Christmas 2006

At the MNI (Mom's Night In) I was working on an evening's work, while I teased everyone in the room. Ruthann is such a good sport. I gave it as a Christmas present before anyone got a chance to see the finished project, so I thought I'd show it to whomever cared. The middle flower is actually a baby blue, but the colors got messed up in the pictures somehow. It looked even cuter on my neice. This is the pattern I used from Lion Brand Yarn. I crocheted from about 8pm - 1pm (poor Lisa - I didn't leave her house until 1pm!) Dd10 suggested I sew a vine going around the crown of the hat. I liked the idea alot! (What a creative girl!) My FIL posed for a picture with the hat - he didn't quite do it justice...

This Christmas I've been wrapping presents in all my dad's paper and his cheesy stick-on bows that I inherited from his house. It's with joy of the continuation of his life and sadness at my loss and hope for the future that I do this. Every wrapping session has brought tears and lots of emotion. Each time I stick one of those bows on (I'm a curly ribbon kind of girl myself) I can't help but think of him. I've got one more session to go, and I'm sort of putting it off.

All this emotion has really helped me examine my own parenting and focus on the areas that are lacking. So far, I haven't made much progress which is emotionally draining to see all my faults and not be able to push past them to "just fix it". I am continuing to pray about it and am confident that Jesus will walk hand-in-hand with me to accomplish this most overwhelming task of learning to love as He does.

We are doing the O Antiphons, but I couldn't find a house to do it with, so we're just singing them with our Advent Wreath lighting at dinner. It's a lovely prayer - finding new (although old steeped in tradition that I never knew - so, new to me) names for Jesus. www.wdtprs.com/blog/

There is a little-known fact about the order of these ancient O Antiphons. This
is not apparent in English, but it can be seen clearly in the official language
of the Roman Catholic Church: Latin. The Latin versions of each of the titles of
the Messiah: Sapientia (Wisdom), Adonai (Lord), Radix (Root), Clavis (Key),
Oriens (Dawn), Rex (King), and Emmanuel (Emmanuel). Take the first letters of
each of the titles and write them backwards, thus counting down the days of the
feast: EROCRAS or "ero cras." This means in Latin "I will be (here)
tomorrow".The song "O Come, O Come, Emmanuel" is simply a slightly modified sung version of the seven O Antiphons.

Many questions have been going around about Christmas plans. We usually have Christmas with Dave's family early because one of his brothers takes his family out of state. We did that one last weekend (thus the hat). We'll try something new and see if it works for us. Dave and I will split up for Christmas Eve. I'll take the girls to my step-dad's family and Dave will take the boys to his Grandma's celebration. There's things we each like about each of the parties, but going to all of them is too much for us. I'm not exactly sure why, but I've been better at saying 'no' this season to all sorts of things. I think I'm still pretty busy dealing with pain from my dad and only have so much space in my brain to care what anyone thinks - therefore I end up with what I think is best weighed with what I actually want. Trying to please people doesn't even weigh in this year. Good or bad? I'm not sure - but more relaxing! I'm not sure if we'll go to Christmas Mass (it sounds so redundant since the original meaning of the word Christmas was really Christ's Mass) before we open presents or after - or in the middle. After Mass and presents at our house, we'll end up at my mom's about 3pm. Dave has the next day off, so we can rest and enjoy each other. Then we have a Christmas party with my extended family the next weekend, friends over New Year's Eve and my neice will spend the night that week before school starts.

So.... we're not as busy as in past years, but still a little busier than Dave and I prefer. It makes January a lovely month, along with the fact that dd10 will become 11! OH, and we'll take a few days up at an Inn that we love then, too. Actually, the kids are paying for it with their combined allowances they've saved since July.

Shhh...Christmas presents

Thanksgiving was WONDERFUL! Everyone had a lovely time. I ended up with a cold that went into my chest and I ACTUALLY had to go to the doctor. Did you know that if you are a healthy person who doesn't need the doctor often (I went 4 1/2 years ago?) that they drop you as a patient after 3 years? (I thought doctors strove for healthy people!) I'm all better, now, however.

We've been spending lots of time doing advent activities and crafts... I'll post more about that later.


Shhhh...
For Dd #2's Christmas present, I'm crocheting her an apron & hot pads
and I'm making her a little sweets cookbook of all our family's favorite recipes. I'm adding food jokes and sifting through lots of other jokes to find them. I liked this one

Bad joke of the day:

What's the best thing about Pagan friends?
They worship the ground you walk on.

Welcome back to fall

As we fall back into sickness - 3 kids have colds, 3 kids had the flu each kid was sick with something and we have 4 kids -- you do the math (it sounds like dd10's critical thinking workbook. Create a table...)

we fall back in time - I REALLLLLLLY dislike daylight savings time - what a waste of logic. None of the reasons given in the newspaper for switching make any sense to kids who have to go to bed during the sunlight of summer or make up for the effort involved in trying to "turn off" a 4 year old's internal clock who has gotten up at 6:30am almost everyday of his life....

