Christmas Mass and the Prodigal Son’s Older Brother
You can find my monthly column over at CatholicMom today. It’s called “Christmas Mass and the Prodigal Son’s Older Brother.” Head on over to check it out!
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| The Prodigal Son, sketch by Rembrandt |
December Happiness Project Resolutions
December 5th.
I am thinking about so many things today…I’m feeling so scatterbrained.
At this time last year, I had just seen this:
I took that test one month to the day after we lost Therese. What a roller coaster ride of emotions! Rather than revisit all of that, you can read what I wrote about the roller coaster last year.
Now, we have our perfectly healthy and happy Harold Fulton! He is such a blessing to our family.
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| I was making dinner last night and asked Jane to grab a toy for Harry to hold. What did she grab? A Barbie with a missing leg. |
I thought I’d quickly dive in to our December resolutions.
December Happiness Project Resolutions
- Say “no” so that you can say “yes”
- Celebrate Advent and the 12 Days of Christmas
We’re taking a month off from all the rest of the resolutions so that we can really do our first resolution this month: say “no” so that you can say “yes.” There’s a popular post going around by Lora Lynn Fanning called, “To The Mamas of Littles During the Holidays.” It’s about how us mamas with little ones need to choose to do less this season. Here’s my favorite part:
If baking cookies and watching your kids sling sprinkles all over the kitchen is going to make you yell today? Then no. Don’t do it. Always choose the relationship with your kids over the Advent activity that makes you scream. Always choose the Simple over the Pinnable.Listen, the only person who expects you to accomplish All The Things on that list? Is you. You must extend to yourself the grace that others are already extending in your direction.
Her article is the inspiration for our first resolution. We are saying “no” whenever necessary this season so that we can say “yes” to resolution #2: celebrate Advent and the 12 Days of Christmas.
We are slowly building the anticipation of Christmas this year. Rather than get all of the decorations out the day after Thanksgiving, we are bringing them out little by little. The only signs of Advent around our house are the Advent wreath and a few little decorations throughout the home. There’s still no Christmas tree and no lights on the house. We are trying to emphasize to the kids (and ourselves!) that we will celebrate BIG TIME during the 12 Days of Christmas (the time spanning from Christmas to the Epiphany). Until then, it’s a time of prayer and preparation around these parts.
Since we’re doing our best to say “no,” the blog will likely continue to be quieter than usual.
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| “Adoration of the Shepherds” by Gerard van Honthorst, 1622 |
Quiet is good.
What a whirlwind of a week!
I’m feeling uninspired this Friday afternoon, so I thought I’d share picture highlights of the week.
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| Raking leaves with Dad. This picture epitomizes how the world must feel to a 2-year-old. He’s working soooooo hard with that little rake, and he feels like he’s not making a dent. |
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| Jane in Philip’s glasses. I think it’s a good look. |
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| Just hangin’ on the floor with the comforter and pillows while Mom and Dad make the bed. |
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| Ahoy! |
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| Fun with pons |
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| Happy Harry |
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| Matching Doc McStuffins characters. We found this Doc McStuffins Tot Pack on 1Plus1Plus1Equals1. |
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| Sorting poms and doodling while Mom makes dinner (Well…sorting is kind of a loose term…) |
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| Janie, singing lullabies, and Harry, flirting right back. Oh, that smile! |
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| Harry’s saying, “Come a little closer. Let me grab your nose!” |
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| “Jingle Bells!” These cluster bells came in the mail the other day. We’re going to have every member of the family ring them when we get to the words, “REJ OICE! REJOICE!” in “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel” while we’re around the Advent Wreath. I have a feeling the bells will be jingling more than that, but that’s okay! |
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| Rapunzel in her Minnie Mouse sunglasses and post-nap hair in all its glory |
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| Very exclusive Brother-Sister tea party in the princess tent. “Do you want to meet Mr. Teapot? Oh, I guess he’s in the potty. He’ll be right back!” |
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| More Doc McStuffins matching (see above for the link) |
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| Philip let me sleep in this morning while he got ready and kept the kids entertained. When I woke up, I found this note on the kitchen counter. He had “interviewed” the kids with the question, “What do you love about Mommy?” and recorded their responses. What a guy! |
We’re looking forward to a weekend of family time since Philip has an entire weekend off! Hip hip hooray! Kindly forgive me if I ignore any form of communication from the outside world until Monday.
Happiness Project: November Resolutions Progress Report
If you have no idea what I’m talking about, read about Our Happiness Project.
Here’s Our November Happiness Project Resolutions Progress Report:
October Resolutions Update
- Exercise
- We both completely fell off the bandwagon with this resolution. I’ve been battling a sore throat for a few weeks, and Philip’s work schedule has been crazy. We’re hoping to find a solution and get into a habit before the Christmas season is upon us.
