Christmas Wrap Up

Christmas Wigilia dinner H enjoyed helping her little cousin learn about wiring, and they learned to watch each other's backs to maintain a hat-free environment. H was able to spend some time with Uncle Dave and Meagan. We learned two days later that she is soon to be Aunt Meagan. We also learned that she is is newest to the family gets the most gifts. :) Also, this Christmas revealed itself as the year of the bean. Coffee Bean, Dunkin Donuts to be exact...proving, "ask and ye shall receive." And finally...enough!

So Grateful '08 :)

What blessings God has bestowed! We continue to be immensely grateful for the gift of H in our lives. She brings so much joy and teaches so many lessons. How awesome to have a child to demonstrate the life Christ calls us to live.

In this month's Faith & Family magazine, the suggestion was made to sing a short hymn at the Thanksgiving table, in addition to saying grace. So yesterday, before we had a glorious meal, Paul, Keith and I sang "Praise God from Whom All Blessings Flow." H watched on in delighted curiosity.

It is such a gift to be able to pass on your faith to your child. She has not yet mastered the sign of the cross, but she clasps her hands during grace and kisses her picture of Jesus and Mary at bedtime. Well, she also kisses the couch and random other inanimate objects....but I know this is more special - especially when she sees a picture and points to "zeeezus" at Church.

So...in our hopes to continue to teach our faith, now we enter the season of advent. For Paul and I - the ultimate sacrifice is reserving Christmas for the Christmas season. While we have tagged a glorious Christmas tree this morning - we will reserve picking it up for a few weeks.

I found online a book that was a special tradition in our house growing up called "Family Nights." We hope that it will help prepare our hearts to enter in to the real meaning of the season.








Okay...so now for the less "storybook" parts of our holiday, here is a video clip of H's favorite way to entertain us:

First encounter this year...not such a good one.

Declare Thyself!

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Yet another precious H moment

Usually when I am doing chores or getting ready, H likes to "help." This morning, as I was putting on makeup, all of a sudden I felt a little hand on my bare foot. I looked down and found her trying to put on my sock! Ahh! So sweet! So I sat down and helped her put on my sock. She was so delighted with the accolades, she immediately ran back to get me another. The two socks she pulled were slightly mismatched. I think I am wearing them in solidarity with her cuteness!

Isn't She Precious!!

I can not even begin to tell you in how many ways...and how many times a day H floods our lives with joy. NOTHING can compare to the gift of a child!

Continuing to use my freedom of speech...

One thing I have learned during this election, everyone is and should be entitled to their freedom of speech. This is the beauty and gift of being American. This is one thing I am most grateful for to those who give their lives for our country. The freedom of speech is a glorious thing.

Over the past months I have read and shared emails with friends and family of various opinions. I have heard many sides of many stories. While we can all disagree about opinion, we should all respect each others freedom to express opinion. Twice, my McCain/Palin signs were stolen in the week prior to the election. This upset me enough to replace it with a sign "coward's stole my McCain/Palin sign." I am not proud of using the word coward, it was not the most charitable word to use, though I do believe it fits the role of someone who takes that freedom from me.

With that said, in our America today, we have so many new ways, and forums to express our opinions publicly. I am sure everyone received emails from friends and family expressing election opinions. As I am demonstrating now, we have personal blogs. And like never before, people are connecting and expressing opinions with Facebook, a social networking site.

All this freedom of speech has allowed the flame of my pro-life passion to be reignited. While I was never a "closet" pro-life activist, today we have even greater abilities to make our causes/beliefs known. All I can do is pray these discussions allow people to listen and hear Truth. This does not mean find your own personal truth...but find the objective, unchanging Truth is the Truth is the Truth.

One of these Truths: Human Life Begins at Conception. This is not an opinion, this is not a religious belief. This is an objective, unchanging, scientifically proven Truth. Another Truth, abortion kills the life of a human child. And...as our new president-elect has stated...regardless of your position on abortion, we should all agree on reducing the number of unplanned pregnancies (supposedly, therefore reducing the number of abortions).

President-elect Obama has vowed to support a very dangerous and scary bill, The Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA). In his words, "The first thing I'd do as president is sign the Freedom of Choice Act. That's the first thing that I'd do." -- Senator Barack Obama, speaking to the Planned Parenthood Action Fund, July 17, 2007

"If passed into law, FOCA will impose upon the entire country an abortion regime far worse than anything brought on by Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion. And the current level of 1.1 million abortions a year will go up, not down." USCCB

Cardinal Justin Rigali recently wrote the following: "there is one thing absolutely everyone should agree on: We can't reduce abortions by promoting abortion. We cannot reduce abortions by invalidating the very laws that have been shown to reduce abortions. We cannot reduce abortions by insisting that every program supporting women in childbirth and child care must also support abortion. No one who sponsors or supports legislation like FOCA can credibly claim to be part of a good-faith discussion on how to reduce abortions."