Quote of the Day : dd6 to dd4 - "You're a really great worker. The job of taking out the trash would have taken me a long time, but with your help it went really quick. You're my best bud."

we fall into the holidays: This is the exciting news!! I'm so very excited. I get to have Thanksgiving. I had bought our previous house with having big Thanksgivings and inviting just anyone who wanted a place to come...and now a different house later, it's finally happening! I'm so excited! Some family is coming, but not all (I don't think I'll know who until they show up at the door) and lots of friends are on the invitation list! I can hardly wait!! My house cleaning is coming along and I'M CLEANING WITH GLEE!! (can you imagine? that's totally out of character for me). I've been on butterball's website and found how big of a bird I need to get for that many people!! I'm so VERY excited! I hope it's a blessing and a lovely time for everyone!

Drama Class

Is putting on a play considered a drama class? I don't really know. But we are. We're doing a Christmas Pageant this year. A few years ago, I was anxiously looking for an Advent Play for our Catholic group to put on. I ended up writing one since I couldn't find one that fit. This year we're doing a Christmas Pageant, instead. I'm a little disappointed that the timing won't be liturgically acurate (we'll perform it December's First Friday), but it was a group decision. In case anyone was looking for material, I put the scripts on my website. www.thmg.com/highlanddove/plays.htm

"I'll never be a saint, so I'll have to be a martyr." - St. Joan of Arc

If she didn't think she could be a good enough person for sainthood, no one will convince me that I'm supposed to be confident or impressed with my own measley attempts at obedience. It's my validation for a healthy dose of insecurity. When a person sees her faults smack in front of her face all the time, there's room for improvement, there's motivation for effort, but not much room for pride.

Poetry procrastination

All the kids wrote poems for the library's poetry contest. I didn't turn them in on time. Bad Mama, bad mama!

Who Are Your Friends At the Library?
By DD #1, Age 10

Who are your friends at the library, library?
Are they young or old, new and bold?
Who are your friends at the library, library?

The books are my friends at the library, library.
They are warm and cold and cannot be betrayed for gold.
The books are my friends at the library, library.

How can books be your friends at the library, library?
They cannot talk, they cannot walk.
How can books be your friends at the library, library?

The books are my friends at the library, library.
Any person they can outtalk.
They may not walk, but they can fly like a hawk.
The books are my friends at the library, library.

October, 2006

I Love My Library
By Dd #2, Age 8
You can go anywhere
Or anyplace,
My mom just loves it
Seeing my face,
Laughing so hard
That I fall off my chair,
Crying so much
That I float up into the air.
You can read about science
Or geography
That’s why I love
My Library.

October, 2006

The Book : Lost and Found
by Ds #1, age 6

There is a book
A hook grabbed the book
The cook read the book
He had the hook

The cook liked the book
A crook stole the book
He hid it in a nook
The crook read the book

The police caught the crook
The cook found the book
The hiding place was the nook
The library was the nook

October, 2006

Jenn, how are you doing since your dad's death?

I get this question alot lately. So, here's my answer.

I've been feeling very mixed. Some sadness, some releif, lots of intense apathy followed by guilt over the apathy. I didn't know apathy could be intense. I've been praying for my dad ALOT. It really helps make me feel better - like I'm still a part of his life and making a difference in loving him. I've been surprised about how many nice memories and sweet rememberances I have around me - things he's given us that I scoffed at before and now mean so much now that he's gone (like a checker set the kids were playing with this weekend.)

It definately doesn't hurt as much, but it's more like a "sweet sorrow."

All Saints Day Party

I can't believe we actually made it to one of these. We're usually sick around this time of year, but I guess we got it over with early (I'm not saying we won't get sick for Christmas). It was so nice. We haven't had one of those school days in a long time - Mass, a homeschool activity, then go out to eat. We used to do those all the time!

The kids dressed up as St. Michael, the Archangel / St. Francis / St. Cecelia, patron saint of musicians / St. Philomena. The girls noticed that during the Eucharistic prayer on Sunday, St. Philomena and St. Cecilia were mentioned for intercession. They thought that was really cool. I sure do like living out our faith in such a hands-on way with a God who is so interactive with all of us.

This week I'm trying to get my house clean this week while I don't neglect the kids' school... I'm not overly optimistic, but figure the effort is better than none.


The week before Dave took all the kids and a friend trick-or-treating. I was supposed to, but wasn't feeling well, so I stayed home to pass out candy (which is what I like about Halloween anyway). The kids were a pumpkin, St. Francis, a basket of laundry & a german girl. Our friend had just woken up out of bed.

Well, it doesn't look like I'll get a digital camera for Christmas. While we were shopping this weekend, I saw a George Forman that was a huge rectangle. It looked like I could actually make an entire dinner for us on it! It was $50 and mine is on it's last leg (my dad gave it to me several years ago and it has been USED alot since Dave says that "you can't fool me, I know grilling is cooking" and he's not about to do any of that, so I use my George Forman ALOT.) I also accepted this as a Christmas gift, because I ordered pretty expensive tupperware and Mary Kay this month and didn't exactly tell my husband, yet. We'll find out how much he checks my blog now that he's started his own Insurance Insider.

We had a perfect homeschool picture (in our heads, no digital camera) this Saturday night. Dave lit a fire, the kids were all in their new sleepers playing checkers on a rug checker set that my dad got them years ago in front of the fire -- while one of the kids practiced Christmas hymns for the upcomming homeschool Christmas pageant and the other one played with the hamsters...that room happened to be recently cleaned... it was just soooo sweet! Then Dave roasted marshmellows over the fire for the kids (even though he won't eat them - he doesn't like the taste!) What a wonderful dad! I pray to God that our children choose wisely and God grants them a wonderful marriage. It makes such a difference in good times and in bad.