Lord, That I May See

exactly what I needed to read right now. Stress & Fear

When we decided in November that for Christmas this year we wanted to give our girls a play kitchen I planned on getting some felt food to go with it. But when I looked on Etsy I realized that I would need to spend about $100 just to get them a decent amount of food to share. So then I started looking around for patterns, just on a whim, all the time wondering if I was nuts to think I would have time to make enough felt food in one month. On one long afternoon of research on Thanksgiving weekend, while everyone else was sleeping I found this awesome list of free online food patterns and this online source for wool-blend felt and so I went for it. A week later I had all I needed to make a good amount of felt food. It actually was both enjoyable and satisfying to make and though I didn't get to make a few of things I had planned to -- like donuts, a cherry pie, and crackers -- hopefully I can finish the other things for the Feast of the Epiphany. :) So, I wanted to post pictures ...

My mom sent me this article: Promise Carriers "This Christmas Jesus teaches me about the inherent gift of children, full of promise, full of anticipation, were they never to do another thing but “be,” because what they are, is love. Children simply love. Their smallness, like His, conceals the largess and presence of this love to us and to the world through them. They beckon us with giggles to listen for secret wisdom, to accept divine hugs through little arms, and welcome messy, glorious virtue kisses pressed upon our weary cheeks. How significant that Jesus appeared to the earth as a little, laughing, noisy, Child of Promise." ETA: Along the same lines, here's another link to a song called Unborn that I heard today. It's just beautiful . . .

Making Christmas cookies. (Which ended up completely ruined, by the way. Like, I-threw-them-all-in-the-trash ruined, but at least we tried.) Introducing Rosebud to the "very break-bull" Nativity Scene. The girls love to get it down from the mantle and work with it. Their Fontanini set of just Mary, Joseph, Jesus,and sheep is not as interesting, somehow. Wrapping "presents." I think I need to buy Turtle three rolls of her own tape. :) And then the December 19th snowstorm! Shoveling the walk for the first out of three times. :) The next morning 18 inches! Unfortunately, we can't get to Mass for the 4th Sunday of Advent. But we will celebrate with some more decorating and trying our hand at making some Maple Syrup and Snow Candy like in Little House on the Prairie. :)

Here are a couple of new works I put together for Rosebud recently. The first is Matching Lids to Jars. I have been saving jars and lids for a really long time for this. It's actually hard to collect several whose lids don't mix and match with each other! I wanted about five and I wanted the jar openings to be different enough in size so as not to be confusing and to provide proper controll of error. Rosebud is really good at this, as she is currently very interested in screwing and unscrewing lids. I got the idea for the above work from The Wonder Years blog. You can read about how it works if you visit that post. :) Rosebud LOVES anything with water, so this was very popular for a few days. I think she is a little bored with it now as she would rather pour the water on the floor and drink it or something fun like that rather than do something so sedate with it. :) This Cutting Strips work is not actually new. Turtle has been working with it for a while (she actually pract...

I just have to post this article in the Arizona Republic about Stephanie Nielson . I'm sure that many of you have already read her story yourselves, but I wanted to share it anyway. My friend Laura wrote about Nie Nie last year and ever since she did I have been following her story, in love with and in awe of this remarkable and beautiful woman. I have no words to express the heartbreak and the glory of this life she is living and has lived. Following her blog and praying for her along with the thousands of others around the country, has become part of my life now. As I "watch" her recover and cry over her struggles I have found myself -- vicariously and in a small way -- having once more to face the (at times unbearable) reality of why bad things happen to good people . Our God is so maddeningly unfathomable. While we cannot help trying to reject that He is allowing such things, at the same time we need Him to make sense of this world as we "stand in our dark wit...

