two posts just waiting...

...for finishing touches. Hopefully by tomorrow!! But now I need to peep in on Jack Bauer in season two and find out what happens to Kate! When last I saw her, she was stuck ina trunk and Bauer and a co-hort were being fired upon in a back alley. Shhh!!! Not a word. I'm leaving right now to see what happens. I mean it - not a word!

Shhhhhhh!!! Read more!

What do large families drive?

No doubt most of my readers have read what Danielle and her readers have had to share about what kind of vehicle large families choose but in case any of you have not see the comment that took the prize click HERE. I am, almost, seriously considering getting one for us, especially if I can find one that does have a glass partition between the driver and passengers. Read more!

An excercise in twirling ...

... can be dangerous as one son learned Friday night. It can lead to a trip to the ER, a neck brace complete with cat scan as well as making a donation of five vials of blood to the lab resulting in the discovery that his diet could use an increase in bananas as he is very low in potassium.

Several hours later with a Frostee in hand, head still thumping with pain, said son returned home with his mum and following Doctors orders, both mum and dad stayed up all night watching season two of 24 so as to be able to wake aid son every two hours so as to ask him his name, age and rank, oops sorry that's Jack Bauer who answers those questions.

And given that mum2twelve is operating on so little sleep there is little more that she can say at this time! However, I can tell you that this son is recouperating well, and while he can not remember the fall he does not feel inclined to engage in such a twirling contest again. At least, not anytime soon. Read more!

One more prayer Request

Please pray for Jen and her family's tragic loss.

Read more!

Prayer Request

Please pray for X... (not the mother in the above posting) who is being induced this evening and is very worried about being induced. It is her third baby but her first induction. Please pray for her unborn baby.

Please join me in my pleas to our Mother in Heaven for her to place her mantle of protection over X. and her precious unborn baby. Ask her for her prayers for X. that the Holy Spirit will fill her with peace, strength and endurance.

Please also pray for her providers and her birth coach.

Thank you all for your prayers!
Read more!

So much to say and so little time

There is so much I have to share, both funny, serious and spiritual, but so little time to say it in.

I am plogging along in my studies for the DOULA certification. So far the books that I have been reading are meant for midwifery, even though on the required reading list.

I have a personal prayer request for all who read my blog. My husband, Hugo, has applied for two jobs, one locally and one in Columbus. While I hate the idea of moving, I do really like Columbus, but as much as I like Columbus, I hate the idea of leaving two adult childrne behind in the South, esp my daughter who is about to embark on married life. So I think I would prefer the job here in nearby Charlotte. But it is hard to believe that we will even get a response to the resume and letter, never mind an interview! We have just had such a difficult past five years that it is hard to believe that something postitive will come our way. And that thought is a perfect introduction to my spiritual thought.

Most, no, all who know the difficulties of the past five years are simply astounded by all that has fallen on us. It is hard to understand the why, so we have come to the conclusion that it is better to focus on acceptance. But it is very, very hard to accept what feels at times like total abandoment by God.

A friend shared this excerpt from The Life of Padre Pio with me the other day:

"We can gather some faint idea of what God was working in the depths of Padre Pio's soul from the letters of this period. Speaking of his own sinfulness and wretchedness he says: "How difficult, Father, is the way of Christian perfection for a soul so ill-disposed as mine. My badness makes me fearful at every step I take" (4.7.1915). In this state of soul God often withdraws his presence for long periods and the sufferer can even believe himself lost: "Peace has been completely banished from my heart. I have become absolutely blind. I find myself enveloped in a profound night and no matter how I turn and toss I cannot find the light. How then can I walk before the Lord ? ... He has rightly thrown me among the everlasting dead whom He no longer remembers" ( 8.3.1916).

God permits, for the good of His servant, horrible temptations against faith when the soul seems no longer even to believe: "My Father, how difficult it is to believe"; and against hope: "It sees itself wholly rejected by the Lord." ( 8.3.1916). To these are added other trials of aridity and desolation through which the mystic enters more deeply into the knowledge of his own wretchedness before God and in the end feels himself forsaken by all. The devil too is let loose to plague the soul by all manner of diabolical temptations and illusions, in fact the mystic comes to feel himself so abandoned by God that he wonders whether all is not simply the work of Satan."

I do believe we are in a battle with Satan in our family. Surprisingly this gives me great courage. Instead of feeling abanonded, I feel challenged to give my all to our prayer life. All the more reason to continue in my decision to give up full time blogging and stick to weekly posts. Our prayer life, which the past month has fallen to even lower priorities that ever, needs to be revived.

How should we purge our homes?

(Click here to read the whole article, but note that this is not good reading for a young child. While one should be aware of the existence of Satan, we do need to protect the innocence of our children. )

We can pray the Rosary, says Father Fortea, "read the Bible together,
sprinkle Holy Water in the various rooms, come together before a holy image
and beg protection and so forth. The persistent prayer of a family, over the
course of several weeks or months, can completely destroy the demonic
infestation in their house."

