Dearest Texas,

I love you. I really, really do! For five years, I suffered Michigan winters and then the foreign land of Miami, always pining to move back to my home, sweet, home. The joy I have had since moving back and finding kindred spirits, friendly neighbors, and a new connection for my children with their grandparents is incomparable. My heart has been glorying in the ambitious plans my husband and I have concocted to finally buy land (at least 10 acres) and create a home for our children with space, privacy, safety, and above all lots of nature! BUT...

We have never been as sick as we have been this winter. Among the five of us, we have had: migraines, several cold viruses, a sinus infection, the stomach flu, random coughs, an ear infection, croup, and most recently, the common flu, culminating with another bout of gastroenteritis. Please stop the madness!

I realize this has been a hard winter for many families, partly due to the incredible cold weather across the country, but we are generally very healthy people. I think we get maybe one or two cold viruses each winter. This season has really made it difficult for me to stay on top of anything at all.

So, pretty, please! Out with the germs! In with the bluebonnets already!

Sincerely,
A Devoted Fan

My Word for 2011 - Little Part 1

As I said before, I have found a word for 2011. I am writing about it a bit late, because I don't know about you, but our family has been hit with every sick bug around this winter. We are usually really healthy, so this season has thrown me completely off.


(insert photo when blogger cooperates)

Without further ado, here is the first of four reasons I am trying to focus on the word    little    this year.

1. I must decrease. He must increase.

Some days I see how much bigger I think I am than I really am. Ann so sincerely shared my thoughts a few weeks ago much better than . While my job is incredibly important, I cannot allow my ways to get in the way of God's ways.

I recently shared with a friend that I find myself caught between two truths. First, God will not give me more than I can handle. Second, I cannot do anything without God. These truths require faith to blend them together seamlessly, and I have been doing a lousy job. Typically, I teeter between believing I can do so much more than is humanly possible and desperately begging God to help me fix everything.

Instead, I need to become little and allow Him to take over and be bigger than me. My controlling nature struggles with this in the small moments of everyday life, although I think I have a decent handle on submitting to God's authority on the big stuff.

Sometimes He Just Needs My Words

(blogger is not letting me post photos again, sorry)

I have a love affair with words. I like to speak them. I like to read them. I like to write them. I like to hear them. But, it occurred to me today when I was rocking the baby that my prayer life as of late has been without my own words.

Now, that is not always wrong. Different seasons in our lives require different methods of prayer. The Lord will lead us to pray the Rosary when He feels we need the meditation. He will lead us to pray in silence when our spiritual life needs such food. And, He will invite us to share the depths of our hearts with him, too.

My prayer life used to be full of my words. For many years, I spent most of my prayer time pouring out my heart to God, and it was good. At some point, however, I noticed that my words ceased being words of faith and praise but merely words of worry and whine. So, I stopped.

I turned to spiritual reading and meditating on Scripture and the Rosary, all very good things. Of course, with a new baby, I lost my rhythm of these prayers. My mother's hear merely exhaled aspirations throughout my days...and sleepless nights, also good. About a month ago, however, I began longing for more.

And, in keeping with my realization that it took me about a month to get started in this new year of 2011, today, I hear the Lord ask for my words again. My own words formed in this mother's heart and spoken in the voice of my soul while I rock a fussy baby to sleep once again. After all, I had become frustrated unable to hold a Bible or book without little hands grabbing fistfuls of delicate pages.

He needs to hear my words. In fact, He longs for them like I long to be close to Him. Sometimes nothing else will work to bring us closer together but the words that I conceive in my heart. Lord, help me to speak words of faith and praise in prayer today.

What season of prayer are you called to these days?

Reader Readers...

I finally made some long overdue design updates to the blog, which included changing the feed settings for you. I know I am more likely to read a post in my reader than click over to the actual blog, so I wanted to make that easier for you. As you know, my goal is not how many hits but how many hearts. :) So, click on over and tell me what you think. Disclaimer: my eye for beauty in graphic design is quite underdeveloped.

A few reads that made me smile this week...

Who Is Praying for Snow? by Marcel at Aggie Catholics
The Magic Hairbrush and Other Tales by Elizabeth at In the Heart of My Home
The Big, Black Boot...Risk, Trust, & Love by Kate at Momopoly
M&M Math by Charlotte at Waltzing Matilda

We are expecting snow here in Texas tonight which cancelled our homeschool co-op classes, so I will probably get some blogging done!

Blessings,

Review: My First Prayers for Christmas - Catholic Board Book!

So untimely of me! Through the generosity of TiberRiver.com, I received a copy of My First Prayers for Christmas by Maite Roche. Part of my delay in posting this review is that I wanted to be sure to include my children’s responses, and the book ended up being the perfect Christmas present for the baby.


To me, it is so rare to find quality Catholic children’s literature, much less in board book format. Most religious board books I find are beautifully Christian but not authentically Catholic. This book is just that, and I am thrilled to see there are three other board books in the series put out by Magnificat and Ignatius Press: My First Prayers with Mary, My First Bedtime Prayers, and My First Prayers for My Family.


In this title, there are seven unique prayers, and each one can play a special role in a child’s preparations for and celebration of Christmas. The first prayer is a prayer of anticipation, and it echoes the joy children have in preparing their homes and hearts for Christmas. The next two prayers are of rejoicing and thanksgiving for the birth of Christ. The fourth prayer is appropriate for Christmas Eve, while the fifth is in thanks for the happiness of Christmas Day. Finally, there is a prayer to honor the three wise men, appropriate for the Epiphany, and another to honor the Holy Family on the Feast of the Holy Family.


Such a subtle yet meaningful touch to this book is that each page begins with “In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. The words are simple and clear, printed in a text that is both bold and clean, spaced and sized perfectly for little eyes. A beginning reader could certainly read the book with only a little help from mom or dad.


The illustrations are done in bright colors, often depicting a family of five with wonderful detail, such as wedding rings and cross necklaces. There is great joy and peace on the faces of everyone depicted, whether it be Mary and Joseph or a cat playing with an ornament. These pictures are delightful to study as you pray the corresponding words for both young and old.


The baby is not quite old enough to fully appreciate board books yet, but he did seem to enjoy looking at the colorful pages. My older children read the prayers together and were inspired by the ease with which they could pray together with the book. My son, an emerging reader, mostly enjoyed looking through the illustrations and seemed to spend quite a bit of time before bedtime one night really soaking in the scenes.


Overall, I am thrilled to find such a quality series for my littlest children! I look forward to bringing this book out next year during Advent to read with my youngest, who will be a toddler more capable of understanding the prayers. I will definitely look for the other titles in the series, as I think they would make wonderful gifts for Easter and Baptism Day! I really do not think you will be disappointed in these treasures, as the care and thought put into them show through in the sincerity of each page.