Because It's Never Too Late to Have Fun with Sugar

My sister and her lovable kids visited us for a few days this week. After attending a memorable musical performance about the midnight ride of Paul Revere, we headed to the local rec center for a few hours of ice skating. I'm sure I don't need to tell you just who was the most impressive skater out there, although Charlie did hold his own (his own orange pylon, that is).

The real fun began, however, when we went home and started building. Yes, for the second year in a row, we made gingerbread houses! (I guess I should really call them graham cracker houses ;) I sense a tradition coming on. Charlie has been begging politely asking to make them since the beginning of Advent (he remembered!), but somehow we never quite got around to it during the Christmas season. Well, it's not Candlemas yet...and the best part about procrastinating waiting...the candy was half-price!

Posing with their masterpieces, these happy cousins are wearing the shirts they designed during our Christmas Family Reunion. It is so interesting to see their individual personalities portrayed in all of their creations. We had elaborate houses with chimneys and birdhouses, and we had simple ones with flat roofs and sparse candy (because it had been eaten in the making, of course). We even had a stable created by my favorite horse lover, Nastia. (Poor Valya's kept falling apart, so she crushed and consumed it before the photo could be taken.) So much fun!

Speaking of fun, guess what is sitting by my front door....Yes, the annual family letter we send out in celebration of the Chinese New Year is complete and awaiting its ride to the post office tomorrow, eager to begin the journey to family and friends. For once in my life, I am early. ;)

As We Await the Coming of Our Lord

After a gentle nudge from the Holy Spirit by way of Elizabeth, this evening our family began the Christmas Novena for the first time ever. What a beautiful, meaningful way to draw our Advent to a close (especially since we never quite got around to the Jesse Tree ornaments...again. Sigh. I'm determined to join a swap next year.).

We don't have an O Antiphon House, but I'm making simple ornaments using the Antiphon symbols to hang on our bare Advent tree, adorned only in purple lights. (see above comment regarding the lack of JTO) Actually, I think it might be better that the tree will simply hold the O Antiphons this year. I'm all about simplicity (and rationalizing my failings) whenever I can be. Next year, I'll aim for a Jesse Tree and an O Antiphon House, and we'll see where the good Lord takes us.

My sweet friend in Vermont pointed me to an excellent website describing the O Antiphons where you can actually link to each Antiphon sung exquisitely in Latin. (Thanks, Marianne!) You can be sure I will have my laptop ready to play during our evening prayers tomorrow night.

So, how are you getting ready for the arrival of baby Jesus in these final days?

A Canine By Any Other Name Would Still Have Dog Breath

How do normal families name a dog? I'd really like to know.

The drama of naming of our new pup began shortly after his arrival on Saturday. My firstborn, Elena, was certain that she alone would be able to think up the perfect name and assumed that the rest of us would naturally have reached this obvious conclusion. This line of thinking evolved into the inevitable power struggle between Elena and Valya, my second child, who also likes to be top dog, so to speak.

Elena wanted to name him Grady, after a certain baseball player. Valya wanted to name him anything but Grady. Nastia, my animal lover supreme, was just plain happy to have a dog and was willing to call him anything. Mariana, Jacinta, and Charlie were just plain happy to have Nastia as an older sister and were willing to call him anything Nastia called him.

Elena used the morning dog walk after Mass on Sunday (while Valya was stuck inside copying a psalm) to lobby Nastia (and thus M, J, and C) into her corner. She played the rather sinister card of saying that our cousins would LOVE the name. They all came back from the walk calling the dog Grady. This set Valya into a fury, and she started calling the dog everything but Grady. Jim caught wind of it all and told them not to call the dog anything since it didn't have a name yet.

We then sat down to a lovely family brunch of perfectly scrambled eggs, slightly burnt toast, and a somewhat heated discussion of canine names.

