7QT- Continuing Christmas during the 12 days!

We have been having a lot of fun celebrating the 12 days of Christmas!  We are taking the time to do some fun Christmas activities, listening to Christmas music, hanging out as a family watching Christmas movies and celebrating the feast days and family birthdays during this liturgical season!

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A 12 Days of Christmas Birthday

Our oldest son turned 5 years old on December 28th, and we had a fun day as a family and a great Green Bay Packer's birthday party for our biggest Packer fan!  Even though he had just received gifts on Christmas he was excited to get some special "big boy" gifts on his birthday.  He got his first set of REAL Lego's from his great grandparents and has been playing with them almost every minute since.  Does anyone have a good organizational system for Legos or ways to keep them away from little hands?  This is new in our house!

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Celebrating the Holy Family

I love the Feast of the Holy Family as it is such a great time to focus and appreciate family, which seems to really be lacking in our culture these days!  There was a lovely homily that we heard at mass about how the Holy Family had real struggles and hardships just like we do, and it is how they handled them with grace and conviction that we should learn from and model.  I also LOVED how Scott Hahn spoke in his book Joy to the World, that I read during Advent, about how Christmas is all about FAMILY and also about Joseph's role in the family (which is usually not focused on).  Although Joseph is silent in the Bible he obviously had a significant role in helping to raise Jesus during his formative years and always worked hard for his family.  Reflecting more on Joseph's role as a father has really helped me to appreciate and respect my husband more with his role in our family. 

 

We have this Holy Water Font of the Holy Family in our main living space between our kitchen and family room.  I love that it is a constant reminder to bless ourselves and those who come to our home.  Even our 1 1/2 year old says "Wawa" (for Water) every time he passes by it, because he wants to make the sign of the cross like we all do as we go by!



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Fun Christmas Activities

 

We went to a fun Christmas exhibit of Ginger Bread Houses at the Mormon Trail Center here in our town.  Our boys had a great time looking at all of the ginger bread houses and even doing a fun scavenger hunt to find different pieces around the exhibit.  We then went home and made our own Ginger Bread House!  I love doing these fun Christmas activities to help us continue celebrating during the 12 days of Christmas!

 

 

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12 Days of Christmas Tree

I really enjoy having different trees in our home with different purposes during Advent and Christmas.  We had a big Christmas tree up in our family room this Christmas and then put up an Advent tree that had purple, pink and silver ornaments, in our formal living room where we also display our nativity set.  We also used our Advent tree to also display our Advent Saint Ornaments from Catholic Icing! 

Now we have a little tree that we also use for our Jesse Tree for our 12 Days of Christmas ornaments.  This little act of putting up a new ornament each day really helps our children understand that the season continues!

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New Year - New Saint

We decided on our new Family Saint for the year as we brought in the new year!  This year we will be studying St Elizabeth Ann Seton and also be adding some special resources for myself, our couples prayer time and homeschooling to learn more about the saints throughout the year!

 

 

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New Year and Mary, Mother of God Feast Celebration

We are not really the type to go out and "ring in the new year",  so we had a nice little family celebration in our home New Years Eve with the kids and then put them to bed to have some adult time!  We started out the New Year by going to mass on the Feast Day for the Solemnity of Mary as a family.  I have truly developed a special relationship with Mary over the past few years, especially since becoming a mother myself.  I find myself praying to her and relying on her strength and grace often throughout my days.  I love that we start the New Year celebrating a Marian Feast day.

New Years Toast with Sparkling Cider!

 

We love our prayer pillow from the Heart of A Child Ministry of Mary saying "Hail Mary full of grace", which has an adorable pocket to hold either a Rosary or prayer cards with intentions.  This beautiful ministry was started right here in Nebraska and 100% of their proceeds from these pillows go back to pro-life organizations! 

 

 

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Traveling Wise men

Our wise men are traveling toward the nativity scene as Epiphany is nearing.  We also have been talking a lot about the wise men and the people who traveled to see Baby Jesus through many of our Advent/Christmas books.  Our favorite books about the wise men are The Last Straw, Visiting the Visitors, and a great book that we found at the library called The Little Boy's Christmas Gift (which we purchased for our book list for next year!)  We are getting excited for celebrating the Epiphany on January 6th!

