The Ginger Bread House that wasn't!

I would love to share pictures with you of a completed ginger bread house . . .but I can't.





I can tell you that they had a blast.










I love watching them create and then devour their creation together.


At least they had fun together.

Christmas Gift Advice!

“Christmas gift suggestions:
To your enemy, forgiveness.
To an opponent, tolerance.
To a friend, your heart.
To a customer, service.
To all, charity.
To every child, a good example.
To yourself, respect.”

~Oren Arnold





I love this. I have read it many times in the past but it hit me today when seeing it on a friends FaceBook page. I have been itching for the time to write. The past few weeks have been so busy. Also the loss of a camera isn't helping. Hopefully we will relocate Maggie's camera so I can uploud some shots that I intended to share before.

Heart Prayer Campaign.

As you know heart babies are very close to our family. Our own little Moogie is a heart miracle. She "should not be with us" according to the statistics that we read after finding her condition. She opened a world to us that we had never known before. The world that revolved around children with heart issues. My friend Blair is growing anxious as she waits to find out about her son's possible need for surgery. It is a scary time for any mother/father/child/family. I would never wish it on anyone and yet we grew so close to God during this time in our lives. Blair is seeing that blessing as well and has been inspired to request prayers from everyone. . . to get the details read Blair's Blog post Heart Campaign-Open Wide Our Hearts to Christ!

Please continue to pray for all the heart babies out there.

Visit with Saint Nicholas

Our Sunday began as we waited for everyone to wake up. We knew that we have been visited by St. Nicholas by the gift we saw on the mantel and the bulging stockings. No one could peak until everyone was awake. I wonder if Pooker and Goober realize that they would have never given mom and dad as much time to wake up as the younger ones gave them.

After everyone finally woke up we enjoyed our stocking gifts from St. Nicholas. The opportunity was presented to go and thank him personally. We decided to head to Old Town Spring after lunch in hopes to see St. Nicholas again.

The fun was to be found at the German Gift Store in Old Town Spring. We were able to visit with an authentic German speaking Saint Nicholas. The attire was a little different from what we saw at the Dutch Store a few years back. Their St. Nick made his appearance on Saturday but we could not make it. Jumba was overjoyed again to see Santa/Saint Nicholas. I loved that my children didn't have a list of what they wanted from Santa instead they all told St. Nicholas Thank you for all the treats he had left for them the night before. This Saint Nicholas asked if they would be sharing their treats and since they already had been they thought could not believe how closely he was watching them. This Saint Nicholas was so happy about our big family. He said that he loved big families and that he sees his friend Jesus in big families. (So much more appropriate than the negative talk from the day before.) Princess felt this one had to be the real one and that the one the day before but just a very tired helper. Pickle pointed out that at least this one remembered he was a saint.
We were blessed to run into a few friends while there as well.

Saint Nicholas made us so happy when he agreed to continue to pose for the entire group. He was even more joyful when he learned that the 13 children came from just 2 families. This is a great picture that includes Faith, Hope, Charity and Love. They just happen to be 4 of my favorite people.

Santa came to visit the parish

Goobers was working on her volunteer credits for Confirmation. That made the rest of us get out of the house and visit with Santa. Goobers loved her job of being Santa's helper. As the children walked away from Santa, Goobers would hand them a treat.

Pooker and Bear were still a little tired but wanted to be there with the little ones.

The kids found their friends and the hot chocolate.

Bagel was very worried about this talk with Santa. She was so nervous.

Jumba surprised us. He wasn't scared of Santa at all. He couldn't wait to hug the man.


Our first stop was to make some reindeer food. Jumba was prepared and now ready to visit with Santa.

Standing in line Jumba made Sugar walk close so he could watch the other kiddos with Santa.


Finlay it was his turn. Jumba was so excited!


Here are my three young believers. They believe in the magic of Santa. They believe in asking for all that they need and want. They believe that God will answer every request. I pray that by the end of this Advent Season we will all trust like they do giving the Father all of our belief.

