke 22:19 NIV). In the original language, “he gave thanks” reads “eucharisteo.”

The root word of eucharisteo is charis, meaning “grace.” Jesus took the bread and saw it as grace and gave thanks. He took the bread and knew it to be gift and gave thanks. Eucharisteo, thanksgiving, envelopes the Greek word for grace, charis. But it also holds its derivative, the Greek word chara, meaning “joy.” Charis. Grace. Eucharisteo. Thanksgiving. Chara. Joy.

Deep chara joy is found only at the table of the euCHARisteo; the table of thanksgiving. The holy grail of joy, God set it in the very center of Christianity. The Eucharist is the central symbol of Christianity.

One of Christ’s very last directives He offers to His disciples is to take the bread, the wine, and to remember. Do this in remembrance of Me. Remember and give thanks.
This is the crux of Christianity: to remember and give thanks, eucharisteo.

The whole of Luke 22:19 says, Then he took the bread, said the blessing, broke it, and gave it to them, saying, "This is my body, which will be given for you;do this in memory of me."

John 6:25-70 affirms that we are to eat the actual flesh of Jesus to have eternal life. On hearing it, many of his disciples said, “This is a hard teaching. Who can accept it?” ⁶¹ Aware that his disciples were grumbling about this, Jesus said to them, “Does this offend you?  Of course Ann being a non-Catholic Christian says this is a symbol, but after reading many a Protestant kid's Bibles, I'm pretty used to that.

I read Ann's blog occasionally and it floors me that her thoughts are so Catholic, but she is not.  I even Googled "Is Ann Voskamp Catholic?" the other day because reading her blog is like watching an almost car accident, the cars came so close to colliding, but in the end it was a miss.  I wondered if anyone's offered to take her to the nearest Mass so she can see her "Eucharisteo" in action?

I read somewhere once or saw a bumper sticker that said something to the effect What if you woke up tomorrow with what you thanked God for today?  That thought and reading last year, Ann's book One Thousand Gifts has changed the way I look at everything.  We have so much to be thankful for because for a great majority of us, all of our basic needs are met.  They might not be exactly as we wish, but we have what we NEED. 

Our family has had such a challenging year with Brooke, but it's been so full of every kind of blessing imaginable.  My heart is bursting with gratitude and love for my Lord, our Catholic faith, and everything in between.

A priest told me recently that I should keep a spiritual journal so I could chronicle the ways in which God is working in my life, a place where I can see those blessings in black and white.  I've finally made that suggestion a reality and last night I wrote that I am so thankful for spending peaceful time with Brooke at home during her break.  I had my doubts that all this home/family time might end up a screaming, fit throwing mess, but it has been the most delightful time I've spent with Brooke in almost a year!  Tears spring to my eyes just thinking of this miracle!

I know it sounds so been-there-done that to be thankful for my parents, but oh, my gosh, I couldn't ask for two more down to earth examples of perseverance.  I love that about them.  They don't take the easy route just because it's easy.  They roll up their sleeves and follow through on the commitments they've made in spite of how they feel that day.  It's that practical, hard working attitude that has been a wonderful example to me.  I may  not iron my table cloths like my mother would have, but I am learning to be more like them.  I actually set my alarm EVERY.SINGLE.DAY. so that I can be up and ready to go for the day before Stella stumbles into my bathroom at the crack of 7 AM.  This self centered girl might actually be a grown up someday!

 Speaking of grown up, my Nashy Boy is wearing big boy undies at all times except for when he's sleeping.  He isn't potty trained so much as we are trained to take him to the potty every 1.5 hours, but he has definitely moved passed the need to wear diapers all day.  If we remember to take him, he'll go all day without an accident.  He gets candy for pooping on the potty which has been a little bit more of a struggle.  He's impatient and doesn't want to sit.  This too will come with time.

Nash told me last night when I was explaining that we were going to church in the morning that he wanted to wear his "fancy" clothes to church (which really sounds like "turch").  He mean his khaki pants and a sweater.  He looks so handsome in his fancy clothes too.

 A got a wild hair up my rear a few weeks ago when I decided one of the gifts I wanted to give my family for Christmas was photos in albums.  I have beautiful scrapbooks from years past, but since moving and Nash, I've not printed many photos at all.  So I printed 1,500 pictures from 2012 and 2013.  Snapfish had a heck of deal which was 300 Penny Prints.  I ended up paying $3 for the photos and then $15 for shipping which is a steal.  You could use that promo code 5 times so I ended up with 1,500 pictures.  Sounds like a living hell doesn't it?  :)  My sweet, progress oriented husband put them in chronological order for me (because they get mixed up darn it!) so now the "only" thing I have to do it put them into sleeves and make a few titles to finish the job.  It's the gift that will keep on giving, if I can muster up the energy to do it in the evenings after the kids have been put to bed.

