Where Have We Been - What Have We Been Up to?

Well, May has been a very hectic month for us. Collin graduated from preschool, Morgan is full steam ahead in softball, school has many things going on - the musical, field trips, May crowing etc., Mary had her first Holy Communion, and just generally we have been busy with yard work, riding bikes, and just plain ol' being outside! Oh and I almost forgot - I have been busy with bible study and also developing a new religious education program and a new TOB (Theology of the Body) program for our parish/school to adopt. I had a meeting with our pastor and then the subsequent Friday I had a meeting with our principal to discuss all my ideas... all this plus the usual butt wiping and laundry washing, folding and putting away (see picture provided = one day's laundry) Then our youth minister asked me to facilitate a 12 week session of TOB over the summer for adults. I love it but I'm also a little nervous about it too...have I bitten off more than I can chew? Maybe but I'm letting the Holy Spirit lead me... Here's some pics - ENJOY!!!

A Bunch of my Favorite Images

A LONG while back Shelray from over at CLS made this compilation of some of my favorite images...I just now figured out how to find it again on youtube and I'd thought I'd post it.

Thanks Shelray!!!

Love Is Asparagus

You may say Huh? But it's true. Love is asparagus. I opened the fridge and found a bunch. A pretty bunch of flowers picked just for me. Everybody hates them - especially Tim. I'm the one and only around here who loves to eat them. So when they end up unexpectedly in my fridge I know how much I'm loved. Love is asparagus. For that matter love is diet Pepsi, yogurt, zucchini, and soy milk too!!! It's so nice to be loved...

Another Flashback Just For Fun

German Progress

I just got this e-mail from Martin...he's updating us on the new addition progress. Here are some pics to go with... Soon He and Kelly will be here with us and having a much deserved and need VACATION from the craziness of 3 children, work, and a home under construction!!!!

Hi everybody,

as announced, we've been a little overwhelmed with the latest stage in our remodeling project, e.g. rearranging the first floor. We've moved all into Tobias' room, and just have a microwave, a hot water boiler and five plates at our disposal.
Me being sick for most of the kids' Easter vacation hasn't helped either, but we are managing. We (I) had hoped that we would be able to move into the new kitchen this weekend, but we have to postpone that.

After the 'deconstruction', e.g. ripping out the old walls, was quite fast, the 'reconstruction' is a lot more tedious than I expected, and most corners and edges still have to be redone next week. Keep your fingers crossed to send you more finished pictures next week!

Enough words. Here is the new entrance, you can see that we ripped out the wall to widen the entry space - well, it will hold our coats and shoes. The space was taken from the (old) living room."

Children of the 70's or What???

Easter Pics

Cutie

Mary Turns 8 Monica 3 (very belated pics from their birthdays)

Calling All Mothers - Embrace Birthing Pains

I have said it before and gotten a lot of complaints about it , but I'll say it again. I believe that it's important to experience labor and birth pains. They should not be avoided or eliminated. Women should try their best to embrace them, learn from them, and ultimately GROW as a result of them. Often women will joke about the pain and say something like "stick the epidural in right from the start or just knock me out and wake me up when it's over etc etc..." But although I can totally relate to the pain and the fear and the despair even that this event can bring about I think we women are really missing something big, HUGE even about the miracle of birth when we "numb" ourselves to it all.

There's a line from a movie (G I Jane) that states "Pain is good. Pain is your friend. It lets you know you're alive." These lines apply so well to us everyday non-GI folks as well. But our culture is so much about avoiding pain, avoiding discomfort, minimizing sacrifice. Frankly, those of us who believe strongly in a God who became man and then suffered and died for us really miss the opportunity we've been given to unite ourselves with Him when we separate pain from birth. Pain goes together with birth, new life, making it all the more beautiful. Can't we see how important the pain is? Why do we limit the beauty by denying ourselves a share in His suffering?

Over at ..perfectly clear..:A second time mom relates her recent birth story. She describes so well the despair the "Oh God why hast Thou forsaken me?" moment all mothers go through in the midst of laboring. She writes: "The hopelessness of being within moments of giving birth is like nothing else. I've been mulling those minutes over in my mind for days now--and that's the best word I can think of to describe them. Hopeless. They're dark, doubtful moments when you no longer trust yourself or anyone else, but are in complete submission to God and to the natural processes he built into mankind. It's really quite a glimpse of a world without redemption. Though somewhere, in the deep recesses of your mind, you know that soon, the pain will be gone. Soon, you'll meet your baby...soon, but not now. Now, you have just endured hours of painful, exhausting contractions. And the baby is still inside. There's no way out or around it, you just have to go through it--but suddenly you don't want to. At least I didn't. I was ready to close up shop. I remember thinking, in the foggy moments between very intense contractions, 'Why can't I just take a nap? Can't I finish this tomorrow?'

It was truly divine that, during these precise moments, our aforementioned friend, Renee, had stopped by to pick up Ambrose until after the birth. I'd had my doubts about laboring without any other womanly presence (my last birth was with a midwife), but figured I'd manage to find a way to get the baby out one way or another. As nice as it was to be with my sweet little family, there's something that starts to ring awfully hollow about the encouragement of your husband during an event so exclusively feminine as birthing."

