Renewing our "yes"

I have so many new house pictures to show you (as of last week, we are home  project owners again!!) but I thought I'd pop in today with a quick little reflection on what struck me while celebrating yesterday's solemnity.

As we celebrate the Annunciation, we can rejoice in Mary's yes, her fiat, for the sheer wonder of the Incarnation, of God made flesh in a virgin's womb.  As mothers, we can also rejoice in Mama Mary's example, renewing our yes despite the uncertainties and challenges and fears of bringing a child into an imperfect and messy world.

Mary gave God her yes that the Holy Spirit would come upon her and place Jesus in her womb - but in so doing, gave an open yes to all the years that would follow.

Her yes to cradling the sweet newborn Christ child,

to the joy of her beloved son,

and to the wonder of raising the child God.

But her yes also to the panic when Jesus was lost in the temple,

to her helplessness at the foot of the cross of her crucified Son,

and to the sword that would pierce her heart.

And so on the Annunciation, we have the opportunity to renew our yes to God in the children He has entrusted to our care.  Yes to the sleepless nights, the diaper blowouts, the toddler tantrums and the near constant messes.  Yes to an unknown future for children in a world that can be downright frightening, in bodies that could betray them with disease and wills that could lead them astray.

Mary is to the left.  Anna told me today "I fordot to dive Mary a head."

When staring at a second line on a pregnancy test or gazing into the eyes of a newborn for the first time, we give that child and his or her Creator a blank check of a yes - to love and to selflessly care - no matter what life will throw our way.

The lyrics aren't a perfect fit (nor is the context - I'm sure this is the first time Moulin Rouge and the Annunciation have been connected in any way), but the song "Come What May" from that film was running through my head yesterday.  Written, of course, for romantic love, but so fitting for a mother's ongoing love and constant fiat.

With God's grace and Mary's example:

And there's no mountain to high, no river too wide

Sing out this song and I'll be there by your side

Storm clouds may gather and stars may collide

But I love you, I love you

Until the end of time

Come what may, come what may

I will love you until my dying day.

More inspiration from Mama Mary: They Could Have Been the Stressful Mysteries

Julie's Catholic!

Praise to the Lord, O let all that is in me adore Him

All that hath life and breath

Come now with praises before Him

Let the 'amen' sound from His people again

Gladly for aye we adore Him

How wonderful it was to join in singing the opening hymn at today's Mass, with words expressing the joy that has been overflowing in my heart.

We had a wonderful weekend celebrating Julia's baptism, and I'm so thankful for the wonderful people who made long trips to be with us!

Fabulous God-parents

Fabulous family.

 Anna narrated most of the ceremony with "Doolia's Baptism!  Fodder pour water on the head!" (on repeat).  When we asked her after what the Deacon had done for Julia, she said "splashed her!"  Her enthusiasm, however, was spent well before it was time for any pictures:

Welcome to the Church, sweet girl!  As a friend wrote in your card: "It's a wonderful place to be!"  Amen, and Alleluia.

For Anna's Baptism photos and more about their gown (cut from the train of my wedding dress), see HERE.  (Note that the post is about celebrating her first Baptismal Anniversary; the second anniversary celebration definitely fell off the radar last month!)

Pictures galore

Life is...well, busy.  At the moment, I find it mostly exciting, although I will be honest in saying there have been plenty of days when all of the logistics and planning for the move (not to mention the emotional roller coaster associated with leaving our home) have left me, shall we say, just a bit stressed.

There's plenty of things I've thought about posting, but I obviously haven't gotten there!  I have, however, been taking lots of pictures (and continue to be SO thankful that Justin Claus brought a new camera!)

So since pictures are worth a thousand words, here's the big update of the past few weeks.  We've had plenty of celebration mixed in with the planning and stressing - and we're gearing up for the biggest celebration of all, Justin's PhD graduation this weekend!

Easter Sunday (my favorite part was our hats!)

Pretty excited about hunting for eggs...

Sharing "the farm" (one of Daddy's favorite places on Earth) with Anna

My beautiful sister graduated summa cum laude from nursing school!  

