Things I Never Thought I'd Say

Life with toddlers ... not much explanation needed. Tuesday at dinner I found myself saying:

"Stop dancing on the spinach."

Keeping Busy, Keeping it Real

The blog has kind of gotten away from me the last week plus. If you've been following the Saturday Smiles posts you know that I've fallen down on the job the last two weeks. I do plan to continue those posts, but sometimes life gets busy.

Busy. Ack! I hate that word. I especially hate using it as an excuse. Everyone's busy. My time isn't any more valuable than anyone else's.

Regardless, things have been a bit crazy. At times like these it is the blog that falls by the wayside. But I'm not giving up, I'm just taking a break and may be blogging a little less from now until the New Year. We'll see, I'm not making any promises.

Right now, my focus (after God, family, and work) is getting through a retreat weekend that is coming up soon. I'm not attending the retreat but I am one of the people working in the background to make it happen. It's also my last retreat to work on, I'm rotating off the group and handing the reins off to someone else. I don't know who that someone else is yet, though. If you could say a prayer that we find someone to replace me and that this next retreat weekend is successful, I'd appreciate it. Thanks!

After all that, I am obligated to do two posts in December for Catholic Sistas. One is already started and I'm working on it this week. The second is totally up in the air. Anyone have any ideas for me?

Oh, and then there is this holiday coming up. I can't even think about it yet. I have no idea what I'm getting for my boys for Christmas this year. Hubby and I did decide that we are not doing gifts for each other, but instead we're buying a new TV for our family room. One thing decided!

Finally, I am thinking about adding a couple of things to the blog. I hesitate a bit to do this because the blog is already a bit busy looking. I have two things in mind and may do it as pages at the top rather than adding more stuff to the side bars. The first is a list of my current prayer intentions (thanks to priest's wife for the idea); the second is a list of what I am currently reading. I think both ideas would be good for me to have to keep track of these things. Might as well share it with my readers too.

So that's what's going on with me. I'll be here on and off during the next month and hope to be back blogging regularly in January. I miss it, it's a good outlet for my desire to write. And because I like sharing fun things here too, I hope you'll enjoy this as much as I did:

From Catholic Memes on Facebook

Have a wonderful Advent and Christmas!! I'll post when I can.

Big Brother Knows Birthdays

A certain search engine truly does know everything!

That just makes me laugh!

Happy Birthday to me. :)

Hope everyone has a wonderful Sunday, it's a beautiful day here!

7 Quick Takes Friday, no. 50

~1~

I had a few friends over for a prayer group meeting on Tuesday evening. We hadn't gotten together in several months! So it was great to catch up and share what we've all been doing in our prayer lives, what we're currently reading or studying to help us become better Christians, and how we are evangelizing others through how we live our lives. At the end as we started gathering our stuff my friend C says to me, "Oh, I have maternity clothes in the car for you." Okay, I said I'd go out with her and grab them. Then I notice my friend S looking a little surprised and she says, "Wait, do you need them?" She thought maybe someone had inadvertently spilled the beans.

Haha! No, no, I do not need the maternity clothes. C was returning them to me, she had borrowed them during her last pregnancy. We all had a good laugh at that one.

~2~

We bought a carpet for the boys' bedroom. Our house is all hardwood floors and since moving in we've bought one area rug for the living room. We have been wanting something for the boys' room for a long time ans we finally did it. It got delivered Wednesday night during dinner. So after dinner, we put the boys in the playroom and we go up to roll out the carpet. It took us a while to line it up with the pad underneath, but we finally got it. Taking the boys up later was an interesting site. They were fascinated by this softness under their feet. It was funny to watch their reactions! Ethan loved it and kept laying down and putting his face down into the carpet. He also did a lot more crawling than he has done in a long time. And then he discovered that the hard floor was still there on either end, which led to him crawling to one side to see the hard floor and turning around and crawling back to the other to feel the hard floor on the other side. He was so silly!

~3~

What was even funnier was that Ethan immediately laid down on the carpet Thursday morning when I got him out of bed. I think he loves his new carpet.

~4~

I've fallen behind on blogging recently mostly because of perpetual sickness in our home. First Peter was sick, then I wasn't feeling well, then Ethan got sick, then we had an appointment with the allergist who also diagnosed ear infections in both boys, then I got sick again. Through all of this Hubby has remained relatively healthy. He woke up one morning with a frog in his throat causing his voice to sound an octave too low, but he otherwise feels fine. At the moment, he's fine, the boys seem to be back to normal, and I'm (hopefully) shaking off the last of whatever this is. I'm just so tired of being sick!

~5~

On a more positive note: I bought my first Christmas gift of the year this week! It's a gift for my goddaughter. I'm so excited to give it to her. 

~6~

Next week is Thanksgiving! I love this holiday. The pretty fall colors, the cool air, being surrounded by family, the warmth of good food. Most important of all, an entire holiday to give thanks to God for all of our blessings. What could possibly be better than that! 