After reading the complete article, I am more determined than ever to increase my personal prayer time and renew our family prayer life. Do I still waste time worrying. Sadly, yes. We have bills to pay and the business is still slow so please keep us in your prayers as well, as we come up on these deadlines.

Read more!

A little fun...

This past week we have been playing a game based on economics and goverment as a unit study. It is a game we are creating, to some degree, as we go along. For money we are using Monopoly bills.

Elsa, at the ripe old age of 20 months is a keen obsservor and has noted the enthusiastic passing of ten dollar, hundred dollar and even one dollar bills back and forth as we engage in the bartering for services and objects of desire.

Yesterday, as I was noting a deposit made by my eight year old daughter in our little black book (Soon to be transfered to an EXCEL program and handled by the 'banker" we 'hired' this morning.) Elsa appeared by our side gleefully waving several white one dollar bills in our faces. She carefully extricated a one dollar bill from her other fist and passed it to us with great finesse and then grinned expectantly at us. Bethany and I laughed and took the dollar bill and thanked her for her payment. She twirled on her heel and while Bethany and I speculated as to where she had found the dollar bills and whose they were she returned, more gleeful than before, and with yet a greater fistful of bills. This time she cheerfully paid us a few hundred dollars as well as a fifty dollar bill. She was very proud of her new found purchasing power. However, what she was purchasing remained a mystery to us, and she did not seem anxious to reveal it. She was just happy to keep showering us with bills.

But all good things must come to an end and the owner finally arrived to claim her much needed Monopoly money, lamented she had not yet opened a bank account and then quickly sped away with Elsa in hot pursuit, screaming her protests of what, to her mind, was nothing short of having been held up and robbed.

And now, I must keep my appointment with the new banker and show him how to post all of our accounts into an EXCEL program. Until next Friday ~ GOD BLESS
Read more!

Do you suppose...

... it is because Elsa is the youngest of twelve that her first sentence is a "telling" sentence.

"Emma do dat! Emma do dat!", pointing to her dolly and showing me that Emma had accidently broken a paper diaper on the dolly. Read more!

Emma is smitten...

Hearing that some of Miguel's friend Anthony was coming over for a visit Emma looked at me and said:
"Momma, is only big girls allowed to have boyfriends?"

To which I responded:
"Oh yes, only BIG girls have boyfriends."

To which Emma responded with a heavy sigh:
"Oh why does I have to be little???" Read more!

A fond farewell...

After great consideration and prayer, and the reality that I have a lot of paperwork that musts be done, if I am to begin earning a steady wage to help augment the business income, I have come to the sad conclusion that, at least temporally, I must hang up my blogger's hat.

I love to write, but it takes a lot of time and right now I have so much on my plate that I simply can not afford the time to write for pleasure and not for financial gain. I am beginning a home study course that will require quite a few hours of private study, as well as attendance of an out of town workshop, the auditing of a series of childbirth courses, the attendance of six births etc. Once completed, and I pass my exam, I will be a certified DOULA. I hope to also become a certified birth educator, but am starting first as a DOULA, unless I can somehow combine the studies for both things.

I also need to earn the money to pay for the books as well as the workshops etc. (Our library has only ONE of the books on our required reading list!) Therefore, come January I will begin teaching ESL (or ELP) classes again. So I also need to begin to prepare a course outline for my paying clients. I already have a few interested. And of course, I will still be homeschooling, doing tax prep for the business, making travel arrangements for the business etc, and trying to be the best mummy and wife that I can be.

I do hope to continue, on a more relaxed basis, to write reviews and keep them in "storage" so that when I can begin blogging on a regular basis again, I will have a nice back up file of reviews ready for those weeks when time, illness or life does not allow you time to write, and so be able to provide my readers a steady flow of book and movie reviews. It is my hope to maybe someday be able to provide such a steady and reliable serving of reviews that readers will be willing to support it. But financial constraints will not allow me the time to actively follow this dream at this time.

It is very, very hard to let go of my blog, even temporarily. I hope all of my faithful readers (you number well over 100!!) and will check in now and then to see if I have been able to squeeze a post in. I hope that once I have my course work out of the way, and my DOULA /childbirth practice up and running I can begin to blog on a daily basis again. I can not tell you how hard this choice is, but it must be. I will try, once a week, to post something and preferably on the same day of the week.

In the meantime, I bid you Adieu and God Bless!
I will miss you all!
And as always... prayers gratefully accepted!

Happy New Year!!

Read more!

Emma is Grieving the Christmas Tree...

On December first, only about three weeks earlier than we normally put up our tree, there was a knock on the door. Bethany (8) opened the door and there, filling the whole doorway, was a 7 foot high, possibly 4 foot wide, tree.

