A weekend to remember...

Sometimes March 5th comes and goes without a single thought about my dad.  Other times, he's on my mind all day long.  You see, today my daddy would've been 57 years old.  He died 9 years ago after having a massive heart attack.  The phone call I got on that horrible night still lingers in head from time to time.  I literally can recall the entire conversation.  I was working at hotel in Tuscaloosa.  My cell phone was plugged in and sitting on the ground.  It rang and I missed the call.  As soon as I had a second, I sat on the floor and found that the missed call was from my brother and called him back.  Thank God I was already sitting down.  All he said was, "dad passed."  What came out of my mouth can't be repeated.  It was a line of obscenities and screaming.  I was certain my brother was playing a horrible trick on me.  I was hoping with every ounce of me that he was playing a horrible trick on me, but he wasn't.  My daddy died on September 21st, 2002.  He was a man that, through his death, I have learned to love beyond measure.

But this weekend also is a weekend to celebrate.  Just a year ago tomorrow, our baby girl was baptized into the Catholic faith.  Hubby and I, alongside her amazing godparents, vowed to raise her and guide her with a love for our Lord.  What a glorious day that was!  We shared it with so many of our family and friends 

It's very fitting that I'm able to remember my father and celebrate my daughter in the same weekend.  He truly would've adored her.  And, even in all his faults, he had so much to do with who I am today.  I hope to take all the wonderful things he taught me and teach them to my children.  One of those was to never strive for anything but the best....and for Zep, Bright Eyes, and Sunshine, anything but the best just isn't acceptable!

so I'm a worrier...

I'm a worrier...I'll admit it flat out.  I worry about all decisions, from the most important to the most ridiculous.  Before Zep started pre-K, I emailed all my friends to see what sort of lunch box they would be buying their children.  This made complete sense to me then; I didn't want my child to bring in the really uncool lunch box and be branded forever as "silly lunchbox boy."  Big decisions are even worse.  When I made my first car purchase, I clearly remember sitting in front of the salesman crying as I signed all the papers.  They definitely weren't tears of joy.  They were, "oh my goodness, can I really handle this much of a payment for 5 years!!!"  Sleep is lost, time is spent researching things to death, and in general, I'm a nutcase.  Hubby sometimes hears so much about my worries over things that he begins to tune me out.

Currently, we are in the middle of making a big decision that will drastically change the dynamics of our family. A series of two sentences spoken between a friend and I over a month ago at a girls' weekend has, in the last two weeks, turned into a whirlwind of upcoming changes.  Hubby and I have talked about homeschooling the kids for a couple years now.  Our goals for our children are pretty simple.  First and foremost, we want them to go to Heaven.  And secondly, we want them to have a solid education that opens the world to them.  They currently attend a Catholic private school that we love, and if our pocket books were deeper we would probably continue to keep them there.  To reach our goals for our children, we've decided the best option would be to keep them home and school them ourselves.  Plus, we would love more babies!  More babies = more money.  Private school = no money.  My engineering education may not be doing much for me today, but it did enough for me to know that more money does not equal no money.  So, the decision has been made.  I am a soon-to-be homeschooling mommy!  Who woulda' thunk it??  I'm beyond excited!!!  If you run into me, be prepared to hear about it.  I think I'm bursting at the seams!!

But remember, I'm a worrier.   And, oh my has it begun!!!  To sum up just a few of my worries:

• which curriculum??  Seton, Mother of Divine Grace, a mixture of classical?????? 
• to teach Latin or not to teach Latin?
• how many extra-curricular activities should I enroll them in??  I don't want them to be recluses.
• how in the world am I going to manage teaching high school?
• are these dang kids even going to listen to a word I say?
• am I going to ruin them?
• if I ruin them and they're not smart enough to go to college will they blame me??
• if they don't go to college will they be able to get a decent job???
• if they blame me and don't have a decent job, how will they pay for their years of therapy??
• .....

