A New Cousin!

Welcome baby Josephine! What a cutie; we can't wait to meet her! Due to sniffles, we have not been able to see the newest addition to the family, but we look forward to it. Sounds like everything went well for Mom and baby; she was born on the feast day of St. Thomas Aquinas, a great saint to be associated with!

Venting

This winter, the new fad has been 'sitting by the vent'. Why? To keep warm of course! :) In these MN winters coming inside from 0 degree weather or waking up to a 60 degree house will quickly push any little person toward warm air blowing out of vent.

Activities done by the vent: reading books, eating, dressing, just sitting zoned out. Dad introduce the vent idea, so he frequents the kids in this activity more. The bathroom, since it is so tiny and has a vent ends up being a favorite vent destination.

Captivated

Auntie Kim has an audience with her fancy droid and laptop. These kids probably already know more than me about computers....

A look at January

As we are soon looking to close out the month of January, it has proven to be a peaceful month here. It has been so cold, but it is (believe it or not) cozy to have a safe small little house to enjoy company, hot drinks, movies, reading, watching the kids sprint all over the house or whatever. Thankfully, I am not sick of winter (yet!).

We have been very busy this month, but not overwhelmed; and we are fortunate to spend much leisure time with friends and have not been dictated lately by needs that are out of our control such as work, health, or any life things that come up.

Jude is 'gaining' on his sister daily as his abilities to communicate grow each day. He is a smart little boy and his gentle and goofy manner are quite irresistible. [Although, he has been keeping us up at night a bit too much lately!] He is our ball boy with any sort of ball almost always glued to his hand.

Faustina is now reading books to Mom (partially memorized and partially made up from looking at the pictures). She wants to see everything I am doing. As she was watching me cook dinner the other night she stood on the stool next to me rubbing my back and saying: "You are a very good cook Mom. Thank you for cooking us food. Your food is nummy. You are talented." Thanks, Faustina! I'll take the compliments.


Mike is busy with work and I am quite taken with quilting lately. We've been sharing meals with friends and family several times a week. Life is good. Thank you Lord.

The sacramentality of the present moment

I am loving this book ("Abandonment to Divine Providence" by Jean-Pierre de Caussade) that a dear friend from St. Agnes gave to Mike for Christmas. I often struggle to have patience for tasks I undertake, for finishing projects (which often get partway done before I move on!), having patience with people, the list of which patience is connected to is endless, really. Since I was the youngest sibling in my family, I was constantly looking forward to exciting privileges and stages in life that I saw older siblings encounter.

This book calls a person to be fully aware of the present moment and what the Lord has for you. He presents every single moment as an opportunity to learn, a call to holiness, and a submission to the abandonment to Divine Providence. One thing I have fully embraced the past few years is that I am not in control of what life brings my way! So it is absolutely pointless to worry about the past, to worry about the future or try in any way to shape people and events by pure will or control apart from prayer and humility to the Lord's omnipotence.

Really, this mentality is freeing and quite exciting. Of course, God's plan for us are greater than we can possibly imagine. How wonderful and liberating!

Here are a few good quotes from the book:

"The present moment is an every-flowing source of holiness."

"The duties of each moment are shadows which hide the action of the divine will." (love this one!)

"In reality, holiness consists of one thing only: complete loyalty to God's will."

"You are seeking for secret ways of belonging to God, but there is only one: making use of whatever he offers you."

"The truly faithful soul accepts all things as a manifestation of God's grace, ignores itself and thinks only of what God is doing."

"The more God takes from the abandoned soul, the more he really is giving it...the more he strips us of natural things, the more he showers us with supernatural gifts."

"God continues to write his word in our hearts, but the characters will not be seen until the day of judgment."

"Only God's activity can make us holy, for it alone can make us imitate the perfection of our Lord."

It is a concise book in which every line is powerful and and thought provoking. He couches all his insights in Scripture, the sacraments, and lives of the saints. He reminds us that we daily ask for the Lord's will to be done in the "Our Father", but are we truly meaning that and open to it? He points to the Annunciation with Mary and her 'Fiat', her "Let it be done unto me according to thy will". It is a book that creates a new excitement and invigoration for each day.

The new look

As Jude's personality continues to emerge each day, we are learning what a goofy little boy he is. Most the time, he half walk/skips around swinging one arm and laughing at nothing. You look at him and he gives you this hilarious smile you see in the picture. He trys to tickle you and thoroughly enjoys playing with his sister. He really is very entertaining.

Sir William Wallace

Grandpa Lee's dog, Wallace (yes, named after William Wallace from Braveheart), is here with us for this month.

We are very excited for the new addition to the family. Wallace is a dog that pretty much everyone loves. He is friendly, obedient, and easy to take care of. He is staying in the basement and very much enjoys playing with Faustina and Jude. Faustina woke up this morning and asked if Wallace was here, she said, "Oh, good! I have to go say good morning to him!" Feeding Wallace will be her new chore since she did a great job of it this a.m.

I loved having dogs in our family growing up, although they always lived outside. Mike and I never thought we would be dog owners; who knows, maybe Wallace will change our minds. ;)

A New Year

The new year has begun; I really do like this time. With it I associate new beginnings, fresh outlooks and excited anticipation for what the next 12 months bring. On a blog I was reading the other day, a woman was saying she couldn't get into new years resolutions like she normally does. She was saying how she always comes up with resolutions and then the Lord has something totally different in mind for her, so she threw her hands up in the air. An interesting thought, and I believe it has a lot of truth.

The last few days a dear friend has been coming over and spending hour after hour (maybe 16 hours?)helping me organize our home! We went through all the books and organized them (you can see in the picture there are already 2 squares that look messy:), going through drawers, rearranging toys, etc... It has been a great way to start January; now I need to keep things in order!

We were fortunate to bring in January 1 with some friends who came over and brought everything but their kitchen sink! They brought lobster cakes, a ham, bread, veggies, cider, chocolates, crackers, dips. They completely spoiled us.