#1. I remembered to ask my husband this morning if he won his hockey game. :) He plays late and gets home after I'm in bed. He's always miffed if I don't ask about it. And I even remembered that their team hasn't lost in four games (well, yeah I thought the 4 games were wins, technically they were 2 ties and 2 wins. Now I know. :) ******** #2. Yesterday I cleaned my bathroom, swept the floors and . . . uh, scrubbed down the top of the refrigerator. My husband is teasing me, "So, now can we have the baby since the top of the refrigerator is clean??" but seriously, I HAD to do something yesterday when I was itching in frustration of having no baby clothes to fold and put in drawers. So, clean refrigerator top it is. :) ******* #3. In other baby prep, I've washed and folded baby blankets this week. . . . the Maya Wrap is drying on the rack. . . I've bought the newborn diapers. . . . . Not much I know, but ALL my baby clothes are still in storage an hou...

"In contrast to that, true believing means looking the whole of reality in the face, unafraid and with an open heart, even if it goes against the picture of faith that, for whatever reason, we make for ourselves…. “We are rather too inclined to forget that in the Book of Job…God declares Job to be righteous — Job, who has hurled the most outrageous accusations at God — while he rejects Job’s friends as speakers of falsehood, those friends who had defended God and had found some kind of good sense and answer for everything. “Observing Advent simply means talking with God the way Job did. It means just seeing the whole reality and burden of our Christian life without fear and bringing it before the face of God, as judge and savior, even if, like Job, we have no answer to give about it all, and the only thing left is to leave it to God himself to answer and to tell Him how we are standing here in our darkness with no answers .” – Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, What it Means to Be a Chr...

I return to my seat after Communion on the the 2nd Sunday of Advent and half-kneel, half sit in the pew. I imagine that I stumble forward into light and almost drop my baby into the lap of Jesus. Then I sink to the ground beside Jesus' chair and bury my face into the side of His leg. "Help me Jesus," I breathe, "I'm so tired." Jesus looks down at the baby, touches its little legs gently with His beautiful hands, then smiles and says "Look at this baby that I made, so beautiful and perfect and just for you. Our baby." He or she lies cradled there in the warm folds of Jesus' tunic, stirring and stretching, eyes closed, squeaking that little newborn squeak. I see the baby, and yet, my eyes blur over with tears as I look away. "But Jesus," I beg in distress, "I'm not a good mother. I have nothing to give it." I look up at Him and He looks down at me for a long moment. Then He lays His hand on my head. He doesn't say any...

Last year St Nicholas' Day was sadly omitted in our house. I completely forgot about it till that morning. Fortunately, the girls were too young to have noticed. :) This year, despite Mommy having little to no energy for Advent celebrating this year, we did have a nice St. Nicholas Day! St. Nicholas' Eve we read this book: Saint Nicholas: The Real Story of the Christmas Legend, by Julie Stiegemeyer It's a really nice book for children of Turtle's age and up, though Rosebud liked it too. It ties Christmas gift-giving and treats in shoes back to St. Nicholas and how he wanted to show the love that Jesus had for us and make others happy. (It calls Nicholas "Pastor Nicholas" so I switch it to "Father" or "Bishop.") Turtle was SO excited about St. Nicholas coming in the night that she kept alternating between telling us to go to bed quick and complaining that she wanted to stay up and see him when he visited! There was great excitement in the m...

( Previous posts about Turtle's fashion sense :)

#1. I have four frozen dinners ready for when the baby comes! (Actually it is five if you count the one from a kind friend due with her 2nd soon who planned ahead amazingly! ;) I am glad about this, but if I think about the fact that I probably will want forty -four frozen dinners, then it seems like a drop in the bucket. I mean, heavens, I can barely scrape a dinner together these days with two kids, so I think this baby will have to be six months old before I should attempt a dinner with three ! #2. I have walked two mornings this week, for 30 minutes each, even though my pace has slowed and the aches and pains increased. #3. I drove my pregnant self all the way to get Chipotle last night. It took me an hour to go there and back -- what with the rain, the traffic, the HORRIBLE lack of parking, the wait, the mistaken order, etc. But I got it! And it was worth it! And I came home with a new appreciation for my husband who usually deals with all that when I decide I need Chipotle in t...