"What the HECK!" exclaimed Bethany, and suddenly her older sister's face popped out from behind the tree grinning like a Christmas Elf bearing gifts.

I was shocked at the earliness of it's arrival and I tried to suggest we let it 'rest' in it's stand outside on the porch, suggesting that being out in the cold might keep it healthy and fresh longer. I was outvoted by 11 to 1. The tree went up and Advent was heralded in with the need to protect the tree from one 20 month old who was more than amazed by the sudden growth of a tree in her living room. A tree that sported shiny, breakable bulbs that made such nice tikling sounds as they hit the floor. By about the 23rd, she finally lost interest. We thought.

Then yesterday, after many hours of errands outside the home, I bribed the children with a movie in hopes of speeding up the completion of the supper chores. It worked and while we were relaxing as we watched a rather old movie Elsa, sitting on her God mother's lap, innocently reached up and tugged on a bright, red, shiny apple hanging within a tempting reach.

A sudden gasp caused all heads to swivel and more gasps joined the chorus as we watched the tree swivel in what seemed like slow motion but was, in fact, too fast for us to stop it or even react. Then it toppled over and both Elsa and Gabriela dissappeared from sight in a bower of branches. Bulbs tinkled as they hit the living room floor.

Miguel appeared as if from no where and lifted the tree up revealing a rather shocked set of children who, thankfully, were none the worse for wear and someone grabbed a broom and someone else a dust pan. Within minutes we had the tree back upright and the floor swept and tidy but the decision was made for us. I had hoped to eek a few days more out of the tree. However, the tangled decorations hanging from the tree were not much to look at anymore so today - it came down.

But Emma is mourning the loss of the Christmas tree. She sat on the floor surrounded by the needles and lovingly gathered them up. Tears filled her eyes as she glared accusingly at Miguel who had done the evil deed of hauling the tree out. I was suddenly inspired both by the aroma of pine needles that filled the room, as well as the pile of them that Emma had swept up with her bare hands.

A pillow, we could make a memory of the first tree that Emma remembers. Gabriela already has a tree that she has been embroidering that we will add the numbers 2006 to and sew onto the pillow. Emma is tickled by the idea and not so sad now.

But now, you must excuse me. The kitten just knocked the bird cage over. Read more!

Truth or Urban Legend?

Remember the old adage, truth is stranger than fiction… well, I do not know if this story is truth or urban legend, but it is food for thought so please read it and feel free to share it with others.

Know what money you are carrying! You will see why as you read!

Be sure every lady is aware of this . Share with it your wife and daughters.

Know what money you are carrying.

This was the first I have heard of a scheme like this. I wanted to pass it along. Be safe! It is something very serious to pay attention to.

Criminals are coming up with craftier, less threatening methods of attack, so we have to be extra cautious. Read on. I live in Alexandria , VA, but I often work in Lafayette, LA , staying
with friends when I'm there. As you know from America 's Most Wanted TV
program, as well as the news media, there is a serial killer in the
Lafayette area. I just want to let you know about an "incident " that happened
to me a few weeks and could have been deadly.

At first I didn't go to the police or anyone with it because I didn't realize how serious this encounter was. But since I work in a jail and I told a few people about it, it wasn't long before I was paraded into Internal Affairs to tell them my story.

The day of the incident it was proximately 5:15 a.m. in Opelousas , La. I had stayed with a friend there and was on my way to work. I stopped at the Exxon/Blimpie Pie station to get gas. I got $10 gas and a Diet Coke. I took into the store two $5 bills
and one $1 bill (just enough to get my stuff).

As I pulled away from the store, a man approached my truck from the back side of the store (an unlit area). He was an "approachable-looking" man (clean cut, clean shaven, dressed well, etc.).

He walked up to my window and knocked. Since I'm very paranoid and "always looking for the rapist or killer," I didn't open the window. I just asked what he wanted. He raised a $5 bill to my window and said, "You dropped this." Since I knew I had gone into the store with a certain amount of money, I knew I didn't drop it.

When I told him it wasn't mine, he began hitting the window and door, screaming at me to open my door, and insisting that I had dropped the money! At that point, I just drove away as fast as I could. After alking to the Internal Affairs Department and describing the man I saw, and the way he escalated from calm and polite to angry and volatile....it was determined that I could have possibly encountered the serial killer myself.

Up to this point, it had been unclear as to how he had gained access to his victims, since there has been no evidence of forced entry into victim's homes, cars, etc. And the fact that he has been attacking in the daytime, when women are less likely to have their guard up, means he is pretty BOLD.

So think about it...what gesture is nicer than returning money to someone that dropped it?!?!

So take care ladies and please share this with others. Truth or Urban Legend, it is something to beware of. Read more!