- Sleep
- We are in bed and almost always have the lights out by 10:30
- Faith
- The nightly family decade of the Rosary & nighttime prayers around the dinner table is a well-established part of our routine
November Resolutions Update
- Couple prayer time right when we go to bed
- We are reading Day by Day With the Catechism by Peter A. Giersch. It’s a great little book with a daily excerpt from the Catechism followed by a reflection. This book has been a great way for us to get our feet wet with couple prayer time. After Philip reads the daily excerpt and reflection, he leads us in impromptu prayer followed by a Hail Mary or Our Father. I follow with some impromptu prayer of my own and close with a Hail Mary or Our Father (whichever one we didn’t pray after Philip’s prayer). Having this dedicated prayer time together before bed is helping us to grow in intimacy and learn more about what is on each other’s hearts.
2. “You can do anything for 15 minutes.” Work for 15 minutes daily on these 4 things
- 1 Shutterfly album
- I’ve had a few technological difficulties in getting our 2012 photos back on to the computer, and I’ve spent most of my time so far just figuring out how to work the program. I’m slowly making my way through our 2012 pictures. I probably won’t have the album ready to order by 11/30.
- Add & edit recipes to Paprika (recipe organizing app)
- I have all of my miscellaneous computer files on Paprika, and I’m halfway through my random Excel doc of recipes.
- Return/Draft E-mails
- I’m learning to stop letting “the perfect be the enemy of the good.” My mentality used to be that I wouldn’t bother writing an e-mail if it couldn’t be a real update. Now, I’m slooooooooowly learning that a quick check-in e-mail is better than nothing. I love having little correspondence with faraway friends and my mother-in-law throughout the week. Seeing their sweet notes in my inbox are such a pick-me-up.
- Decide one & prepare activity to do with the kids for the next day
- We have quite the arsenal of activities, and we’ve been having a great time!
3. Do at least 1 of the following activities daily with the kids, and do each at least once a week:
- Craft
- baking
- library
- outing
- play date
- enrichment/homeschool-esque activity
- write letters
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| Zacchaeus craft (trace hand and arm on brown paper, glue to blue paper, make leaves with thumbprints, and glue Zacchaeus in the tree). Walt abandoned this one to play with trains. |
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| “M” is for Mouse. Walt also abandoned this one! |
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| Coloring |
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| “1, 2, buckle my shoe…” (I put the printables into a file here) |
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| Playing dress-up on a play date. Walt didn’t want his photo taken while he was playing with (surprise!) trains. |
We’ve only gone to the library once this month. We delayed that trip since we had such great books still out on loan. Now, we have 17 great books (most of them about numbers since that’s what we’re working on) that we read over and over and over again! We have done plenty of crafts and homeschool-esque activities as well as outings and play dates, but we still need to write letters and do some baking. Perhaps some cupcakes are in our future this afternoon.
4. Family thankfulness
- It wasn’t working to record what we were thankful for at dinner since that was such a chaotic time. Instead, we’ve been recording what we’re thankful for on looseleaf before our family prayer time, and I store the paper in our Family Prayer Binder. We’ve missed a few nights, but having it right before family prayer time helps us to remember.
5. Budget
- Hasn’t happened yet and needs to before we start holiday shopping!
6. Will
- Also hasn’t happened yet
7. Philip’s Resolutions (I’ll rewrite them here, but I won’t evaluate them for him. If I had to guess, I think he’d say that it’s been a wild month at work and that he hasn’t done as well as he’d like, but he’s made a great effort!)
- Eat four salads a week for lunch
- Do 10 pediatrics boards questions a day
- Put away all electronics from dinnertime to kids’ bedtime (for both of us)
- Read 1-2-3 Discipline book
Sum It Up
We’ve completely tanked on a few resolutions this month (exercise, budget, will, letter writing), but we’ve done pretty well on most (“you can do anything for 15 minutes,” variety of activities with the kids), and even nearly mastered some (family prayer time, sleep by 10:30, couple prayer time, and family thankfulness).
We are still enjoying our Happiness Project. I think it is bringing more positive structure and purpose to our days since we are trying to reach all of our resolutions. Even though it’s been a rotten month in terms of Philip’s wild work schedule, the month is flying by and has been relatively peaceful. I attribute that to our improved prayer life and our well-structured days. Everyone is more well-rested, we are spending more quality time together without electronics, and I am choosing family time over housework.
I am so grateful for my devoted husband who is working doggedly at my side to make these changes for the good! Here’s to a successful end of the month to our Happiness Project!
What We Had for Dinner: Beef and Bean Chile Verde, Skinny Cilantro Lime Rice, & Clementines
I thought I’d share our easy weeknight dinner from last night.
We had Beef and Bean Chile Verde
over skinny cilantro lime rice (you know, like that fabulous burrito joint makes?).
We always double the rice recipe to make equal amounts of the chile & rice.
Meal planning is much more fun with adventurous eaters. Hooray for little ones that will actually eat this kind of stuff!
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| The kids’ plates |
The Feast of St. Nicholas is almost here, so you know these have to be back in season!
Really, what is the Feast of St. Nicholas without a clementine (and some gold coins) in your shoe? Anyway, we feasted on some clementines as well.
What’s on the menu at your house tonight?
