![Why I Love Philip (Happy Birthday!)]()
by Catherine | Feb 28, 2014 | Marriage
Happy Birthday, Honey!
I am struggling to find a focus for this post because there are so many things that I want to write about. I am so proud of you for working everyday to become an even better Christian, husband, and father.
The leadership and dedication you’ve shown in your faith is inspiring, and it’s a joy to watch you fall more in love with our Lord. I love it when you lead our family in prayer. Aside from our couple prayer time before bed, watching you across the table during our family Rosary or squeezing your hand at Mass are some of my favorite parts of the week. I am so glad that our children have a daddy who will pray with them and for them on a regular basis. What a blessing! Thank you for taking a leadership role in that capacity and for helping all of us to improve ourselves in that area of our lives.
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| Helping the kiddos blow out the Advent wreath candles. Yay, fire! |
As a father, you’re top notch. The kids’ hearts nearly burst at the seams when they hear the front door open and know that you’re home! Thank you for taking the time to give them the love and attention they need right when you walk in the door. You are so good about getting down on the floor, giving big hugs and kisses, and asking them about whatever they are doing. Despite being crazy busy with residency and everything else we have going on with moving, etc., you are great about showing them that taking time to play and be with them will trump the other stuff. They know how much you love them, and they love showing you how much they love you! As your wife and their mother, I can’t tell you how much joy that gives me. I love how good you are at engaging each child individually, connecting with them in different ways, and showing them that you love what makes them them. Even if there’s a lot to be done on your time off, I love that you’re insistent that we always take time out to have quality time with the kids. It’s usually something simple like our library trips, zoo visits, or picnics at the neighborhood park. The kids FREAK OUT when they find out you have a coveted day off and we get to do something special like that with you. If nothing else, residency makes us realize the preciousness of the time we have together. After residency, they’re going to miss your post-call mornings when you bring them donuts!
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| Surprising Janie with her first flowers (pink, of course!) on her 4th birthday |
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| Playing Princess Candyland as a fam |
You’re the gold standard in the husband department! You’ve always been my #1 cheerleader.
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| One of your many love notes. This one was hidden in the dishwasher for me to find in the morning. |
Ever since I started staying at home, thank you for recognizing my need to take little breaks or have time out with girlfriends. You are great about offering me that time and joyfully taking over the home front while I step away. It is such a relief to have a husband that supports and understands my need to be away from time to time so that I can recharge and be an even better wife & mama when I return. You never complain about the work that needs to be done; instead, you joyfully jump into action by making meals, giving baths, doing projects around the house, etc. I love, love, love how invested you are in keeping our relationship only second to our individual relationships with God. It’s such a blessing to have a spouse that understands that we get closer to each other as we individually get closer to God.
Thank you for showing me that you value our relationship above all others–even the kiddos. As demanding as three little ones can be, you are so good at showing me that I’m your top priority at home. Thank you for helping me to coordinate regular date nights and for being such a fun, adventurous date! I think our favorite date will always be having a leisurely meal, pretending we are foodies (we watch Top Chef so we know everything, right?), sipping on some vino, and having some high-quality uninterrupted conversation. I think we’ll always have something new to talk about because you are always wanting to learn something new, work on an aspect of our marriage, improve our parenting skills, or grow even closer to God. We almost always agree on most things, so it’s actually fun when we don’t agree and have a chance to make our case.
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| Dinner date for my birthday |
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| Our dinner drinks with tapas at España |
I am so excited to see what your 29th year has in store for you! It looks to be a big year of transition and change, and I look forward to going through all of it with you by my side. You are always such an optimistic and calming presence for our little family. I have no doubt that it will all work out swimmingly. I am excited for you to get to start practicing medicine on your own and bless your partners and patients by your presence. I love your humbleness, but you need to know that you’re an absolute rockstar! Thank you for choosing a profession that simultaneously challenges you while allowing you to have a healthy balance as husband and father. I’m of course selfishly glad that the crazy hours of residency will soon be a distant memory, but I’m more happy for you so that you can have more time for hobbies, guy time, our parish, our kids, and our marriage.
Cheers to your 29th year! God willing, I pray that we will have many, many more years of joy-filled marriage together!
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Christmas 2013
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This is my 5th of 7 posts in Jen Fulwiler’s “7 Days, 7 Posts” challenge. Come on over, join the fun link-up, and read some great blogs!