Please join me in praying and petitioning your representatives and senators:
Call the U.S. Capitol switchboard to contact the offices of
your Representative and two Senators: 202.224.3121.
Urge them to oppose FOCA

Go to http://www.nchla.org/issues.asp?ID=50 for more info.

Halloween 08

Why we vote pro-life

I am sure many of our blog readers are of like mind. Some are not. Although I have always been adamantly pro-life (since I understood abortion in high school), having our miracle has taken it to a new level. I can't even fathom how anyone could allow abortion to occur. Women (or girls) that choose abortion, often make that choice because they feel they have no other choice. Not only am I adamantly against abortion, I try to help women (and men) know and understand they have a choice...a choice for life. And if they have had an abortion in the past, I try to help them understand forgiveness is available through the grace Christ.

Now...to those in government that choose abortion for our country, there is no excuse. And there is no excuse to those who elect them into office. Have these elected officials NOT seen the pictures of aborted babies? Of course they have. Yet they choose to allow this procedure which kills 4,000 innocent babies every day in the US. Abortion is far worse than any holocaust, any genocide, any war the world has ever seen.

I watched a YouTube video yesterday. Paul and I were both in tears. I hope you will take 5 minutes to watch this video. I met Jill Stanek when I worked at Priests for Life. God bless her for speaking out against the atrocity of born-alive abortions. Senator Obama has voted 3 times against a bill that would squelch this practice. Regardless of his "personal views" on abortion, he is no friend to the unborn, or those who claim to be pro-life. How can we find middle ground when he is in favor of letting babies die cold, on a table. I was very close to throwing up watching the discussion on abortion in the last debate.

I thank God every second of every day for the gift of H. My heart hurts for those that have made the choice of abortion....and I pray they find forgiveness. But for those that make the choice to allow abortion to continue, and those that elect them into office - God have mercy.

Where our milk comes from

There is something fun and unique about getting to hang with the cows that provide our milk. :)

The Sweetest Girl!

This is a blog to brag on my daughter. I have discovered THIS, 12.5 months is my favorite age! She has become so adorably charming over the last week!
Here are a few reasons why:
1. She gives kisses. Now, in addition to the snuggles, she will give me kisses. Earlier tonight I was laying on the couch exhausted. Multiple times she stopped from her activities to walk over and give me an (un-prompted) kiss or two. It was utterly adorable, and some were a little slobbery. She also loves to kiss pictures of babies (ie herself), the dog, baby dolls, little kids, and on occasion, another relative. :)
2. She lights up a room. Seriously! We were at a wedding this weekend. If she is in the middle of a group of people, she strives to win their attention and keep it. She succeeds.
3. She smiles at strangers. She will even push me out of the way if I am in the way of her giving a big cheesy grin at the person behind me.
4. She is honing her dance moves. Boy, did she get her grove on this weekend! I only wish I had video of this. The best we have is this picture (below). Once she heard the beat, she was out of her seat, clapping, dancing, doing this adorable 5 point spin - pivoting on one foot. She has repeated that, and other adorable new moves, several times since being home.
5. She is imitating us; she walks around the house clicking her tongue (what I do to get her attention), she tries to put shoes on her father, she clasps her hands to pray, she swats bugs from her face, etc.

She is her own, most unique, adorable self....growing into an adorable, beautiful little toddler.

From Then...to Now...

Miracle Baby...meet Miracle Worker!

We had the chance to see Dr. Hilgers last weekend and snap these priceless pictures. For those of you who don't remember, Dr. Hilgers is the founder of Creighton Model Fertility Care and NaPro (Natural Procreative) technology. He also preformed two of my surgeries, which led to the conception of our miracle babe. Thank you Dr. Hilgers (sniff sniff) - you are truly doing God's work!!

Birthday Party

Here are a couple of pictures from H's party. Sorry for the delay, we have been having some computer problems of late!






Note to parents...red and black icing do NOT make for easy clean up! Lesson learned. :)

One Year Old!!!

We have spent the last couple days reflecting, tearing up and now...it's official. We have a one year old!! A gloriously wonderful, toddling, lovable, giggling, adorable (did I mention, wonderful) one year old baby girl. We had party, part 1, tonight with family. It began with Mass, and concluding with angel food cupcakes and a gifts. Saturday we will have party, part 2, and we are expecting Hurricane Hanna to rain us in. Ironic. :) I had hoped to update sooner...but obviously, our life has been chaotic. Chaotic, but wonderful. We moved, successfully on August 17th & 18th. We got busy immediately. My parents arrived later as reinforcements. I will try to update with pictures as more gets finished. For now, enjoy pictures from tonight and the last two weeks, don't miss the two video clips at the bottom!

Latest Happenings

A new highlight in our "organic" lifestyle! I decided to let H "air out" the other night. Not only did we have this mess...we also had a puddle on the floor following dinner. :) Note to Self: Naked babies and rice make for fun pictures with big clean up!







And, today we finally pulled out our bikes and explored a new trail. H didn't have the best view (or enjoy the fresh air as much as we did, lol) - but we all had fun.



And....2 weeks to Settlement!!