The upside...

... and the downside of a large bathroom cubicle.

Upside, when traveling with little ones - you can fit many of them in the cubicle with you.

Downside, it's very spaciousness makes it difficult, nay impossible, to stop four year olds from playing with the locks on the door... Read more!

Ohio, here we come!

Back into the natural swing of things after a weeks bout with the flu followed immeadiatly by Christmas. Today I have one child is drawing a poster sized themometer for me for a family project, (details to follow later) and several others are enjoying the art supplies they received from good Saint Nick and baby Jesus. (Anyone, besides me, wondering what Dan got Danielle??)

I am cleaning. cleaning and cleaning some more while I prepare for a 24 hour run to Ohio. Tim Hortens anyone? I am hoping to remember my camera and take pictures of the awesome Nativity scene they have in Columbus. Let us pray no more German Shepherds narrowly avoid suicide under our wheels. Not sure my heart can handle it.

Later I must check the weather and decide if I have to pull out mittens etc for this 24 hour run. Ack! It would probably be easier to do it the other way - have to head south in the winter months. Mittens would already be out and we could just dress in layers in clothes that are already in the childrens drawers.

Look for awesome pictures of the Nativity soon! Read more!

Keeping the baby Jesus' bed warm...

Each year we set out the Baby Jesus' bed at the beginning of Advent. On the first day we put it out, it is just an empty basket. Beside the basket is a vase filled with scraps of cloth and bits of yarn. Throughout Advent the family fills the bed with acts of charity.

There are few rules to follow.

1) Do not question the amount of yarn or cloth someone is putting in the basket. What they did to earn the right to put the amount they are putting in is between them and God.

2) Do not question how much cloth or yarn someone is taking out. If they have done something uncharitable - again, that is between that person and God how much they think they have hurt the baby Jesus by what they have done.

I guess, though, we did a pretty good job lining the Baby Jesus' bed as our kitten, Milo, seemed to be finding it very comfy a whole week before Christmas Eve! Read more!

Twins...

At Christmas Eve Mass two women joined Emma and I at the back of the church, and each were carrying in thier arms a child of about 15 months or so in age. Each little boy was dressed in blue dress pants, white sneakers, stripped shirt with a red sweater over it. They each had the same hair cut and, in short, were twins.

Emma stared. And stared some more. Looking confounded she glanced down at the floor, then peered around me at the twins again and finally stepped towards the women.

"Why," she asked with great puzzlement in her tone "are you both holding the same peoples at the same time?" Read more!

Boxing Day

For our family, today is Boxing day and this is the day that we traditionally have our Christmas turkey. This tradition began in our family about 12 years ago after we had one crisis or another ruin Christmas, one year after another. We finally decided that since Boxing day was still a holiday for us that we would relax on Christmas day, enjoy snacks, let the kids have free access to their stocking candy and not stress out for hours over the dinner preparations just to have everyone too full from Christmas cookies and candy to really enjoy dinner.

Today is also the Feast day of St Stephen. A somewhat forgotten feast day, I think. Learn more about St Stephen here and Boxing Day here! Read more!

Saint Nick...

... listened to you all and as the poll clearly indicated that Emma SHOULD get Shicken Run, she received it and has watched it a total of TWO times and moved on. Clearly she still loves it but is wise as what may happen to her beloved movie should she watch it non stop as she did when she was three! Thank you all who voted and helped St Nick with his deliema!

Merry Christmas to you all!!!

Answers			Votes	Percent
1.		Not sure...	3	4%
2.		Definitely - ask old St Nick to drop it in the stocking	30	43%
3.		Absolutely not, leave it as sister's treat.	16	23%
4.		What's Shicken Run??	21	30%

Read more!

Your reading glasses...

Emma: Daddy, Daddy! I have your weading glasses. I've been keeping them safe for you.

Daddy: busy with the lap top absently responds, "Hmmmm?"

Emma: Daddy!! Daddy! I have your weading glasses! I've been keeping them safe for you.

Daddy: Hmmm, oh, okay Emma.

"CLINK"

Sound of the protected reading glasses landing at Daddy's feet as Emma, glad to relinquish them, tossed them across the room at her father. They survived. Read more!

The Answer to the riddle of the chairs...

...to why the chairs are all laying down on the floor around the dining room table.

I loved the many guesses, esp the idea of some funny game having been played. Sadly that is not the reason as much as I love it. Rather it is Amanda that solved the riddle and so, wins an invitation to Christmas Dinner, (Of course, it helps that she is the oldest child in the family and already planning on coming home)

The reason the chairs are all on their backs is to keep 20 month old Elsa safely off the table.

She has learned how to move, push, arrange and climb on chairs and loves to dance on the table! And today I bought a Christmas gift for the family... a baby gate.

So today, the chairs are all on their four legs. Read more!