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![Busy Day]()
by Catherine | Feb 28, 2014 | Family, The Homefront
Today’s post is going to be short and sweet because it’s been a busy day. After I publish this, it’s time to put my feet up, have a glass of wine, and watch a show with Philip!
Philip was able to come home around lunchtime, and we spent the rest of the day prepping for our realtor’s visit tonight. Aside from filling out some more paperwork and discussing important details, we finalized the staging of the house.
Harry thinks selling the house is exhausting! He fell asleep on this blanket while we wrapped things up with our realtor. Sweetie pie!
It took longer than we anticipated, but it’s a relief to have the house almost 100% ready and have all of our questions answered.
I wanted to share a few shots of the family room.
After nearly six years, I finally updated the throw pillows. I didn’t realize how bad our other throw pillows were until I asked a close girlfriend what she thought. When she told me, “You should either not leave those out or get new ones,” I knew it was time! I found these cute ones at Garden Ridge.
I’m so proud of myself for getting bright and fun colors since I usually play it safe. They photograph well against the dark couch and chair, too. What a difference some new pillows make!
Alright, off to spend some time with Philip!
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This is my 4th of 7 posts in Jen Fulwiler’s “7 Days, 7 Posts” challenge. Come on over, join in the fun link-up, and read some great blogs!
![The 1st “P” in Our Rule of Life: Prayer]()
by Catherine | Feb 26, 2014 | Faith, Family, Marriage
In case you missed it, part of my Lenten mission this year is to create a Boucher Family Rule of life modeled after Holly Pierlot’s A Mother’s Rule of Life.
Yesterday, I shared the essential tasks of my vocation and wrote a family mission statement.
Today, I’m starting my examination of the “5 P’s”
- Prayer
- Person
- Partner
- Parent
- Provider
I’ll tackle one “P” each day for the next five days.
First up: Prayer.
Holly Pierlot is right on when she writes that we have to schedule prayer “because God isn’t so obviously urgent, because he doesn’t pester us for our attention like our children or sloppy house can.” Holly suggests making a list of all of the things you think ought to comprise a healthy prayer life. For me and where I am in my spiritual journey, those things include:
- Morning Offering
- Remember that the work of my vocation is prayer and consciously offer each chunk of the day to God to “supernaturalize the day” and “tackle every task as a direct response to God, just as if he were asking you, ‘Will you go do your laundry now?'”
- Holly Pierlot has a tremendous section on overcoming sloth by offering God our efforts. She shares Fr. John Hardon’s definition of sloth as “sluggishness of soul or boredom of the exertion necessary for the performance of any good work.”
- Regularly offer God my efforts in mental prayer
- Daily Readings & Gospel Reflection
- Angelus at Noon
- Saint of the Day Reflection
- Family Prayer (Rosary, bedtime prayers, prayer to St. Joseph as our family’s patron saint)
- Couple Prayer with Philip before bed (reading from our Catechism reflection book and spontaneous prayer)
- Regular examination of conscience and regularly scheduled reconciliation
- Journaling about habits of sin and distractions from my vocation
- Mass (start small with one day each week in addition to Sunday and Holy Days of Obligation)
- Holy Hour (Share a holy hour with Philip and alternate weeks that we go)
- Formal Study (Currently working on The Bible Timeline)
After determining the things I would like to have as a part of my regular prayer life, Holly suggests actually putting them into your schedule. For me, it would look like this:
- Throughout the day: Offer chunks of time to God to “supernaturalize my day”
- Before kids wake up: Morning Offering, dedicate day to God, Daily Readings, and Gospel Reflection
- With kids at breakfast: Morning Offering and Saint of the Day Reflection
- 8:15: Daily Mass (starting with one day a week in addition to Sunday & Holy Days)
- Noon: Angelus with the children after lunch
- During children’s naptime: Formal study (Bible Timeline), examination of conscience and journaling (start with once a week)
- After dinner: Family prayer time (Rosary or special prayers according to liturgical season, bedtime prayers)
- 8:00 p.m. every other Tuesday: shared Holy Hour with Philip
- 9:30 p.m.: Couple prayer with Philip (Read from Catechism reflection book, spontaneous prayer)
A few questions for you:
- Do you have an examination of conscience that you particularly like and can share? What about a kid friendly examination?