Can you see where this is going?  And of course, EVERYONE has an opinion!  Which is fantastic, and then well, not so fantastic.  You see, just yesterday morning I thought we had it all figured out.  Seton Home Study it was going to be...we were on board to sign up in just a month.  And then I sat down with a group of seasoned, Catholic homeschooling, veteran mommies who shook up my world!!  They had a wealth of knowledge, none of which included a Seton curriculum.  One of the mothers even had her 15-year-old daughter in tow...who was AMAZING!!  I mean, really, how often do you meet any teenager that speaks with perfection, is completely comfortable among adults, and praises her form of education?  I walked out of our meeting feeling even more overwhelmed.  After worrying for another 24 hours, I think I'm finally back to having made a curriculum decision, but who knows what worries tomorrow will bring.

God continually surprises me with placing people in my life during these times who always say the most appropriate things.  These are what will get me through the worries of tomorrow:

• "Anxiety and worry are not of God."
• "Stick with what you know."
• "Heaven not Harvard"
• "What grade will you be teaching next year?"  "Then that's the only grade you need to know."
• "Opinions are like armpits.  Everyone has one and sometimes they stink!"

Meeting the new cousin!

My beautiful sister-in-law gave birth to a beautiful baby girl, February 27th.  We've already fallen madly in love with her!  The boys were able to meet her and spend a few hours with the new family.  You probably can't tell from the picture, but Sunshine is super excited to have a new little girl to play with at the lake!  I'm respecting the parents wishes by not posting a picture of their angel online.  But isn't the flower so precious!  :)

March 2nd, 2011

The circle of life...

It has been a joyous and heartbreaking two days.  It's amazing how in just a short 24 hours you can experience such extremely different emotions.  It's hard as well to understand how God can have a hand in both events.  One so beautiful and wonderful and another filled with grief and doubt.

I drove to Tuscaloosa yesterday afternoon.  For the first time in ages, I had the car all to myself.  I said two rosaries during that drive.  One for a baby about to be born and another for a baby who had just been called to Heaven.  I found it comforting that the prayer I prayed for both was basically the same...for God to be with each of them and bless them for eternity. 

I've never lost a child, though I've had three.  Hubby and I call them ours.  Our Zep, our Bright Eyes, our Sunshine.  And the beautiful baby who entered the world yesterday will be her parents "our" as well.  But today as I sat in the back of a church filled with people, things suddenly came into reality for me.  There sat this tiny casket containing the body of a baby who never experienced a breath in this earthly world.  Her parents surely will and had called her "our".  Yet, God decided that it was her time to come home. 

Today, and hopefully every day, I want to remember to praise our Lord for allowing me to be an earthly parent to three amazing children.  I want to ask Him for strength, courage, and wisdom to guide them in the way He would desire.  Because ultimately our children are His.  Our babies, they were never ours to begin with.  He could call them home any day.  As much as that thought brings me to my knees, I have to allow myself to trust my God and be thankful for every second He's allowed me to have with them.  But most importantly, I have to hold on to the knowledge that we will all dance in Heaven again some day.

In Christ, there are no goodbyes
And in Christ, there is no end

So I'll hold onto Jesus with all that I have

To see you again

- Mercy Me

And I'm the winner...

of the really crappy blogger award!!!


My hopes and dreams of keeping this blog up to date are slowly flying out the window. I still haven't put the boys' 2009 books together. Heck, I haven't even finished blogging about 2009. I feel the need to recommit myself though. Lent starts in roughly two weeks. I have big plans...that I won't be sharing all of. One of those that I can share is a promise to write daily and catch up this blog.

Lately my thoughts have been leaning toward starting a whole separate blog. An additional space to write my thoughts, struggles, and insights into the world of being a young Catholic mother. Instead, I may just open this blog back up and intertwine the two. This is definitely something I'll ponder and pray on.

Today though, I feel like writing a bit about the evolution of my Catholic faith. Probably very boring to most, but to me it is who I am. It shapes every aspect of my life. Without the Church, without Christ, I would be nothing.

I am a cradle Catholic. This isn't always seen as a good thing in the Church. The converts usually seem to be much more on fire for their faith than those that have been around since they were baptized as infants. It's sad really, but that's a post for another day! My mother is Catholic and my father was raised (half-heartily) Lutheran. I definitely believe that my faith started with my mother. Every Sunday morning, she brought my brother and I to church, 99% of the time she did so without my dad. He felt the need to only attend three times a year...Christmas, Easter, and Mother's Day. I often look back at these days in amazement at what a wonderful influence my mother was for us. I personally believe she struggled with her faith a lot during these times, but what captures me is her commitment to not stop going.

