Children

Children
"God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him."
(1 Jn 4:16)

Sunday, December 31, 2006

Waiting for Baby

As Christmas approached, we were waiting for the birth of Jesus and of our little one. I kept thinking about Mary and how in the last days of her pregnancy, she traveled to Bethlehem. I thanked God for his goodness and listened to Theresa pray each night that the baby be born at Christmas time.

Theresa is continuing to pray that the baby is born at Christmas time and I know that her prayers will be answered. The only thing that I am not sure of is which day of Christmas our newest little one will be born. According to Bernadette when doesn't matter because "this baby is an early birthday present to" her.

As we continue to celebrate Christ's birth and wait for the birth of our little one, I cannot help but think, "Children are so wise."

Thursday, December 21, 2006

Windstorm

On December 15, we woke up at 1:00 AM to one of our carbon monoxide monitors beeping. The power had gone out during the night and the battery in the monitor had died. Shortly after waking, we heard a crack and a crash outside. I raised the blind to see what had happened and found the children's favorite tree lying flat on the lawn. Within seconds, I was yelling and praying as I saw two of our tall, old pine trees starting to fall. Miraculously, these 70-some-year-old trees fell, missing everything but a section of the fence. God is so good!
The power remained out for almost 3 days. The temperature in our house dropped to a low of 50 degrees (outside it was in the 20s and 30s), despite a constant fire burning. Our children thoroughly enjoyed the power outage. Catherine was happy to be "living kind of like Laura Ingalls Wilder" would have lived. They all liked sharing beds at night and being covered with lots of blankets, in addition to their comforters. The storm proved to be quite an adventure for them. I found that the 45 mile an hour sustained winds, with gusts between 60 and 100 miles per hour, brought neighbors together. Some of our neighbors shared their wood with us. A man, who lives in the neighborhood behind us, offered to cut up the trees for us. We will be working in our backyard together.

We will be spending the next couple of months, or so, getting rid of the debris via our yard waste, filling in the huge hole left by the trees' roots, having at least one precarious tree (another tall pine) cut down, and planting a couple of new trees. In the spring, we will put grass where the three pine trees stood. The children are excited, as they will have more room to play.

All you winds, bless the Lord; praise and exalt him above all forever. Fire and heat, bless the Lord; praise and exalt him above all forever. Cold and chill, bless the Lord; praise and exalt him above all forever. Daniel 3:65-67

Tuesday, December 12, 2006

Happy Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe!

O Antiphon House

Thanks to Katherine, we have a new custom this Advent. We have been busily preparing our O Antiphon House so that it will be ready by December 17. We used Katherine's wonderful idea and Jennifer Miller's pictures at Catholic Culture as a guide. Instead of placing a picture of Christ's Nativity at the top of our O Antiphon House, the children decided to use our miniature nativity figures. I am very excited about this new tradition. The picture below shows what our finished House will look like.


Thank you Katherine for sharing your beautiful O Antiphon House with us.

Update: Since Katherine's blog is no longer available, I have had a few questions about the O Antiphon house. Below is one response that I sent:
I bought the Nativity figures at our local Catholic bookstore. All of the other supplies were purchased at Michaels. The children used purple, yellow, and gold acrylic paint and various colors of permanent markers to decorate the house, stars, and blocks. 
Starting on December 17, each night, a child places a block in the O Antiphon House. As one of the children does so, we all sing, "O Come, O Come Emmanuel". Baby Jesus is placed in the manger at the top of the house while we sing all of the verses on Christmas Eve. The O Antiphon House has become a beautiful part of our Advent traditions.

Monday, December 11, 2006

Saint Nicholas

I have been a little preoccupied getting ready for the appearance of our little blessing from God and am therefore a little behind in my blogging. On December 3, St. Nicholas visited our parish in anticipation of his December 6 feast day. All of the children enjoyed his visit, except for Patrick.

Patrick was excited when St. Nicholas first came into the parish hall. However, when he went up to receive a bag of candy from St. Nicholas and was given a holy card, Patrick tossed the card on the floor.

When one of St. Nicholas' angels gave Patrick a bag of candy, he was quite pleased to show it to St. Nicholas.

Once it had been shown, Patrick focused on his candy and wanted nothing more to do with St. Nicholas. Our little boy has a lot to learn.

Thursday, December 07, 2006

Things I Heard

I know this is a little late, but on Thanksgiving day I heard two things that I thought were cute.

Upon seeing the dining room table, Patrick said, "Oh, turkey lurkeys on the table."

Theresa watched me as I rolled L'il Smokies in crescent rolls. All of a sudden, she said, "Mommy that's what Samuel Whiskers and Anna Maria did to Tom Kitten."

Friday, December 01, 2006

Catholic Homeschool Carnival

Mary Ellen is hosting this month's Catholic Homeschool Carnival. For some wonderful ideas about observing Advent and celebrating Christmas, please be sure to visit O Night Divine.
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