(This was right after her pinning ceremony)

Mother's Day 

(In Anna's mind, Mumsie is obviously preferred over Mom!)

If you thought the whale dress was cool, check out this bunny dress that my mom made (!!)

If I had remembered it was in the "too big" bin earlier, I would have had her wear it for Easter Sunday, although since it's still Easter, it was still appropriate :)  (Aren't you proud, Meg?!)  Anna was pretty pumped about having "dunnies" going "op op op" on her neck.

You can't post just one when it's a little girl in a smocked dress!

This started out as a "What I Wore Sunday" / bump update post...

20 weeks!

....and...

It's a SISTER!

The crib is not empty! (Merry Christmas!)

I have to admit that last night around 9 pm, I was really not feeling the Christmas joy.  Of all of the many Amazon orders I placed back in early December, almost all of them arrived much earlier than expected.  All, of course, except for one.  And that one included the baby doll I had ordered to fit in the crib that Justin built for Anna.  (Side note, it also included the envelopes to our Christmas cards, so for those of you on the list, don't be surprised that I'm stretching my normal Christmas card timeline (aligned both intentionally and due to the craziness of things with the 12 day season of Christmas) a bit further than usual).

The image of Anna turning the corner into the living room and seeing her new baby set up in her new crib has been the excitement that has pushed me through a draining week of preparations (having finally beat the super cold that nagged me for most of December, I was left to clean the entire house, bake, decorate, wrap, and finish several sewing projects in the last few days).  So when I realized that Amazon was definitely not going to meet their "by 8 pm on December 24th" delivery estimate, I tearfully declared Christmas to be ruined -  (sleep deprivation makes me both overly emotional and just a bit prone to exaggeration) - because Anna's new beautiful crib would be empty on Christmas morning.

I had a brief pity party, then went up and got ready for Mass, and very shortly after that was singing Joy to the World with the rest of the congregation - heart truly filled with joy for having realized that the wonder of Christmas is that the crib is not empty.  Jesus is there in the creche - and in the tabernacle and in our hearts - no matter the circumstances or whether or not things have gone according to plan.  In fact, He's all the more there for us when things do not go according to our plan; I doubt a stable would have been the perfect location if you asked Mary or Joseph.  In our imperfections, and when the rest of the world leaves us feeling disappointed and empty, we can go filled with awe to see the baby who, in His perfection, has come to save the world.

Wishing all of you a very Merry Christmas and may your hearts be filled with joy and love as you ponder that baby in the crib!!


I will note that despite the MIA status of our package, our Christmas was most definitely not ruined.  It took Anna only a few seconds to oust the stuffed toy I had placed in the crib and make herself comfortable.  She climbed out to open a gift, only to climb back in and read the book she had just unwrapped.  We enjoyed watching her enjoy the magic of Christmas morning.  She's old enough to understand the concept of opening presents, but not so old that she rushes the process.  In fact, I think there's still a package or two still wrapped under the tree.  She'll get to them eventually - probably about the same time that the missing box finally arrives with her new baby!

In one other note, the incredibly generous/thoughtful Justin Claus (who is also a talented carpenter, see above!) brought me a new camera!!  I'm hopeful that I can actually include pictures in upcoming posts without a "sorry I can't take good pictures" qualifier.

Merry Christmas!

Quick Takes: Edition 10

Since I've already joined one link-up a day late this week, I figured I might as well keep with the trend and link up with Jen for a Saturday version of Friday Quick Takes.  And given my new penchant for a schedule, I can't miss my end-of-the-week blogging ritual!  We can subtitle this post: the pictures I've been meaning to show you for a while.

-1-

I finally switched from patriotic to fall decorations (a few weeks ago; I've meant to include these pictures in quick takes for at least 3 weeks.)