- What resources do you use to enter into the Daily Readings? A special app? Homilies?
- Do you have a formal study that you would recommend?
- Do you have a saint of the day resource that is great for reading with children? How do you share the stories of saints with your children?
- What does your couple prayer time look like?
- Do you have any insights to share on prayer in general?
Tomorrow, I’ll take on the 2nd P: Person. That entails all of the things I need to do to keep my person healthy and ready to serve.
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This is my 3rd of 7 posts in Jen Fulwiler’s “7 Days, 7 Posts” challenge. Come on over, join in the fun link-up, and read some great blogs!
![The 1st "P" in Our Rule of Life: Prayer]()
by Catherine | Feb 26, 2014 | Faith, Family, Marriage
In case you missed it, part of my Lenten mission this year is to create a Boucher Family Rule of life modeled after Holly Pierlot’s A Mother’s Rule of Life.
Yesterday, I shared the essential tasks of my vocation and wrote a family mission statement.
Today, I’m starting my examination of the “5 P’s”
- Prayer
- Person
- Partner
- Parent
- Provider
I’ll tackle one “P” each day for the next five days.
First up: Prayer.
Holly Pierlot is right on when she writes that we have to schedule prayer “because God isn’t so obviously urgent, because he doesn’t pester us for our attention like our children or sloppy house can.” Holly suggests making a list of all of the things you think ought to comprise a healthy prayer life. For me and where I am in my spiritual journey, those things include:
- Morning Offering
- Remember that the work of my vocation is prayer and consciously offer each chunk of the day to God to “supernaturalize the day” and “tackle every task as a direct response to God, just as if he were asking you, ‘Will you go do your laundry now?'”
- Holly Pierlot has a tremendous section on overcoming sloth by offering God our efforts. She shares Fr. John Hardon’s definition of sloth as “sluggishness of soul or boredom of the exertion necessary for the performance of any good work.”
- Regularly offer God my efforts in mental prayer
- Daily Readings & Gospel Reflection
- Angelus at Noon
- Saint of the Day Reflection
- Family Prayer (Rosary, bedtime prayers, prayer to St. Joseph as our family’s patron saint)
- Couple Prayer with Philip before bed (reading from our Catechism reflection book and spontaneous prayer)
- Regular examination of conscience and regularly scheduled reconciliation
- Journaling about habits of sin and distractions from my vocation
- Mass (start small with one day each week in addition to Sunday and Holy Days of Obligation)
- Holy Hour (Share a holy hour with Philip and alternate weeks that we go)
- Formal Study (Currently working on The Bible Timeline)
After determining the things I would like to have as a part of my regular prayer life, Holly suggests actually putting them into your schedule. For me, it would look like this:
- Throughout the day: Offer chunks of time to God to “supernaturalize my day”
- Before kids wake up: Morning Offering, dedicate day to God, Daily Readings, and Gospel Reflection
- With kids at breakfast: Morning Offering and Saint of the Day Reflection
- 8:15: Daily Mass (starting with one day a week in addition to Sunday & Holy Days)
- Noon: Angelus with the children after lunch
- During children’s naptime: Formal study (Bible Timeline), examination of conscience and journaling (start with once a week)
- After dinner: Family prayer time (Rosary or special prayers according to liturgical season, bedtime prayers)
- 8:00 p.m. every other Tuesday: shared Holy Hour with Philip
- 9:30 p.m.: Couple prayer with Philip (Read from Catechism reflection book, spontaneous prayer)
A few questions for you:
- Do you have an examination of conscience that you particularly like and can share? What about a kid friendly examination?
- What resources do you use to enter into the Daily Readings? A special app? Homilies?
- Do you have a formal study that you would recommend?
- Do you have a saint of the day resource that is great for reading with children? How do you share the stories of saints with your children?
- What does your couple prayer time look like?
- Do you have any insights to share on prayer in general?
Tomorrow, I’ll take on the 2nd P: Person. That entails all of the things I need to do to keep my person healthy and ready to serve.
* * *
This is my 3rd of 7 posts in Jen Fulwiler’s “7 Days, 7 Posts” challenge. Come on over, join in the fun link-up, and read some great blogs!