Starting at the bottom of the lineup, I asked Charlie what he thought, and he shyly whispered in my ear, "Paddy." (Actually, I'm pretty sure, he meant Patty, but I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt since he is so adorable.) I thought that was a lovely Irish name, quite original for our family, and it got my vote without even hearing any of the others. It seemed right for the baby of the family to have this honor...how could I choose anyone else's? Of course, there was the unpleasant likelihood that outsiders would think the name was Patty and wonder why we gave our male dog a girl's name. It was quickly dismissed by the others.

When asked her opinion, Jacinta announced with naive five-year-old enthusiasm that her choice was King. We all oohed and ahhed appropriately. No idea where Paddy or King came from.

Next was Mariana's turn, and she smilingly said Grady. Nothing more. Valya practically leaped out of her chair but was restrained to wait her turn. Nastia, sensing conflict and wanting to please all involved, admitted that she too liked Grady but that she also thought Chaser (the name that the Humane Society had bestowed on our puppy from the get-go) was a very good name. Valya said her choice was Nibbles, a name she had suggested in the waiting room of the Humane Society, as the dog was nibbling on her.

Elena finally was permitted to plead her case for Grady. Blah, blah, blah, Grady's cute, blah, blah, blah. Then began the inevitable power struggle between the teenage daughter and her father. He did not like naming a dog after a person of whose character he knows nothing. He did not like how Elena had lobbied the others to her side. And he did not like Elena being the one to win and Valya the one to lose. All conveyed in so many words.

Elena declared that we could not leave the table without a decision. Pushed too far, Jim decided that the dog would be named Chaser, since the younger kids had been calling him that Saturday and they all seemed to like the name before the lobbying began. Elena was dead set against it and tried desperately to pull me in to defend her. Honestly, I'm not that fond of the name myself, but I was not about to enter the third power struggle of the day over the name of a dog, especially not with a man who spent all day Saturday painting for me.

I did try to throw out a few other options (actually several other options), and Elena, desperately hoping to avoid Chaser, was uncharacteristically encouraging about all of them. The other kids were enthusiastic too. My favorite was Sam, after Samwise Gamgee.

But Jim had made up his mind. Chaser it would be.

Indignant, Jacinta asked, "What about King?" Since she has her daddy wrapped around her little finger, he agreed that the dog could be formally named King Chaser but that we would call him Chaser.


So, there you go. Family angst, gotta love it. I'm thinking of submitting the story to Oprah. Maybe she'll invite us to appear on her show.

(Next time around, I will drive to the Humane Society myself, choose a dog, and name it on the way home.)

My Beautiful Saints

St. Cecilia, St. Elizabeth of Hungary, St. Dominic Savio, St. Therese, and St. Elizabeth Ann Seton

(As I dressed Charlie, minutes before leaving for Mass, he cried, "Why do I always have to be this saint?" I probably don't need to tell you that he has never worn this costume before. Poor thing had his heart set on being St. Paul but didn't tell me until we were getting dressed. It may have had something to do with the fact that his shirt was a size too small (and nearly choking him) and his jacket was two sizes too big. So, if anyone has ideas for a good St. Paul costume for next year, please let me know. Of course, by then, he'll want to be someone else.)

Reason #1031 We Love Living Near Cousins

We can be the entire lineup of the Cleveland Indians for Halloween!

Yes, we are still loyal Tribe fans, all except Valya who boycotted our costume idea. Maybe she's playing the witch that has cursed our team since 1948. Well, at least the Indians offered a better series than the Rockies this year.

Happy All Hallow's Eve!

Reason #10,312,007 I Love Living Near My Sister: She provided all of the costumes! I love that in a sister.

A Day in Lisieux

In honor of the feast day of our beloved St Thérèse of the Child Jesus, I bring you a day in Lisieux, France with my family...

In February 2006, my sister, her husband, and their three very young children (the youngest in utero) came to visit us in Brussels. During their stay, we rented a farmhouse west of Paris and made daytrips to Chartres, Mont St Michel, the Normandy beaches, and Lisieux. My favorite by far was Lisieux, an unassuming town in Lower Normandy where our Lord fashioned a little saint who would be loved the world over.