This year we're having some people over to our house for the holiday. Adults and kids included, we'll number about 13. What are you doing for the holiday? Also, tell me what one dish you must have at your Thanksgiving dinner?

~7~

In just a couple short days I will be celebrating another birthday. I am not one to hide my birthday or my age. I think we should all be proud of our years no matter how many or how few they are. I'll be 38 this coming Sunday. We'll be celebrating with a breakfast date on Saturday morning while Ethan's godmother comes over to watch the boys and her own two children. I hope she'll survive four kids at once: ages 3, 17 months (my boys), and 5 months. She is such an awesome friend!

Happy Thanksgiving!!

For more Quick Takes, head over to Conversion Diary by soon-to-be reality TV star Jen Fulwiler.

Why I am Pro-Life: Reason #3

This is part 3 of a series of four parts on why I am Pro-Life. I have not always been pro-life and I hope my witness can be of interest to others who are on the fence, do not have a strong opinion, or feel that there are some cases in which abortion should be allowed. I hope this series can be of help for anyone questioning the pro-choice agenda. If you have not yet read the previous parts of this series you may want to refer to part one and part two.

In part two of this series I spoke about the passion of pro-lifers and how that caught my attention as a lackadaisical pro-choicer. I also alluded to the actions these people took in an effort to combat the injustices they saw in our society. This goes hand-in-hand with this next post.

Reason #3 why I am pro-life: I saw passion put into action, not just talk.

Source: Wikimedia Commons

Lots of people talk about lots of things lots of the time. And then they keep talking and after a while you stop listening. If you are trying to convince someone of your side of an argument, idea, or topic, talking about it incessantly to him or her will not get the desired results. People stop listening.

But when we act out our belief system in a way that makes a statement ... wow. That can speak volumes!

I had listened and I had witnessed the passion. If that had been it I might still be on the fence. But that wasn't it. I was suddenly more aware of the actions of people who believed in this cause:

• I saw the pro-life booth set up along side booths selling food, selling crafts, promoting politicians, etc.  on Main Street during a downtown event.
• I became aware of the people who prayed outside the abortion clinic in my town and was amazed that people did that.
• I found out that there were pregnancy helps centers who were eager for donations and people I knew were volunteering with them, collection donations, donating needed items and money, and so much more.
• I learned about Priests for Life and other organizations which I had never known existed before.
• I also met lots of families who had adopted or wanted to adopt; some in real life, some through their stories shared in blog posts, articles, and other media. 
• And I learned about the March for Life in DC and the many other marches and events held around the country all near the anniversary of Roe v Wade. 

Many of these actions were contrary to what I had been led to believe from the pro-choice movement. The pro-choice movement likes to throw it in the face of the pro-life movement that they only want to save the baby but have no interest in helping the mother. And yet there are pregnancy help centers all over the place. Pro-choicers like to point fingers and say things like, "Are you going to take this baby?" as if pro-lifers have no interest in the child. And yet I knew tons of people who had adopted babies, who wanted to adopt, or were willing to adopt. I saw people actually doing something. This was very much unlike anything I expected to find.

Let's also look at the March for Life. Once I learned about this amazing event and saw the numbers of people nation-wide who participated I was stunned. And that is probably an understatement. Now, I will admit that I am not an avid news reader, but I like to think that I pay attention enough to get the big stories and know what is going on in the world. Back when I was moving away from the pro-choice mentality and into the pro-life mentality I was single and living alone and would often watch the news in the morning before work. But I had never heard of this March for Life before. Not once.

So when I finally did hear about it I was shocked to see how big it was. We're not talking about a small march of about a 1000 people from the region around DC, we're talking hundreds of thousands from across the whole country! Amazing!! And the best quote I've ever seen about the demographics of the March for Life came from NARAL Pro-Choice America President Nancy Keenan who was in DC for the 37th Annual March for Life (2010) and commented on what she saw afterwards:

"I just thought, my gosh, they are so young," Keenan recalled. "There are so many of them and they are so young." [source: sba-list.org]

The March for Life estimated it had about 400,000 activists participate in the March for Life that year.

For me, witnessing that the pro-life movement was not just talk but was full of people who were activists on many levels had a huge impact on me. I recognized a real love for the human person (the unborn babies, the mothers, the fathers) that I had not witnessed in other circles. The pro-choice movement put all its care into the woman (they wouldn't call her a mother) and no one else. Many of them did care, but didn't look at the big pictures. That was me, too. Hearts are in the right place, but are clouded over by terminology that prevents one from seeing the full picture.

I would say at this point in my life I was more willing to take on the label of Pro-life than I had ever been before. The clouds were lifting, the scales were falling from my eyes, and I began to see the baby as a person. I still had questions and was still unclear on the difficult circumstances, but I was willing to take the leap of faith and declare that I stood with the pro-life movement.