-2-

I shouldn't even share this, but that candle+beans in a vase decoration?  You don't even want to know what went into that.  (It will make more sense when I have the pictures soon)...I pinned it a few years ago and thought that it would be a super simple and very charming fall decoration.  I remembered to grab a candle and some beans at Target.  Then I came home (and - first mistake - without looking at the inspiration picture) put everything in the hurricane vase.  Then I decided that I didn't like it and (second mistake) tried to gently take out some of the beans to rearrange them.  Then it looked even worse.  So then (the mistakes keep racking up) I thought I would just re-do it.  And so I spent an embarrassing amount of time separating out the beans by color while feeling guilty about the fact that there are people in the world without beans to eat let alone waste time sorting them for a decoration.  So I finally got them (roughly) sorted and put them all back and (looking at the inspiration this time) carefully put them back in the vase.  I was 99% happy with the look, and just thought I'd pull the candle up a little bit.  Which obviously (to everyone but me) made the beans fall down in the previously empty space at the bottom of the vase.  I just had to step away from the decoration.  I put some other stuff in front of it (after I took the above pictures, apparently) so that I'm not constantly taunted by my simple craft failures.

Lesson learned:  I can do a lot of crafty things.  I can sew.  I cannot do basic pouring.

-3-

Telling that story reminds me...I am severely lacking in the microwave cooking department.  I've got the stovetop, oven, and crockpot down - but that microwave gets me every time.  I do not exaggerate in saying that I have created inedible disasters at one time or another while attempting Campbell's soup, microwave popcorn, and Ramen noodles.   In college, I always joked that my perfect man was tall, Catholic, and could cook in a microwave.  Thankfully Justin's got the bases covered.

Because when a girl wants popcorn...

ain't nobody got time for that.

-4-

Back to more photos of things that turned out as planned.  After linking to the tutorial for the simple skirt in my learn to sew post, I got pretty excited about making some for Anna.  I took a stack of her sweaters that didn't have anything to match them to the fabric store and found cute fabric.  I really wish that it was acceptable for me to do the same for myself.  

-5-

I was especially jealous of her candy corn skirt. 

-6-

We had our 3rd annual Halloween costume party this evening.  It's always fun to have a house full of people (and 13 adults and 11 kids (10 of whom are 5 and under) makes for a lively environment, for sure.  I have a few pictures from this evening (and similar ones from other parties we've hosted) where everyone is laughing, there's a bunch of kids sitting on various peoples' laps (often not even their own parents) and you can just see tangible enjoyment on people's faces.  I love those pictures because they show that we're using our home.  All the renovations, the routine cooking and cleaning - it's all for making a place to share with others, a place to be comfortable and happy.

This probably doesn't make sense without the pictures (I don't know that everyone in the pictures is necessarily cool with me posting them online) or perhaps without reading Keeping House (which articulates that lesson about making a place that can be shared) - but hopefully some of you reading know what I mean.

-7-

Costume pictures, of course!

My little monkey (very aptly dressed, given the number of times I took her to sit on (rather than stand/climb/swing from) her little chairs today!

In case you can't tell from the picture, Justin was a banana tree.  My favorite quote of the evening, as friends were leaving...Justin put his arms out and said, "Hug a tree!!"

This costume theme has been in the works since before Anna's arrival when Justin's mom found the monkey costume! (Thanks, GiGi!)  Check out last year's costumes here and the previous year here.

Anna's First Birthday Party

I had all sorts of other things in mind that I might write about today, but since I've found that I tend to sound on the blog like I take myself (and everything around me) way too seriously, I thought I'd post a little bit about Anna's birthday party, which I've been wanting to share.  (In case you missed it, I already posted about our celebration of her Baptismal anniversary here).

We hosted a small backyard get-together, and were thrilled that among other guests, all four of Anna's grandparents could be here to celebrate.

You all know by now that photography isn't my strong suit (in terms of quality of pictures or in having the camera charged - although now that the house is no longer under construction, I can typically locate the camera, which is an improvement!)  So naturally, I don't have pictures of her invitations, but I'll at least share the wording here:

Although it may seem that her life’s just begun,

Our sweet little Anna is going to be ONE!

To mark the occasion, we hope that you’ll come

To a party in her honor – it ought to be fun!

                      

On the thirty-first of August, at 2 we will start

From then ‘til whenever the guests do depart.

