Reflections

While fresh in mind, and my heart full, I want to write about the moments I shared with my family here over the past Easter weekend.

I feel tremendously blest that they were able to come. For my dad, it was a huge country long journey, flying from Virginia Beach to St. Louis and driving the Silver Bullet 7 hours to Kansas. For my mom, it meant giving up a busy week to help Anna and her baby. For my siblings, it was thier "get away". :) For Tricia and Phil, it was turing back around to travel again, just to be with family. Even my cousin Bridget joined in the family fun with her beautiful baby Margaret.

I thank all of them for making the trip. For me, it was home coming to my home....happiness.

For Nicholas and Christiana, they woke up everyday with sheer excitement and wonder and hours of play time with their Aunts and Uncles. Nicholas cried this morning when he heard they left.

Some Favorite moments....

1. Food: Cooking is one of my passions and when it is for my family over a holiday, it is even greater joy. Memories are made with good food and family sitting around a table together. To be able to provide a piece of that for them was pure enjoyment.

2. Nicholas and Christiana: watching my kids literally jump out of bed to spend the day with Aunt Gianna and Grace and Uncle Peter and Paul...the love they have for them is instant and strong. Family bonds are such a gift from God.

3. Easter morning coffee with my dad who joyfully and dutifully sang the Alleluja Chorus in beratone ; ) Easter morning would not be Easter morning without dad's singing to our risen Lord, even though it still always brings Anna and I to giggles.

4. Easter Baskets, Hunts, and Eggs....traditions in my family are carried out to the umpth degree. Hard boiled eggs have names....certain candy from 20 years ago is searched for and bought for the baskets ..... the 10 hour long wait of many children in some basement or living room with the blinds shut with absolutely no peeking aloud - while 20 million plastic eggs and one silver egg with lots of hard cash are filled and hidden for a serious and fun egg hunt...brunch must include egg casserole, bicuits, and fresh fruit with whatever else we want to add as long as those staples are there.

Gianna found the silver egg this year. All these activities are necessary and carried out in detail by various members of myfamily who each hold fast to each of his or her own favorite traditions so that they are all miraculously repeated year after year.

5. Tights, Hats, Ties, and Dresses....everyone gets in their Easter best for Jesus. The Easter bunny turned white when he saw the risen Lord. There is usually a few who no matter how hard we plan ahead, are missing a tie or tights in the Easter morning scramble.

Other Highlights....

The Town Easter Egg Hunt: "If ye don't find an egg will give ya one!"
Interesting concept for an Easter egg hunt. My family got to experience first hand, Kansas style.

As Phil said, "This Easter Egg hunt is not for the faint of heart." We all trooped to the park in blankets and coats in 50 degree weather to see the kids vie for a few jelly beans and a prize at the end.

Easter Egg Wonder

The Newly Hatched...

Veronica Rose

John Philip

Margaret

Hanging Out...

Every day for an hour sometimes two...

Much of life has taken place since I last blogged.

Bugs: We went through a time of sickness for three weeks in a row. It made me appreciate my health to another degree and I’m glad we got it all before Spring.

Spring: has come to Kansas and the kids are in Heaven outdoors. They take all their favorite toys out to the dirt pile to see how the bulldozers and tractors and shovels will handle them. All the outdoor toys have made now made themselves at home in our yard that now looks like a yard sale or daycare.

Winter: was not as harsh or maybe because I was not harsh on winter. Regardless, I’m so grateful to God for making Spring and I will enjoy it – rain snow or shine.

Lent: I’m fond of this time because truly, it is so cleansing, like spring cleaning your soul. I was lucky enough to get to a silent retreat the weekend before Ash Wednesday. Each retreat starts off black and white and ends with seeing in color – so much learning about myself and Christ. Thank God we have them in our Catholic church. I’m enjoying the silence in not using much of the Internet and trying to pray and read more.

In the meantime…We're outside.

My sweetheart.

Please take note of eyebrows. They are not painted on.

Chums. Best playmates.

Sporting the latest Spring fashion from Talbot's Women section.

A sneak visit in of the new nephew. I squeezed and squished as much as I could.

Jeggins + Buns = Pinch Me

We have NO fear.

I Agree

"I am thankful for a lawn that needs mowing, windows that need cleaning and gutters that need fixing because it means I have a home…. I am thankful for the piles of laundry and ironing because it means my loved ones are nearby."
~Nancie J. Carmody



What a wonderful perspective. I'm pasting this above my washing machine. Thank you Jesus for the gift of my loved ones. My life is full.

Lessons from Lewis

This has been a growing week for me, rather a "growing pains" week, my tree was pruned. Thank you God, I needed it.

It was no matter of luck or fate that I would start reading C.S. Lewis' Narnia series during the second week of potty training, the coldest week in January, and the week of a good over due confession.


Humility stings...I received a good heaping full this past week.

I now realize I am miserable at offering up inconveniences and can be so horribly irritable. Thank you potty training and thank you Lord for giving Christiana the bladder the size of a beetle so as to show me this lesson.

My husband also very kindly pointed out to me one of my faults, as all good husband should do if they are half serious at getting their spouses to Heaven. Afterward, I wanted to pull an ostrich and sink my head into the sand so no one could see me, but thank you Lord for giving me such an authentic and pure soul in my husband.

Some days, mostly during January through March, I wonder why God put me here in Kansas. The hibernation leaves lots of room for reading and thinking. I'm forced to do one of two things in the cold: curse and swear or be silent. This year, I'm finally somewhat silent.

God has a brilliant way of using other human instruments or life circumstances to gently show us where our pride blinded us. I realized how weak I am and how much I need Him.

In the book, A Horse and His Boy, Bree the horse fails miserably when he had a chance for glory and to save a girl in distress. Upon sulking and wanting to never show his face again, a wise garden hermit tells him,

"You are not quite the great horse you have come to think...it doesn't follow that you will be anyone very special in Narnia. But as long as you know you're nobody very special,you'll be a very decent sort of Horse, on the whole..."

I laughed when I read this because it stood out so poingnantly to me and this past week.

Not sure why our human nature leaves us with the tendancy to build ourselves up to be more important, wise, or virtuous than what we really are, but we do, and I especially do.


The Narnia books give such a beautiful reflection and perspective of how faithful God is, with me in my darkest trials, whose love for me drives him to sacrifice anything and everything to save my soul. That makes me want to try harder for him, rely more on him, struggle for love of him.

"May you increase Lord, may I decrease."