We began our pilgrimage with a visit to Les Buissonnets, the home where Louis Martin raised his five daughters after the death of his wife, Zelie. A tiny, elderly woman (was she a nun? I can't remember) met us at the door. She spoke no English, but thankfully, my talented brother-in-law was able to communicate with her in French. Even more thankfully, she played a recording in English that led us through the house.

We stood before the fireplace where Thérèse and her family had gathered many times, we climbed the stairs she had run up and down, we entered the room where she had been miraculously cured of a serious illness after praying before a statue of our Lady, we explored the bedroom which displayed clothing and toys from her childhood. It was all so amazing and beautiful, a simple home where a holy saint and her family had lived not so long ago.

Upon leaving Les Buissonnets, we visited the Basilica of St Thérèse, an enormous and quite extravagant church filled with mosaics and stained glass windows that seek to illustrate the message of St Thérèse. When my father-in-law saw it a few years ago, he was disturbed by the magnitude and opulence of the building. He did not find it fitting for this saint of the Little Way and couldn't imagine that she would approve. I, however, found it a magnificent tribute to the greatness of God and the many miracles He has given us through this powerful intercessor. Lining the sides of the upper sanctuary, chapels of gratitude have been erected by countries from all over the world. It was very touching to see this tangible witness of the shower of roses that Thérèse has sent down from Heaven. There we prayed before her relics and felt her presence.

Unfortunately, we weren't able to visit Carmel, the convent where she gave her life completely to God and wrote The Story of a Soul. It was closed during the lunch hours, and we had planned to spend the second half of the day at the Normandy beaches and their memorials of World War II. I would love to go back someday and devote more time to this special little town, but for now, I am thankful to have been blessed with a few precious hours.

*****************************************************************************

Because I also missed the feast day of

St Michael and the Archangels, I'm going to add a couple of photos from our visit to Mont St Michel here.

If you ever travel to France, after Lisieux and Omaha beach (and Paris, I suppose), don't miss Mont St Michel! It is an architectural wonder, incredibly beautiful to behold. And if you manage to go during a snow storm in February, the crowds won't really be too bad.

More Birthday Memories

When my sister and I returned from our lovely, quiet dinner at a favorite local eatery, I received my second surprise of the day...a pretty bench topped with a mosaic of colorful tiles sitting near our front door. (The first surprise being the arrival of my sister.) I had spotted this bench in the clearance aisle of a local store a week ago and asked Jim if he would go and buy it since it was much too heavy for me to carry. When he returned from the store a few days later, he told me that they had already sold out of them. I figured a landscaper must have bought them and gave up the bench as not meant to be. So, my dear husband is not only thoughtful and generous but also a big fat liar.

Upon entering the house, I discovered this beautiful sign hanging in the entry way. This discovery occurred just after I was pelted with a shower of dry navy beans, my third birthday surprise. We have a birthday tradition in our family of my husband placing a cup of candy above a doorway so that the special person of the day receives a "surprise" shower of sweets when he or she enters the room. How such a tradition can actually surprise anyone is beyond me, especially when the special person reminds her father the night before not to forget! But somehow he pulls it off. Every. Single. Time. I have to admit...he got me again. I was completely unsuspecting when those little white pellets started to pour down. And I most definitely did not suspect legumes. Usually the shower consists of M&Ms, jelly beans, or Skittles...how did I end up with dry navy beans? (You don't think he's trying to send me a message about my forty-something figure, do you?)

And finally, my favorite birthday blessings and the absolute best reason for living in Ohio...

In the words of our family theme song,

wherever we go, that's where the party's at!

(Cake props go to my talented husband. In addition to being a sneaky big fat liar, he is also quite handy in the kitchen. I like that in a man.)

Oh, When the Saints...

Tonight, all of the blogging time I've been putting in earned its keep.