 

The Melissa and Doug Nativity Set

 

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Saint of the Year - St Elizabeth Ann Seton

We love following the liturgical year of the Catholic Church and also learning about the saints feast day each day.  One tradition that we also started last year for our family was to choose A SAINT OF THE YEAR!  This particular person we wanted to study and learn more about throughout the year.  Last year we choose St Luke after our son Luke was born and as my husband was completing his medical fellowship training (as Luke is the patron saint of Physicians). 

 

This year we have started formally homeschooling our children with Seton Home Study School, as we completed the Pre-Kindergarten program this past fall with our oldest son, and will be starting Kindergarten very soon!  Also, I have started my journey with blogging this year and part of my inspiration for this blog came from St Elizabeth Ann Seton, including the name of the blog "Children of the Church"!  It seemed only fitting to choose St Elizabeth Ann Seton as our family Saint to get to know better this year!  We also are excited to celebrate her feast day as a part of the 12 days of Christmas.

 

 

We were able to go to St Elizabeth Ann Seton's shrine when my husband and I went on a trip this past fall.  It was so fascinating to see the shrine and learn more about her life and history.  I got the book The Soul of Elizabeth Ann Seton which I am excited to dive into soon!  I know she will be a great role model as a wife, mother, educator and wonderful woman of God.

 

My husband and I are also going to go through A Year with the Saints meditations together this year.  I think it will be a great way to bring us together during our couples prayer time and for us to learn something new together.

 

For my own personal reflection and growth I plan on reading and following A Book of Saints for Catholic Moms.  I love that this book focuses on a saint per week with only a few pages to read per week!  It makes it very achievable to read and follow, even for busy moms! 

 

Learning about the saints is also something that we do daily with our Homeschooling!  It is the one constant that we have throughout the different liturgical seasons and makes Ordinary time lots of fun!  We have a lot of materials that we use and our favorite are the Saints for Young Readers (Volume 1 and 2).  They are fantastic books that have 1-2 pages per day that give a brief history and reflection on the saint of the day!  Our oldest son also loves the Can you Find Saints book, which is like a Where's Waldo book, except with the Saints!  We also LOVE to play with our peg doll saints to learn about and identify new saints!

 

 

 

 

If you want to pick a SAINT OF THE YEAR for yourself or your family, but are not sure where to start head over to Jen Fulwiler's site and use her Saint Name Generator!  This is a fun and easy way to pick a new saint to learn about and pray to for the year!  Happy New Year!

12 in 2014: Our Year in Review

What a year 2014 has been for our family!  There have been SO many changes and we have grown so much in our faith, our marriage, our family and in learning to focus our true priorities.  Here is a glimpse of our year!

January

I turned 30 years old in January and I was thoroughly spoiled by my husband and children!  I had a lovely and relaxed day with my family and started the year off with fantastic new goals for the year for my own spiritual life, our marriage and family!

February

We were living in Minnesota for part of the year (July 2013 - July 2014) as my husband completed a one year Emergency Medical Services Fellowship.  There was a LOT of snow, but we still had a lot of fun!

 

 

March

In March we traveled with all 3 children on an airplane for the first time as we went to Texas to visit my in-laws and celebrate my husband's great Aunt's 90th Birthday!  It was great have the chance to celebrate the life of a wonderful woman and get to see so many family members!

 

 

April

 

We had a special Easter this year and were so blessed to have found such an amazing parish while we were living in Minnesota.  We deeply miss St Thomas Moore parish and their wonderful priest Father Weiss!

 

May

May was a crazy month as we sold our first family home and bought our new house in Omaha, Nebraska in anticipation for our move back in July!  It was an emotional time and kind of crazy to be doing all of the buying and selling when we were not even living in the same state as the homes, but it all worked out in the end!

June

My husband completed his fellowship training in June in Minnesota and I have NEVER been more proud of anyone in my life!  We started dating when we were both in undergraduate school and went through the journey of my husband taking the MCAT's, applying for medical school, 4 years of medical school, 3 years of residency and then finally 1 year of medical fellowship together!  It was not always easy, but we learned how to make time for our marriage and family and also how to really communicate our needs.  My husband is truly amazing, and is such an asset to our community as an Emergency physician.  I am so thrilled that we are moving on to the next phase of his career!