Our home is the site for the party that day;

We’ll be in the backyard if the rain stays away!

Feel free to stop by as your schedule allows -

We’ll have lots of snacks there for you to browse.

And since it’s her birthday, there’s going to be cake

With singing and candles and pictures to take!

We’re keenly aware of how Anna’s been blessed,

And so on her birthday we have one request:

In lieu of a gift for a girl who’s got many,

We’d ask that you’d help someone else without any.

We’re planning to make a donation in her name

And we would be touched if you’d do the same!

We hope you can make it -  but please let us know

Our email and phone number’s listed below.

We were nervous about including the request for donations on the invitations (Emily Post wouldn't approve), but I'm glad we did.  We made a donation to the Crisis Pregnancy Center in Harrisburg where my mom is a volunteer (they do amazing work - check them out and support them here!), and were so thankful that others donated money and diapers to this organization and other non-profits in Anna's honor.  It was a win-win situation, with keeping Anna from being overwhelmed with more than she could need or want, while helping some of the people in the world who are lacking so much.  I'm not sure how it will play out as she gets older and more cognizant of the gift-giving component of holidays, but I'd like to incorporate some facet of this "sharing" in all of our birthday celebrations in the future.

As for decor, the theme was pink & orange and pennants.  Basically, I went for simplicity, and for colors and designs that make you smile.  When my sister and I left Party City with the balloons, we were talking about how happy it makes you to see someone walking with a bunch of balloons - you know they're celebrating!  It's the same as seeing someone buying a bouquet of flowers - you know they're going to make someone happy, and you can't help but smile :)

Many thanks to the family helpers we had (in particular, my mom, who was sewing pennants to ribbon less than 1 hour before the party!)

I thought I had some more pictures, but I think many are on other peoples cameras :)  We had a little drinks (pink lemonade & water) station on the back porch and a buffet of snack foods (BBQ meat balls, veggies and dip, cheese and crackers, and fruit) on the peninsula inside the kitchen.

Naturally, this looked much nicer in person.

Justin's mom brought Anna an inflatable giraffe pool, which turned out to be a great party accessory and Anna and her little guests enjoyed climbing in and out of it with toys throughout the afternoon.  (She also had a great time when we added water the next day and she got to splash with her auntie!)

There were party hats and cupcakes (and far more parental love than seems to be conveyed here!)

All in all, a fun celebration of our wonderful little lady.  All of the "my baby is turning one" emotions for me played out as pure joy and thanksgiving - and excitement at sharing everything with her.  We did all of the decorating while she was napping, and bringing her downstairs and hearing her squeal with glee as she pointed and lunged from my arms, saying "buh!!" (balloon!) was, for me, one of the highlights of the last year - in that moment, I had a keen sense of how much she's grown over the last year, how much we've grown as parents, and how many blessings we've had through it all.  I compared it to the new mom moment when you've been handed your baby for the first time, and all you can think or say to sum up the myriad of emotions surrounding this little amazing bundle is..."WOW."

What a year, my sweet Anna Rose!  Here's to many, many more happy birthdays and a lifetime of joy.

Happy (re)birthday, Anna!

Anna, the Christian community welcomes you with great joy. in its name I claim you for Christ our Savior by the sign of his cross. I now trace the cross on your forehead, and invite your parents and godparents to do the same.

One year ago today.

She was absolutely welcomed with great joy.

"You have asked to have your child baptized. In doing so you are accepting the responsibility of training her in the practice of the faith. It will be your duty to bring her up to keep God's commandments as Christ taught us, by loving God and our neighbor. Do you clearly understand what you are undertaking?"

We couldn't have anticipated the joy (or incredible challenge) we'd have exactly one year later, when daily Mass was punctuated by a little finger excitedly pointing towards the altar and repeatedly calling out "Dees!!" (Jesus).  She also folded her hands and said "men" at the end of a prayer (the first she's said Amen, but not the first time she put her hands together in prayer).  She also mistook Father's raised hands at the opening prayer as a wave and excitedly waved back to him.  She was thrilled to dip her fingers in the holy water font as we left.