I'm ashamed to say that we haven't really celebrated All Saints' Day in years. We go to Mass and that's it. In Belgium, my lame excuse has been that we have no other families with whom to share it---but honestly, by the time we make it through Halloween, I'm just too tired to come up with anything else. A few weeks ago I suggested that we dress up as saints for Halloween this year, thinking it could be a great way to evangelize and to ease my guilty conscience. But my oldest balked, and I can't exactly say I blame her. We are sort of oddballs in our little American community as it is, being the only ones who homeschool.

Probably thanks to my guardian angel, I just couldn't shake the nagging feeling that we should do something. I've been so inspired reading about all of the All Saints' Day parties and costumes on my favorite blogs. And I have to admit, I kept wondering, what am I going to blog about tonight? How can I have announced to the world yesterday that we celebrate Halloween and then make it painfully obvious (by a lack of posting) that we do nada when it comes to such a sacred Solemnity as All Saints'? Just not right.

So...around 3pm (have I mentioned I procrastinate?), I announced to my thirteen-year-old that we would be having our own All Saints' Day party tonight and asked if she would help me come up with some costumes. At times like this, having a Sanguine for your oldest is a very good thing. She excitedly took charge and planned the entire evening. It was a HUGE success. We even had a couple of extra kids from the neighborhood join us. I'll just let the pictures do the talking.

We began with a Parade of Saints as we sang a rousing rendition of When the Saints Go Marching In.

We introduced our roles by reading from the Picture Book of Saints by Rev. Lawrence Lovasik.

We ran out of time for the games Elena had planned---but no one seemed to care.




Who says Saints don't know how to have a good time?

(Elizabeth and Anne just lost it here...because Joachim was losing it in the rear.)

Our Litany of Saints included St Agnes, St Joan of Arc, St Anne, St Joachim, St Elizabeth of Hungary, St Rose of Lima, Bl Kateri Tekakwitha, St Joseph, St Therese, St Cecilia, St. George (not here yet) and St James the Greater (behind the camera).

We may not have had a big homeschool group to share the fun, but in the ever eloquent words of Danielle Bean...we are our own party.

Much thanks to Grandma and Grandpa for being such good sports!

And just in case my favorite saint is reading this from Heaven...Happy Birthday, Boompa!

Just call me the Grinch

When it comes to Halloween, I'm sort of a Scrooge. I admit it. There are times I wish we were morally opposed to celebrating this American holiday. And it's all about the costumes.

My perfectionist side wants my kids to have the most adorable and creative costumes ever. My slothful side insists on putting absolutely no time or effort (mental or physical) into creating those perfect costumes. And my procrastinating side ALWAYS waits until the last possible second to do anything. These three character flaws make for the most deadly combination when it comes to All Hallows' Eve. Several days (weeks) of anxiety build the crescendo, which always results in a house left in absolute shambles. Personally, I'd rather just skip it.

But they LOVE it. Dressing up, carving the pumpkins, going to parties, trekking from house to house, sorting through the loot at the end of the night, the whole shebang. They LOVE, LOVE, LOVE it. As I suppose I did as a kid, at least until I was old enough to realize how pitiful my costumes were. So, how can I deny them?

And sometimes, I have to admit, the costumes do turn out pretty good. My absolute favorite Halloweens were our last two years in Virginia, when my very creative and enthusiastic sister Sarah transformed my family into the Wizard of Oz and Peter Pan. Last year, with the help of my artistic husband, I even managed to pull off the ensemble of Blue's Clues. But this year he hasn't been around to help, and so we ended up with a mish mash of costumes created (at the last minute, of course) from stuff we happened to have around the house.

Looking at the photo tonight, my Grinchlike small heart just grew three sizes bigger. And I realized that it's not really the costumes that matter at all. My kids are so darn cute and happy, they'd look good in just about anything. Happy Halloween!

