An early visit from St. Nick?!?
However, we forgot to lock our door before we left, and when we arrived home, we were all stunned to find a Christmas Tree in our living room!
What a nice surprise!!!!
Now, if we could just figure out where it came from?!?
UPDATE: Well, it turns out that the tree was a gift from 2 of my brothers, Paul & Scott! Actually, my first guess WAS Paul. 🙂 He is such a sweetie! A few years back, on Thanksgiving, I unsuccessfully tried to get him to stay late at my parents and play board games with us, but he said he had another job to do. (He has an Outdoor Lighting business, and is always super busy hanging Christmas lights this time of year.) Anyhow, a few hours later, we headed home and were shocked to find OUR home COVERED in little white Christmas lights! It was BEAUTIFUL! He is always so thoughtful. When I called him last night, I asked if he had been playing Santa Claus again, and he laughed. He said that it was from him & Scott and that they had just done a job for a tree farm who wanted to add a bit of extra lighting in exchange for a few trees.
So that explains how we came home to find a tree in our living room… Something I would have never expected! Don’t I have the sweetest brothers?!
Thanksgiving Day in Pictures
Making Oreo Turkeys
My twin sisters with all three of their nieces.
Snuggles with his Daddy, Godfather, and Grandma.
More pictures…
My parents recently remodeled their kitchen, and it is SO pretty!
A couple of my contributions to the meal.
Feast… Feast… Feast… Feast…
Of my parents 12 children, 11 of us made it home for Thanksgiving this year, in addition to all 7 grandchildren! We sure missed you Sean, I can’t believe it has been 5 years since we have all been able to get together at the same time!!! I am SO bummed that we didn’t take a family photo… Hopefully we can find an opportunity while everyone is still in town.
I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving! God Bless!
Celebrating the Feast of St. Catherine
Each year we celebrate Twinkle Toes nameday on November 25th, the feast of St. Catherine of Alexandria.
Usually I try to make a Heart Shaped Cake for the feast, but this year it was just too much. Instead we were able to pick up a super yummy (White Chocolate Raspberry) cake from a local bakery. They were more than willing to add a pink heart to the top of the cake, which served the purpose just fine. Twinkle Toes loved it!
I wasn’t able to get a picture until it was already missing a piece… but I took one anyways! 🙂
We usually give our children a small gift on their namedays. I generally use it as an excuse opportunity to add another book from my our wishlist, so this year Twinkle Toes received Take It to the Queen: A Tale of Hope
.It was a simple last minute feast day/nameday celebration, but it brought smiles to all our children’s faces in the midst of a very sad week, and for that I was very thankful!
Meeting Godparents
My sister and her family live all the way on the other side of the country, and we were so excited that they were able to fly home for Thanksgiving this year! Not only were we looking forward to seeing them, we were so excited that Snuggles was going to finally be able to meet his Godparents, and that we were going to be able to meet there youngest son, who is also one of our Godsons!
My hubby with our Godson/nephew
Isn’t he a cutie?!? Our Godson is pretty cute too! 😉
So very much to be thankful for…
Our Completed Tree of Thanksgiving
Thank you ♥
I can’t begin to thank you all enough for the outpouring of love and support that you have given to our family. I KNOW that it is all of the prayers that got us through yesterday, and continue to give us the strength and grace that we need right now.
It was such a blessing to have a priest available to hear my confession and give me the anointing of the sick just before my D&C yesterday afternoon. I couldn’t even believe how calm I was, and how accepting I was able to be that this was the will of God. I kept telling my husband that “people must be praying for us!”
My husband conditionally baptized the baby and we will be meeting Father at the cemetery tomorrow afternoon for the burial.
We will always miss our little Gabriel dearly. It helps to do as a priest recommended this past weekend and place myself at the foot of the cross and try and imagine what the Blessed Mother must have felt as she had to watch her Son, the Son of God, die on that cross. She embraced her cross, and in imitation of her, I must try to follow her example. St. John Vianney once said, “our greatest cross is our fear of crosses.”
Through the grace of God, I pray that we will one day be reunited with all our beloved in Heaven. Thank you again for your prayers, may God reward you!
I have overcome the world. ~ John 16:33
Heartbroken
This past Wednesday I went in for my regular OB check up. At the appointment, my midwife was not able to find our baby’s heartbeat. She was not very concerned due to the location of my uterus, and the fact that we had a hard time finding Chiquita’s heartbeat until the second trimester as well. Nevertheless, she gave me the option of either coming back in two weeks for a recheck, or scheduling an ultrasound. I opted for the ultrasound.
My ultrasound was scheduled for Friday morning at 7:30am. I was confident that everything would be fine, but hubby took the morning off work to go with me just the same. I am so thankful that he did.
As the woman started the ultrasound, she didn’t say much. I noticed that she was measuring the baby, and asked about it, but then she changed the screen to my overall uterus and she just said that she was taking a couple measurements. A few minutes later she turned to us and said, “I’m afraid that I have bad news for you guys.”
Our baby’s heart was no longer beating.
It was such heartbreaking news for us, and I immediately started crying.
My uterus measured at the correct 11 weeks gestation, but our baby only measured between 7-8 weeks. They don’t know when exactly our little one died, but said that it could have been anytime in the past few weeks.
My midwife prescribed some pain medicine for when the miscarriage starts, and suggested that I schedule a D&C for Monday or Tuesday, which already happen to be two very emotional days for me each year.
I decided to try and see a very pro-life specialist in the area. I have the appointment tomorrow morning. If I end up needing the D&C, I want to have the best doctor available. I am so scared.
Even though I know that our little one is in God’s hands, and is perfectly happy, I can’t even put into words, how hard this has been for us. It is amazing how quickly you can bond with a child. This baby has only been a part of our lives for a few months, and yet is already so dearly loved and such a precious part of our family.