We take her with us almost every Sunday (we've tag-teamed Mass only a handful of times in her life), and while it is certainly can be a challenge to keep her quiet and still and minimize the distractions to ourselves and those around us, it has been wonderful to watch her begin to grow in excitement and understanding of the practice of the faith.

This is our faith. This is the faith of the Church. We are proud to profess it, in Christ Jesus our Lord.

I get chills every time the priest says that part at a Baptism (right after the renewal of Baptismal promises by the parents and godparents).

Justin and I try to be very intentional about making our home what the Catechism calls a "domestic Church," where, as parents we are "by word and example....the first heralds of the faith" (Catechism of the Catholic Church 1656).  Today, as part of that commitment, we celebrated the anniversary of Anna's Baptism.

I researched some traditions of how families often commemorate the occasion.  It is popular to have a cake (much like a birthday), and to light the Baptismal candle.  I wanted to find some traditions that we could adopt and use each year for each member of the family.  I've included some links at the bottom of the post for anyone who wants to celebrate a Baptismal anniversary for your children (or yourself! - I just learned today that there's a plenary indulgence for renewing your Baptismal promises on your anniversary!)

I decided to set the table with her Baptism candle and a picture of her Baptism.  I took a few minutes to make it "company special" instead of our more casual typical dinners.  We were just having left-over lasagna and some garlic toast I made quickly from the remainder of a loaf of bread.  The little touches were enough to remind us that it was a special day.  Again, I wanted to set myself up for success in future years!

I also saw an idea on Shower of Roses blog where she made shell-shaped candies as favors for a Baptism party.  (The shell is a symbol of Baptism, and you can see in our pictures above that Fr. Jeff used a shell to pour the water over Anna's head).  I thought this would be a simple dessert that I'd be able to make each time we celebrate an anniversary.  Some years I may get fancy and make a cake or something else to go with it, but we just had some vanilla ice cream this year!  (I let Anna have approximately 1/4 of a teaspoon, and she thought it was the best thing ever - that's my girl!)

We said two special prayers (links below), lit her Baptismal candle, and blessed her with holy water before enjoying our dinner and treats.  I think Anna realized something exciting was happening (or at least unusual!), and it was also a great reminder for Justin and I of great privilege and responsibility of sharing this awesome faith with our family.

You have become a new creation, and have clothed yourself in Christ. See in this white garment the outward sign of your Christian dignity. With your family and friends to help you by word and example, bring that dignity unstained into the everlasting life of heaven.

This is my other favorite part of the Baptismal rite.  It speaks to the immense grace we receive in Baptism, and the incredible responsibility we have to live as Christians.

Today, I put Anna back in her Baptismal gown.  You can imagine how big it was on her at 2 weeks old since it fit her perfectly now!  Clearly, we should have gone down a pattern size...or 4...when we made it from my wedding gown.  Although she won't be able to put it on again in the future, I was thinking that it might be nice to have a tradition of having the family member celebrating their Baptismal Anniversary wear a white shirt on that day as another tangible reminder of the Sacrament.

I'd welcome other suggestions of ways to celebrate this joyful anniversary each year!



Here are some links I found useful:

Catholic Liturgical Library -
Full Baptismal Rite (source of the italicized quotes above):  HERE

Loyola Press -
Baptismal Anniversary Family Prayer service (this was lovely, we used it tonight): HERE

Catholic Culture -
Renewal of Baptismal Promises (for adults or older children; Justin and I will use this on our own anniversaries): HERE

Raising Little Saints blog -
Baptism Anniversary Prayer (scroll down; we also used this one today in conjunction with the prayer service above; she also links to some other lists of ways to celebrate and other prayers): HERE

National Catholic Register -
Celebrating your birthday in the Church (article on why it's valuable to celebrate the day): HERE

Catholic Answers forum
Other ideas on ways to celebrate the day: HERE

Catholic Prayers -
Prayer to One's Patron Saint on the Anniversary of your Baptism: HERE

Catholic Mom -
Celebrating your birthday in the church (more ideas!): HERE

Luck of the Irish

For any die-hard fans left (I think maybe even my parents jumped ship after this 3 month absence...) hoping I'd post on the blog, today is your lucky day!  As I've written before, I gave up on letting the blog stress me out, and I don't have any expectations for myself in terms of when or how often I post.  I'd pretty much given up on things since we don't have a lot of renovations going on (or even left to do - yay!) and I wasn't sure if I wanted to totally change the blog topic.  I also - on a kick of reading about saints and their writings - wasn't sure that the only written documentation I wanted to create was about the purely material things like what color we painted rooms!