So, all during my childhood, I was a regular on Sunday mornings. I participated in CCD, youth activities, and every retreat I could convince my parents to let me attend. And then, I went off to college. Church suddenly wasn't as important to me anymore. God truly stepped in during my sophomore year and introduced me to a boy that He would use to change my life.

This boy was also a cradle Catholic whose parents were both Catholic. Like myself, he could always be found in church on Sunday mornings as a child. But unlike me, he didn't stop going when he went off to college. And well, for this boy, I would've done just about anything. And he wanted us to go to church. For the next three years we stayed pretty active in the Catholic church on campus.

Fast forward to years later, The boy and I were now married with a couple children and our church life hadn't changed. We attended every Sunday and felt like good Catholics. In 2008, our world shifted. We were introduced to the Cursillo movement, and suddenly we realized that we weren't Catholic at all. We didn't practice many of the teachings of the Church, and we left our faith at the door every Sunday as we walked out of Mass.

Most people who know us well, will tell you that we've changed drastically over the last two years. Our first big change was to fully embrace the teachings on Natural Family Planning (NFP). After challenging ourselves, with an open mind, to understand why the Church teaches what they do, how could we not live this way. We have fallen in love with this wonderful gift that God provided us with, but that doesn't mean it has been easy. We have struggled with criticism and skepticism.  It's really been shown to us just what Christ meant when He said that following Him would not always be easy. The blessings that we have received through NFP are immeasurable and are absolutely worth every struggle.  We also now make a very active effort to follow all of the teachings from the Magisterium. We no longer want to be "cafeteria Catholics." Each Sunday we want to know that we are fully in communion with the Church, so that we are truly worthy to receive the most precious thing Christ left for us here on earth...His body and blood.

The evolution of my faith, our faith, definitely isn't over. If one ever gets to a point where they think they've learned enough, well they're probably in trouble!! God is so far beyond human understanding; how could we ever understand it all? We have so much more to learn, and there are so many places that we can continue to improve. Right now, we focus on our ministries and callings. Mine as a mother and Gregg's as a father and provider.

One thing is absolutely certain...we praise God daily for the Church and our faith!

The neglected third...

You remember how after you had your first child you couldn't wait to expose them to everything?  Zep went to the zoo before his tiny baby eyes could even focus in on the animals.  He went to his first playgroup at only 3 months old.  And then with the second born, things sort of slowed a bit.  You still remember to get their picture taken during the first haircut, but taking them out of the stroller at the zoo so they can see above the walls and actually catch a glimpse of the gorillas suddenly doesn't cross your mind anymore.  If we ever make it to number four or five, I worry we may forget to even put them in the car before we leave the house!!

It suddenly occurred to me that the child that we call Sunshine has never really had a chance to play in it!  So out we went on one of the first beautiful days this year.  She mastered climbing the stairs on the playhouse.  I would then maneuver her around so she could go on her tummy, feet first, down the slide.  She did it over and over and over again.  She eventually moved off to crawl through the grass a bit.  I think Bright Eyes really enjoyed giving his little sister a tour of the backyard.  He kept close behind her through it all!

Can you believe how bald my blonde baby is???  Bald and blonde??  I swear I birthed her!!

February 17th, 2011

First hike of 2011!

We're spoiled here in the deep South!  For several weeks in February, the weather was gorgeous.  Not too hot and not too cold.  It was the perfect weather to throw a backpack together and head to the woods.  We decided to revisit one of our most favorite places to go letterboxing.  It seems that a bunch of new boxes have been planted over the last year, including one that has a Lost theme.  I think there were 12 boxes total...we managed to snag only 6.  We hiked a total of about 3 miles.  The boys would've kept on going if it wasn't for the setting sun and tired parents. 

I attempted to take some pictures of Sunshine while we were out.  In my mind, I was hoping to save some money on her 12 month pictures.  As it turns out, I'm far from a professional.  Hope she doesn't mind that we've become cheap as the number of children have increased!  :)

February 13th, 2011