I think one more post is in order to kind of tie this series up. So stay tuned for more. (Hopefully it won't take me as long to get it out as this one did.)

Saturday Smiles, no. 19

Hubby with his boys

I'm going to be honest ... it's been a rough week. Between being sick, one child being sick, and the presidential election, I'm just glad the week is over. I'm still not feeling well as I write this, but I am home alone in an empty house. Ahhhhh! So, no better time than the present to reflect on the blessings this week also contained.

Wednesday I got the phone call at work that one of the boys wasn't feeling well. I called my husband because he had the van with the car seats. He went and picked up the sick boy and took him home. But the question was, how do we get healthy boy at the end of the day? I had spiritual direction right after work (which was why Hubby had the van in the first place) and he had a meeting at 4 PM that he really needed to be at.

I gave him two options:
1. I cancel my appointment for spiritual direction and come home by 3:30 so he can go back to work. He could take the van and pick up the healthy child on his way home.
*OR*
2. I keep my appointment and he misses his meeting, I come home at lunch to switch cars and after spiritual direction I can pick up the healthy child on my way home.

I fully expected Hubby to choose option 1. I was surprised when he chose option 2 instead. He seemed concerned that this was a meeting that he had to be at, and yet he chose the option that meant he had to miss this important meeting. I was willing to reschedule my thing, but I wanted him to make this decision since either way, he had to leave work to begin with because he had the only car that could transport our children.

I don't know if he chose the way he did because he felt like my spiritual direction was more important or if he decided that as long as he was home he might as well stay there? Either way, I recognized that he gave up something, completely changing his plans, for me and my plans. It made me smile because he made a sacrifice for me, small as it might have been in the grand scheme of things, and it allowed me to continue working on my spiritual growth.

Thank you, Jesus, for the wonderful man you have given to me.

Letter to my Children Regarding their Future

Dear Peter and Ethan,

Source: morgueFile

A couple of days ago your father and I began to teach you both about the awesome privilege we have in this great country of ours to vote for our leaders. We bundled you up, strapped you into your stroller, and walked across the park to cast our vote for several of our leaders. You won't remember this experience, but one day you'll appreciate that we wanted to take you along for this very important event.

It's my belief that this election was one of the most important elections I have ever voted in. In many ways I was voting for your future and the future of all those to come after you. You see, this country has started to lose its way. It's a sad realization and, as your mother, it scares me for what is in store for your future.

One day we'll teach you about the sacredness of human life. As a child you'll grasp this concept and understand it better than many adults. Most children know instinctively that a baby in the womb is a human baby and deserves protection and love, not death. Children are often wiser than adults. Today, in 2012, we have many leaders who don't value the life of unborn children. It is incomprehensible. You'll probably ask me about it one day in your innocent, childlike way and I'll be lost for words to explain it. For there's no way to explain how so many people, who should know better, can think it's okay to commit murder in the womb.

In this week's election our great country re-elected a man who has no qualms about promoting the  killing of unborn children in the womb. Not only that, he believes that federal money should be used to accomplish the goal of making this so-called "service" available to all women. And to top it off, he also thinks this "service" should be available at all hospitals and 100% covered by all insurance companies, including those hospitals and insurance companies founded on Catholic moral principles.

What I want you, my children, to understand is that I love our country. America is a great place to be and we are blessed to have been born here. Billions of people around the world will never know the blessings we have. I want you to grow up to love your country and fight hard to keep her a land of blessings for many. But I also want you to learn that no matter what, you are a Catholic first.

You are a Catholic because we baptized you into the faith. We took a vow to raise you in the Catholic faith and we take that vow seriously. As Catholics our destination is not here on earth, it's the Kingdom of Heaven. We are made to be with Jesus Christ. This means that we may experience suffering and persecution here on earth, even in this country of so many blessings. I fear that the sufferings and persecutions will only increase and that you'll bear the brunt of this more so than I ever will.

As a Catholic it's important for you to understand that you have a right to Freedom of Religion in this country. This means that the government is not supposed to tell you how you can practice your religion. This means that the government is not supposed to tell you that you can't practice your religion. And this means that the government is not supposed to tell you what aspects of your well-formed conscience you need to compromise on. Unfortunately, with the outcome of this election, I fear that the government may be interfering in these matters more and more.

This week's election was a very important one for our nation. Unfortunately this election revealed that this great country is losing its moral fiber. Your father and I and many of our friends will continue to fight for the unborn children that would have been your peers and we'll fight to be able to practice our faith in our daily lives. I don't want you to one day be standing in a country that is falling apart and wonder why we, your parents, didn't do more.

I pray that we'll win our fight and not pass it on to you and future generations. 

May God bless the United States of America.

Source: morgueFile

This post has been linked up at the Catholic Bloggers Network, November round-up.

Saturday Smiles, no. 18

God has blessed my husband and I in an amazing way. It's hard not to smile at this:

And sometimes, this is all I need to remind myself of His love for me.