If you could all please keep us in your prayers, it would be greatly appreciated!
Our Lady of Sorrows, pray for us!
Update: Thank You ♥
Painting Leaves…
Remembering…
You may remember this past summer, I asked for prayers. I would like to share a poem that my sister wrote about:
**If you click over, be prepared to shed a few tears, and please continue to pray, especially for my little brother.
“Now is the time for Saints!”
After reading this post, and thinking about the state of both the Church and our country, I wanted to share the following letter with you all. It was written by a very holy pastor (who is a dear friend of ours and also the Pro-life Director in our Archdiocese) in response to the results of the election:
Pastor’s Corner 11-9-08
Brothers and Sisters,For most people this week, the presidential election was first and foremost in mind. As the pastor of the souls of this parish, for whom I will have to give an account to the good God, it is important to put before you a few observations. Voting in a democracy is very serious business. It is a sacred duty and the exercise of power that can have far reaching consequences for our lives and the lives of others.
A majority of Americans, including those who identify themselves as Catholic (54% if the exit polls are correct), chose to elect our new President. The election of this candidate to the presidency will have far reaching consequences. Our Lord Jesus tells us to judge a tree by its fruit. A good tree produces good fruit, a bad tree bad fruit. I would urge us as rational persons to look beyond the smile and mesmerizing words and pay attention to the deeds —these will show what kind of president we will have.
In my view as a priest, scholar and professor, never before has the Culture of Death been given so much power in this country. Our new president is committed to promoting and protecting with law intrinsically evil acts, acts that are never justified and should never be done by a rational person. The fruit of this conviction is that he is committed to creating and ratifying unjust laws. The clearest deed that will reveal this truth is when he signs the ‘Freedom of Choice Act’ into law, which was one of his campaign promises. This legislation will virtually abolish ANY restrictions on abortion that exist now. This legislation will result in the killing of tens of thousands of innocent children. The killing of the innocent is a sin that cries out to Heaven for justice (Gen. 4:10). Those who voted for this president will now share in the indirect responsibility and guilt for these killings. Such is the serious nature of voting.
Those who voted for him may respond that their vote was not based on his pro-abortion stance but other social issues. The response I gave in a previous homily is that clearly and logically this election did not involve a situation of ‘proportionate reason’ mentioned in the USCCB’s Faithful Citizenship. The issues of quality of life come into play only when candidates vying for office are equal on the issues dealing with life itself.
The ‘Freedom of Choice Act’, and other unjust legislation like it that will likely be proposed, also has the potential to force the Church out of health care. The Church, as the bearer of the Gospel of Life, will refuse to take part in committing intrinsically evil acts. The names like Providence, St. Vincent, Sacred Heart may remain on the outside of the hospitals, but their internal policies may no longer meaningfully reflect the teachings of Christ and His Church. Thus the legislation would spell disaster for the poor and will create a huge societal problem since the Church is one of the major providers of health care in the country, especially to the poor. Moreover, if the Church is not providing health care, then those with terminal illness and those who do not seem to have a sufficient ‘quality of life’ will lose their last protection from those who will want to kill them to save health care dollars — still more innocent lives lost.
Some may be reading this thinking that I’m being overly dramatic, that I’m over reacting. I would ask you to pay attention to the fruit; pay attention to actions and deeds and not the smile or soothing words. Beneath the smile and words is one who has already identified himself through his actions that he is against Christ and His Church on fundamental, non-negotiable issues.
For those followers of Christ who are serious about following Him understand that we may be entering a very difficult and trying period of history. The Church has had such times in the past and will again have them in the future. In the late 1990s, then Cardinal Ratzinger commented that he thought the Church was entering a period of trial, a time when the Church was to be more of a persecuted Church, a time when it would be most costly to follow Jesus, and thus a time when many of those who identify themselves as Catholic will fall away. Now he is Pope Benedict XVI, the successor of St. Peter and our chief Shepherd. It will become increasingly evident as the years pass whether he is a prophet. Personally, I believe him to be right. In my prayer over the past few years, I have sensed the same thing. It may take many years for it to come into full view, but with this ascendancy of the Culture of Death we may see the beginnings of it in the next few years.
And so as the pastor of your souls and as your spiritual father, I urge you to prepare yourselves spiritually, through prayer, fasting, virtuous living and most of all faith, hope and love, for what is to come. Let us recommit ourselves in joy to protect and cherish the weak and vulnerable among us. If you are one who cast your vote for our new president, I urge you to seek the mercy of Jesus through the Sacrament of Confession that you may be absolved from the great evil this president says he will do. Jesus Christ has already definitively broken the power of evil and death. He will never abandon us or the world. He may be asking the members of His Body to have a deeper share with Him in the Cross, that the world might be saved.
We do not have to be afraid. We did not choose to live in these times, but He chose us to live in these times (In. 15:16) — that is a comforting truth. It is in times of trial that the members of Christ shine more brightly. St. Paul tells us as he told the Philippians, ‘Do everything without grumbling or questioning, that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you shine like lights in the world” (Phil. 2:14). Now is the time for saints! We stand with Our Lord Jesus and His angels and saints and will bring down the Culture of Death through the might of the divine love because with St. Paul we can say, “I can do all things in him who strengthens me” (Phil. 4:13).
Sincerely in Christ,
Pr. John Cihak“Earth is slipping away and heaven is drawing near.” (St. Theophane Venard)
This letter from Fr. Cihak to his parishioners reminded me of the sermon that was given at my brother-in-laws First Mass this past summer, and the quote from Pope Pius XI with which the priest ended his sermon. It is an excellent reminder for us all:
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