![Creating Our Boucher Family Rule of Life: Getting Started]()
by Catherine | Feb 25, 2014 | Faith, Family, Marriage, The Homefront
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| Holy Family, pray for us! |
In case you missed it, part of my Lenten mission this year is to create a Boucher Family Rule of Life modeled after Holly Pierlot’s A Mother’s Rule of Life.
First of all, what in the world is a Rule of Life? As Holly Pierlot defines it, a Rule of Life “consists primarily in the examination of one’s vocation and the duties it entails, and the development of a schedule for fulfilling these responsibilities in a consistent and orderly way.”
So, before I get started on creating a schedule, I need to determine 2 things:
- What is my vocation?
- What essential duties does my vocation entail?
1. What is my vocation?
To determine my vocation, I considered what I call the proper order of relationships. First and foremost, I am a Child of God. Second, I am a wife. Third, I am a mother. I am all of these things, but it is essential that I keep them in this proper order.
2. What essential duties does my vocation entail?
I could go on and on listing all kinds of duties for my vocation, but I need to pare it down to the essentials to make our Family Rule effective.
- Child of God: Sustain a regular prayer life, frequent the sacraments, attend Mass, and show my love of God through my love of neighbor. I also have the responsibility to care for myself (personal prayer, recreation, good nutrition, exercise, rest) so that I can perform all of my duties well.
- Wife: Holly Pierlot quotes Blessed Pope John Paul II as saying that love could be defined as “availability, acceptance, and help.” As a wife, I have the duty to: be available to my husband (spiritually, physically, intellectually, creatively, emotionally), be accepting of all of him, and to be a helper instead of a hindrance on his journey to sainthood. In order to fulfill my duties as a wife, I need to keep my relationship with Philip second only to my relationship with God, but above all other relationships–even our children.
- Mother: I can’t sum up my duties as a mother more succinctly than Holly Pierlot did in her section on parenting. She says that parenting “is a call to form persons. We’re called to bring God to our children’s spirits, truth to their minds, health to their bodies, skill to their hands, beauty and creativity to their hearts, and in all this, virtue to their wills and sanctity to their souls.” To be my children’s primary educator means remembering Pope Pius XI’s wise words that, “Education consists essentially in preparing man for what he must be, and for what he must do here below, in order to attain the sublime end for which he was created.” In sum, it’s my job as a Christian mother to foster my children’s relationship with God so that they can: hear His voice calling them to their specific vocation, receive the graces to live it out well, and glorify Him through their lives as a preparation for their eternal reward with Him. Ultimately, my job as a mother is to raise my children to become saints.
If those are only the essential duties I have as a Child of God, wife, and mother, I have A LOT to do each day! Now that I have my essential duties listed, we need define our family’s mission (what we’re doing and why) before we create a schedule. That will help our family to maintain our focus and purpose as we go about our everyday lives. Philip and I worked together to create our family mission statement. Here it is:
The Boucher Family is domestic church whose mission is to know, love, and serve God. Our aim is to live intentionally as Jesus’ disciples, propel one another to sainthood, and joyfully share our love of God with others.
I love our family mission statement! It really pares it down to what we’re supposed to be doing everyday. I’m printing it off and putting it on our refrigerator. Maybe someday I can get it beautifully painted on canvas to be hung in a prominent place in our home. (Any crafty friends out there know of a way for me to do this?)
Now that I have my vocation’s duties outlined and our family mission statement written, I need to draft our family’s schedule. In order to do that, I will be examining what Holly Pierlot calls the “5 Ps.”
- Prayer
- Person
- Partner
- Parent
- Provider
Tomorrow, I’ll focus on the first P, Prayer.
Until then, I’d love to hear your thoughts on all of this. Heck, I want to have a book club to discuss everything I’m uncovering in A Mother’s Rule of Life! What are the essential duties of your vocation? If you had a family mission statement, what would it say? Are you fulfilling the essential duties of your vocation? If not, what practical changes can you make today? What is keeping you from fulfilling your essential duties? Are you preventing someone else from fulfilling his/her essential duties?
If you’re interested in creating your own Rule of Life, read A Mother’s Rule of Life and visit Holly Pierlot’s website for some great resources.
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This is my 2nd of 7 posts in Jen Fulwiler’s “7 Posts, 7 Days” challenge. Come on over, join in the fun link-up, and read some great blogs!