How beautiful. How true. How I do envy her. My birth experiences have ALWAYS left me with a great sense of being drawn closer to Jesus. In those moments I feel closer to Him than at any other. Also I get a glimpse just a little glimpse of what Divine Love is like for us His creatures. He gives birth to us in pain and agony for love of us. He suffers in order to bring us into new life. We are born of his sacrifice and his pain. As mothers why should we ever choose to run from this great and glorious opportunity. It is a privilege to be a woman. Such an honor has only been given to us - the mothers of the world!!

my kind of kids!!!

this warms my heart. If only this were the reaction of EVERY child upon hearing the news of a new sibling to share life with!!

I Really Want This!

Has anyone ever seen and used this kind of stroller before? I need to get a stroller for this spring and summer etc. It must be convenient but also be helpful with both Christopher (the baby) and Monica ( my 3 year old).One Step Ahead Baby - Sit 'n Stand Elite Stroller and Double Stroller

One of the Many Reasons I love to read Danielle Bean

Danielle Bean: "Confirmed: These children have turned my brains to mush.
Big Boy: I don’t think Raphael should be outside right now — we’re shooting my BB gun.
Me: Wha? I didn’t know he went outside!
Big Boy: Really? Then who buttoned up his coat for him?
Me: I did."

ZENIT - Magdi Allam Recounts His Path to Conversion

ZENIT - Magdi Allam Recounts His Path to Conversion: "Dear Director, you asked me whether I fear for my life, in the awareness that conversion to Christianity will certainly procure for me yet another, and much more grave, death sentence for apostasy. You are perfectly right. I know what I am headed for but I face my destiny with my head held high, standing upright and with the interior solidity of one who has the certainty of his faith. And I will be more so after the courageous and historical gesture of the Pope, who, as soon has he knew of my desire, immediately agreed to personally impart the Christian sacraments of initiation to me. His Holiness has sent an explicit and revolutionary message to a Church that until now has been too prudent in the conversion of Muslims, abstaining from proselytizing in majority Muslim countries and keeping quiet about the reality of converts in Christian countries. Out of fear. The fear of not being able to protect converts in the face of their being condemned to death for apostasy and fear of reprisals against Christians living in Islamic countries. Well, today Benedict XVI, with his witness, tells us that we must overcome fear and not be afraid to affirm the truth of Jesus even with Muslims."

Doing Cartwheels By Page 2

The past couple of days I've seen the mail carrier drive past our mailbox and I get giddy with anticipation. Like an excited schoolgirl getting a prize delivered I run to the box to collect the contents. Why so excited about the mail? Because I've ordered a bunch more Bishop Sheen books. They'd been sitting in my Amazon "cart" for months now and I finally went ahead and pointed and clicked them as purchases...

In any event, I have to laugh at myself at how truly giddy I become when I see that they have been delivered to our mailbox! As I ran back across the street and towards our garage I actually caught myself laughing out loud and grinning so hard that I could feel it in my face. I have already finished the Last Seven Words of Christ - FABULOUS!! Now I'm on to Three to Get Married.

As I read the first 2 paragraphs I began doing internal high fives with the Bishop and shouting "hooray" inside my own mind. By page 2 I was doing cartwheels!!! Here's a sampling (pages 1 and 2)

The Difference Between Love and Sex

Love is primarily in the will, not in the emotions or the glands. The will is like the voice; the emotions are like the echo. The pleasure associated with love, or what is today called "sex" is the frosdting on the cake; its purpose is to make us love the cake, not ignore it. The greatest illusion of lovers is to believe that the intensity of their sexual attraction is the guarantee of the perpetuity of their love. It is because of this failure to distinguish between the glandular and spiritual-or between sex which we have in common with anilmals, and love which we have in common with God-that marriages are so full of deception. What some people love is not a person, but the experience of being in love. The first is replaceable; the second is not. As soon as the glands cease to react with their pristine force, couples whoidentified emotionalism with love claim they no longer love one another. If such is the case they never loved the other person in the first place; they only loved being loved, which is the highest form of egotism. Marriage founded on sex passion alone lasts only as long as the animal passion lasts. Within two years the animal attraction for the other may die, and when it does, law comes to its rescue to justify the divorce with meaningless words "incompatibiity", or "mental torture". Animals never have recourse to law courts, because they have no will to love; but man, having reason, feels the need of justifying his irrational behavior when he does wrong.

There are two reasons for the primacy of sex over love in a decadent civilization. One is the decline of reason. As humans give up reason, they resort to their imaginations. That is why motion pictures and picture magazines enjoy such popularity. As thinking fades, unrestrained desires come to the fore. Since physical and erotic desires are among the easiest to dwell upon, because they require no effort and because they are powerfully aided by bodily passions, sex begins to be all-important. It is by no historical accident that an age of anti-intellectualism and irrationalism, such as our own, is also an age of carnal license.

The second factor is egotism. As a belief in Divine Judgement, a future life, heaven and hell, a moral order, is increasingly rejected, the ego becomes more and more firmly enthroned as the source of morality. Each person becomes a judge in his own case. With this increase of selfishness, the demands for self-satisfation become more and more imperious, and the interests of the community and the righjts of others have less and less appeal. All sin is self-centeredness, as love is otherness and relatedness. Sin is the infidelity of man to the image of what he ought to be in his eternal vocation as an adopted son of God: the image God sees in Himself when He contemplates His Word.

There are two extremes to be avoided in discussing married love: one is the refusal to recognize sexual love, the other is the giving of primacy to sexual attraction...

Now go by your own copies and read for yourself...you'll be doing quiet cartwheels as well!!