The Loveliness of Prayer

Just before bedtime a peaceful hush interrupts the usual chaos of our home. In a corner of the living room, my husband lights a candle on our family altar, and we gather together, kneeling in a semi-circle on the rug. The most sacred part of our day unfolds.

We begin our evening prayers with a hymn, usually traditional, and together we sing the same first verse throughout a week. Sometimes the kids take turns choosing the hymn, and sometimes I choose it based on the liturgical season or a Marian feast. By the end of the week, we all know that verse very well, so on Saturday nights we sing all of the verses, and the hymn alone comprises our prayer. (Saturday night prayers are my kids' favorites.) These songs become lodged in our minds and hearts---I can't tell you how much joy it brings me to hear my two-yr-old sing Immaculate Mary as he plays with his cars or my little girls crooning At the Lamb's High Feast together in the bathtub.

After our hymn, my husband offers specific petitions on behalf of our family. These are usually the people or situations that we believe most need prayer at that moment. Then each of the children, beginning with the youngest, prays for his or her godparents and one or two (or three or four) other loved ones. I pray for our godchildren. It's interesting to hear the names our kids offer: a sibling across the room, a neighbor down the street, a relative far away, and sometimes a person whose existence we can't quite pinpoint.

Together we pray a decade of the Rosary, with the kids leading the Hail Mary prayers. My husband believes that it is better for us to pray one decade really well than to stumble through five. In fact, a few months ago, he shortened our decade to three Hail Marys, hoping that we could train our two- and four-year-olds to focus better with a shorter amount of prayer time. It worked---they are now kneeling quietly with their eyes closed (theoretically) for most of prayers---so it may be time to add a few more. Ideally, when we return to saying a full decade each night, we will focus on a specific Mystery Monday through Friday and complete an entire set of Mysteries each week.

Following our "decade," we offer the Prayer to St. Michael for our country and its leaders and for our troops and their families. We have recently added our nephew Sean's name during these intentions since he is now serving in Iraq. We end our evening prayers by asking for the intercession of the patron saint of our family, St Joseph. Through our adoptions and moves, he has been a faithful friend to us.

During the varied seasons of our lives, we've prayed in different ways as a family---morning prayers, the Angelus, the Jesse Tree, Stations of the Cross---but none except the Holy Mass have remained more constant or more unifying than our evening prayers. They are precious moments I cherish, the coming together of a family at the end of the day to remember the One who gives us all.

Our Last Day of Soccer

Today was the last day of the soccer season for our family. The local Army Garrison provides a fabulous sports program for the American kids here in Brussels, and we're so thankful our girls have the chance to play. The season only lasts for two months, but after trying to coordinate four girls on four different teams using three different locations for practices and games, I am more than ready to be done, especially with the days getting shorter and colder.

Sometimes I wonder if it is worth it. All of the carpool logistics, the late dinners, giving up Saturdays for games. Growing up in my family, we didn't play organized sports until high school, except for my brothers who played Little League in the summer. Soccer season seems to impose a rush and a frenzy that I try to avoid in our family. So, I wonder...

And then I look at my kids. And I see that they are being challenged, they are thriving, they are happy. Soccer has been good for them. It has given them the chance to develop some athletic skills, to learn about sportsmanship and teamwork, and to spend more time outdoors, getting fresh air and exercise. They have made some great friends on the field, and they have become better at paying attention and following directions. And they are just plain having fun. (except when Nastia has to play goalie ;)

Today I realized one more benefit to soccer that simply adds icing to the cake. We have been blessed with some tremendous coaches, who have been excellent teachers and role models for my girls. They have been caring and encouraging in every way. It has really helped me as a mother to gain a new perspective of my children, to see them anew through the eyes of their coaches. These devoted individuals are able to find gifts and strengths that I sometimes miss and to find joy in the quirky little traits that often drive me batty. They have offered me a fresh peek at the wonder and beauty of these precious little souls I love so much.

So, is it worth it? Absolutely. Besides, Mei Mei and Valya both scored goals today. Not much beats the smile that follows that moment of glory.