Recap of the first week of advent

I had some wonderful pictures of Bear on the roof putting up lights. Great family shots as we put our house in the Holiday spirit. Then the pictures were lost and out of anger I broke my camera. Not on purpose but it is broken and it is my fault. So I stopped putting the joyful decorations up.



Thursday we lived with the promise of snow. Hello, we are in Houston and I did say snow. Not only were we supposed to get snow it was supposed to accumulate up to 4 inches. We had the best time thinking about the snow that might be coming. I was sad that I had no camera but the kids have some so all should be good. Then my area didn't get any accumulation. We watched beautiful flakes fall to the ground and I still got angry that it didn't stick.



We visited the day school at our parish yesterday for the annual breakfast with Santa and the the St. Nick's Nook. We didn't have breakfast as we had come later. The children waited in line to visit with Santa. Jumba was delighted to talk with Santa and had a blast. The Vendors for the St. Nick's Nook were good but very trendy and very pricey. I was very disappointed. We waited for Goobers to finish some service hours and sat and watched those around us. My children noticed all kinds of stuff. Children that were being rude to their parents because of something silly and the parents then giving in to the children.

At one point I was summoned from my seat to visit with Santa. He went on to complain that he was tired after having seen all those kids and I must either be insane or exhausted all the time.

REALLY, did my children need to hear that from someone who is trying to
represent a SAINT!??!

Yesterday was the one month marker of Linda's passing. From Linda I learned that my time is short, I won't know when the end is coming, and that I need to stop wasting precious time. The week ended with me feeling sad, depressed, guilty, let down and angry. That isn't what Advent is about at all. I have not left this week better than I left last week. Today marks the first day of the second week.

I need to stop trying to FEEL better and start trying to BE better.

Parish Advent Retreat

Our parish has been blessed this week to have a speaker giving talks to the parish at the morning Masses and in the evenings. Fr. Cedric Pisegna is the speaker. He is a priest from the Passionist order. He joked during Mass on Sunday that unlike our parish pastor he was actually religious. At St. Anthony we are blessed with two good priests. With 5000 families in our parish they are very very busy but they are good priests.

So the time is here to prepare our hearts for Christs second coming as we prepare for the celebration of his birth. I took Sugar and Moogie to Mass yesterday morning. The talk was on Loss. J and I went back last night for the talk on Grief and the healing of the Holy Spirit. I think so many in our Parish have had death hit them lately. If not death we have had lots of job loss. The topics were very nicely addressed. I did not make it Tuesday morning but hope to make it tonight.

Fr. Cedric has a ministry that he supports by his books. We did not get any yet. They sell out very quickly. A friend got a book after the first talk and told me she loved the book. Not sure which one she got. Fr. uses the profits from the sell of his books to support his TV ministry. He has a few that I hope to some day read. One written for the youth sounds fun, God's Not Boring! Another one meant to entice fallen away Catholics written about Fr.'s passion for Golf is one that looks like it would be a fun read, Golf and God. His TV program is called "Live with Passion!"

Fr Cedric told a story last night of a baby eagle stuck in a chicken cook. He made the analogy of this little eagle and those of us. We sit and think we are chickens. We sell ourselves short. Then a storm comes and forces our wings open. This can prove that we are eagles. He encouraged us to not be thrown by the storms. The storms can help define us and unite us to God if we allow ourselves to grow. We need to identify ourselves as Children of God not by the chickens that surround us.

I encourage you to visit Father Cedric Pisegna, C. P. website. He has links to daily readings and meditations, information on his TV show, links to purchase his books with detailed explanations. After all the grief that I have felt over the past few months I must say that it was very nice to be lead back to a peaceful place in Christ. I don't know how people get through loss in their lives without a faith. I am not asking here, I am just stating my own love of my faith.

God bless us all. Please help all of us to realize the eagle within us and not to try to be a chicken just because that is what it looks like we should be. Thank you for your peace. Continue to help those that have fallen away to find their way back into your arms. Your will be done. Thank you for all of my heart aches. I know that you have not caused them but have allowed me to grow because of them. I pray that you also find Him in this season.