July 

We moved back to Omaha, Nebraska in July and enjoyed the summer.  We are so blessed to have such a wonderful community of family and friends in Omaha and are thrilled to be back!

 

August

At the end of summer we started our journey with homeschooling!  We have been having so much fun and are loving our time together exploring the world and learning new things.

 

September

We had a great fall getting to relax and enjoy our life slowing down a little bit.  Our favorite fall activity is going apple picking as a family!

October

We went on a family trip to Wisconsin this fall and our little guys fell in love with the Packers!  Having not grown up watching football as a little girl it was a WHOLE NEW WORLD for me!  I am loving the energy and excitement of watching football games with our family.

 

November

My husband and I took a much needed trip away to New York City in November.  Even though I was very anxious about leaving our children for 4 1/2 days, we had a FANTASTIC time and really enjoyed being able to have some adult time to reconnect and put our marriage first!

December 

We took a nice break from our formal homeschool lessons during Advent and really slowed down and took in the season.  We had a wonderful Advent and Christmas celebrating Jesus's birthday!

Thank you God for blessing us with such a wonderful 2014 and we are so excited to see what is in God's plan for our family in 2015!

New Years Resolution - Take care of yourself Momma!

I know one thing that definitely changed once I became a wife and a mother was that I immediately started to put the needs of other people above my own.  That is what I was being called to do in my vocation right?  Well, kind of.  But what I forgot is that I am a BETTER wife and a BETTER mother, when I make sure to continue to take care of myself.  As the New Year approaches and I know that we are all starting to make new resolutions for ourselves I want to challenge you to make sure you do something for yourself!

When I had our third son our oldest child was 3 1/2 year old, and our middle son was 19 months old.  I had quit my job two weeks prior to the birth of our third son to pack up our house, because we moved out of state when he was 2 weeks old!  We then lived in that location for one year before we sold our previous house, bought a new one and moved back to our home state!  WHEW!  It was a whirlwind year, so in my mind I had lots of reasons to not be feeling "great".  I was having these symptoms:

• Fatigue (I had 3 little kids, one still was getting up every few hours at night)
• Thinning, brittle hair (which I had always lost my hair postpartum)
• Not losing postpartum weight (which after my other two pregnancies I pretty easily lost)
• Increased moodiness (again, postpartum with 3 little kids and different support systems always moving around)
• Sensitivity to cold (I moved to Minnesota, so it was naturally freezing!)

This is how I commonly felt!

All of these symptoms I justified with one thing:  Being a mother!  I know you are supposed to have a yearly physical (which I did before I started having children), but then I was visiting my obstetrician at least yearly during pregnancies and postpartum so I had lapsed in visits with my family practitioner.  Thank goodness my husband (who is a physician himself) finally reminded me I should go to my regular yearly physical this past September.  I went in to Sancta Familia, which is an amazing Catholic healthcare center here in Omaha, Nebraska and my wonderful nurse practitioner's first question when I reported how I had been feeling was "Have you ever had your thyroid tested?" 

I was still thinking all of these were just "symptoms" of being a mom!  Well, I had my thyroid tested just in case and sure enough just a few days later I got the call that they wanted me to come back in to run a more intense thyroid panel because they thought I had hypothyroidism.  What?!  Not feeling good is because something is actually wrong with my body?  This was completely new to me, as I have been so blessed to have never been diagnosed with anything medically in my life (other than my pregnancies!)

They are still trying to determine if I have what is called Postpartum Thyroditis (which can start 4-8 months postpartum and continue for 10-18 months past diagnosis) as I am currently 18 months postpartum, or if it is Hashimoto's disease.  I have started a treatment plan that I have been following for a few months now which has definitely helped to feel better.  The biggest improvement though has been the simple realization that I NEED to take care of myself.  I need to eat well, take time for physical exercise (even if I can't work out by myself I need to go on a walk with the kids, etc) and get as much sleep as possible! 

So mommas, as this New Year starts, my advice to you is to definitely make those resolutions to make more time for your faith life, go on date nights with your spouse, spend more quality time with the kids, but also don't forget about things specifically for YOU!  You are important, you are worthy, and taking care of you will make you the best Wife, Mom, Daughter, and Friend that you can be!

Ephesians 4:24