 Nash naps for about 3 afternoons in a row and then tears up his room the other four days of the week.  He did a little of both this day.  It's hard to be 2 and a half!

 Yes, my two year old can work the iPad better than I can.  I have to remind him that he can't "play" Minecraft because he messes up the bigger kids' game. "I play iPad!  I play iPad! I play iPad!..."  Over and over again.  The iPad takes a "nap" on top of our refrigerator so that the temptation to play isn't constant.

 Trying to do school with Nash underfoot (literally here because he was playing under the school room table) is always different each day.  Sometimes we wait until he's napping (or not depending on the day!) or try to occupy him with other things such as his favorite past time, breaking crayons. 

 Here's the carnage.  I should be shot because a couple times  a week I throw a coloring book and the bin of crayons on the table because he does like to color until he gets bored and starts snapping the crayons in half. You'd think I'd learn, but I'm always distracted until I hear the distinct, crisp sounds of whole crayons being halved.

 My nieces are getting to be such big girls (almost 20 and 25!!!) these days, but I still like to get them Christmas gifts so this year they are being gifted a canvas of their favorite photo.  "The big one" as Stella sometimes calls Stephanie, not only got a canvas, but a photo shoot with her BF.  They've been dating for a little over two years, but this poor guy had no idea was he was getting into.  Two Saturdays ago when we took the pictures it was FREEZING with the wind chill in the low 20's.  Photos outside?  Why not!!

 My mom said that the photos were cute and she couldn't even tell how cold they were.  :) Aren't they so adorable??!!  They look like they go together.  Can imagine how cute their blond kids would look alongside our blond kids?

 Stephanie and Brian sitting in under a tree...

 We bought our Christmas tree last week.  We went to a friend's Christmas tree farm during the week and picked out  a beauty.  I can't decide if this excursion was a comedy or a tragedy, because there was some laughing and some crying.

 Luke took this sweet picture of Brooke!

 Mark might have cried when he was cutting the tree down, but...

 Nash did most of the crying because we woke him up from his nap to get the tree after we picked Brooke up from school.

 Fast forward on to Thanksgiving where my mom and I had to pluck the turkey.  Seriously.  We got a bird from a different farmer because ours couldn't get organized to get the turkey to use before Thanksgiving.  My mom and I ended up pulling the "cuticle" where the feathers came out.  The skin was bumpy an not at all appetizing.  It was nothing a little herb butter and some cooking couldn't fix, but still I'm just not a fan. Yeah, I have a hot pink dog apron on.  What's it to ya?

We had a really fun, but different holiday.  We got new neighbors a few weeks ago and I invited them to eat with us since they have no family or friends around these parts.  They have a 9 year old daughter and an 11 and 13 year old son.They are very sweet, very easy going and friendly.  The kids get along well so I think it's going to be a happy time living next to them. In addition to my family, we also had our friend Cathy over and her 5 year old daughter Anna.  Not to say that my family is dull, but things were much more lively with new faces around.

We started our day with Mass where we actually consumed the body and blood of Jesus. Thanksgiving day menu: Turkey...check! Green Beans...check! Mashed Potatoes...check! Jesus...check! Jesus himself tells us to do this least you think I'm sick and twisted. Well, maybe a little. 

The kids watched the Thanksgiving Day parades on TV while eating lunch.  Some of the music was questionable for my conservative taste, but I don't think the kids thought anything was amiss.  My mom and I were busy plucking that stupid bird while Stella randomly wandered over every few minutes and asked me 600 questions while the needle nose pliers were digging into my hand.  I burned light years off my Purgatory time!  :)

 Stephanie's BF in all their two years plus of dating has never met Mark...until Thanksgiving.  I made them recreate the moment for me because one day if Stephanie and Brian get married, it will be funny.  I'm a nerd.  Brian is 6' 5" which makes Mark's 6' 1" look short.

And this folks is my project. Well, that and composing a Christmas letter that does not include "this year we lived through many crazed tantrums and ended up with a half as many holes in our walls".  Life is so good, but complicated and to sum it up in a Christmas letter seems like I'm about to climb Everest.  You'll know how that goes when it arrives in your mailbox.  I may be back here before Christmas, but we'll see if I have any spare time after the photo project. :)