Then, last night, I happened to click over and read my old posts.  I had forgotten about so many things I talked about, and I loved being drawn into different moments in our life - finding out Anna was a girl, waiting for her to be born, reflecting on life with a newborn.  Although I've been decent (not great) at keeping her photo album and baby book updated, there were little things I remembered last night that I would have completely forgotten if it hadn't been for the blog.  So, I decided that I want to post little things (perhaps frequently, perhaps not) - if for no other reason than to remember them ourselves.

Given the aforementioned lack of ongoing renovation (although I am currently painting the yucky basement stairwell!), there may not be a lot of "finding former glory" in terms of the house, but I feel that in some way we're still "finding former glory" of authentic, simple family life.  Our culture is too busy and in so many sad cases, too broken to enjoy the simple celebrations together with family.  The modern world devalues the traditional family - and I don't just mean a political argument.  It's not "cool" to enjoy hanging out with your family.  Justin and I are intentionally trying to build a home that bucks that culture, so that our kids grow up enjoying joys here at home that satisfy them in ways that prevents them seeking fulfillment in the world's empty promises.  This doesn't mean to say we want to isolate ourselves from the world - just build a strong foundation that borrows the good things from our culture and resists the negative.  Granted, we certainly don't have it all together.  That's why we're still finding former glory - haven't reached it yet.

This weekend, my family visited from Pennsylvania, and we decided to have a St. Patrick's Day party!  In addition to my parents & siblings, my aunt & cousins drove up for the day.  We all sported as much green as we could find, and I made an Irish-inspired meal with a roast, cabbage mashed potatoes, carrots, and salad - and green lemonade!  My mom brought shamrocks for everyone to wear, and made delicious Irish soda bread.  Pandora radio (and my brother's talent on the recorder) provided the Irish jigs.

Nesting for a perpetual nester

You may have thought that my blog absence meant we had welcomed Baby Anna.  No such luck yet.

Plenty of people have asked if I've been "nesting" to get ready for the baby.  Although I did have one scrubbing-the-stove-at-3:00-AM incident a few weeks ago, I've generally been nesting since we bought this house two years ago!  I'd consider myself a perpetual nester, one who always wants to feather her nest to make it beautiful for her family & guests.  So, what have I been doing with my end-of-pregnancy energy?

Well, we hosted a party last Friday.  When my Wednesday afternoon doctor's appointment implied that the baby wouldn't be making an arrival in the next few days, we decided to host an impromptu BBQ with an attendee list that quickly grew from three other couples to quite a large group.  It ended up being a blast, and I think we had 17 or 18 people when all was said and done.  Murphy's law was not enacted (I was afraid that my water would break as I carried all the bags of groceries into the house that afternoon, or at some other equally inopportune time!)

Later in the weekend, we decided to spend some time at a park along the lake.  

It was a beautiful day, and Justin swam while I relaxed and enjoyed the beautiful scenery.

 

We did take a walk, too, and Justin snapped final (?) belly shots along the lake.  I had to laugh, because this one in particular really shows how much of a belly bump I have going on!  I don't know if I've shared it on the blog, but my doctor is anticipating Baby Anna will be in the 9 pound range.  So, both of us are pretty big girls these days!  Looking forward to finding the "former glory" that was my pre-baby body soon :)

 

The "before" picture is from Christmas Eve, a few days after we found out about the baby!  Looking back, I miss not only my smaller self, but also my wardrobe!  Honestly, being able to wear anything other than Justin's gym shorts sounds good about now!  C'mon, Baby Anna!