I was out with my Mom, Samuel and Veronica on Saturday doing some shopping.  We stopped at Barnes & Noble to look for a bread making book.  We stopped in the children’s section and a gentleman was there with his two grandkids.  We started chatting and he proudly showed off his grandkids, so I asked his grandson how old he was.  He looked to be about Grant’s age.  He said he was 12 years old, so I commented that I thought so because I have a 13 year old at home and he looked about the same age.  He smiled with that, “it’s cool that she thinks I could be 13” smile that they get at this age.  The man then commented that I had quite a spacing; noting the age difference between Grant and Veronica.  I responded with something like, “Well, it’s not too bad; I have four more between them.”

He quickly did the mental math and then gave me a look that was a cross between surprise and horror.  Yes, I get those looks sometimes.  He then asked me if she was going to be our last.  I get this a lot too.  So I answered honestly that I wasn’t sure, we’re always open to having another baby.  Again, the look for shock and horror when he says, “You know you have a say in that?”  I know he was thinking, she’s probably that person driving one of those huge vans taking up three parking spaces in the already too small parking lot that caused me to drive around for 30 minutes looking for a parking space.  But I digress, back to the point….

I quickly tried to figure out exactly what that meant as that was a new comment for me.  Did he mean, you have a say in this because this is preventable?  Or did he mean, you have a say in this as in, your husband shouldn’t be forcing you to have all these kids against your will? 

I decided not to try to figure it out.  I almost responded with, “I know, but my husband is just so handsome these things just keep happening”, but left it with the honest answer, again, “I know, but we are open to God’s will for our life.”  He very quickly busied himself with his grandkids and didn’t even make eye contact with me after that.  I’m not sure if he was offended, shocked, upset or what and it honestly doesn’t matter.  His comment just struck me and I’ve thought about it a lot this week. I’ve gotten a lot of comments over the years, this seems to be common once you have more than three children, and I’m no longer shocked, horrified, upset or surprised by them, they are now just a part of life.  Something compels people to comment when they see people with lots of children.

I get a lot of the, “Are they all yours?” Or, “Wow, you must be busy?”  Or, “I don’t know how you do it?”  Or, “Wow are you going to have any more?”  I used to get that a lot more, along with them “Are you going to try for a girl?”  Surprisingly that hasn’t happened in about 9 weeks!  I think people just assume we’re done now that we “got our girl”.

I guess what strikes me is the overall outlook on kids that society as a whole has.  It’s not a new realization for me, but certain comments, such as the comment last weekend really bring it to light.  Children are looked at as creatures that cost money, are an inconvenience and something to be limited to two, maybe three per family.  Once you cross that line as a family people have all kinds of thoughts that they often feel like sharing openly and honestly with you.  

Children are not viewed as blessings and as the greatest gifts God could give us.  They are not viewed as a person to be openly accepted and prayed about, but something to be put on hold, contracepted away until they will be more convenient.  They are looked at in terms of how much it will take to provide that college education for, how much they will tax the environment and the many other thoughts people have.

How would we feel if we gave someone this wonderful gift, a gift more amazing than any other gift we could think of, one that we were excited to give and their response was to be upset, cry and throw it on the ground because it wasn’t what they wanted and when they wanted it?

That is the prevailing attitude towards children is in society.  Children are the most amazing gift we can receive and we turn out noses up at them; not literally, but by our attitudes towards them.  People see me with all my kids and I know we turn heads and there are only six of them.  We run in an unusual circle of friends where we don’t really have a large family.  We are friends with families with 8, 10 and even 12 children and there aren’t just one or two families, but lots of them.  So I often forget that most people see us an oddity.  I also tend to forget that not all people are excited to hear you have been blessed with so many children and comments like I got last weekend bring it back home.  I will admit that it saddens me.  I realize not everyone is called to have a larger family, that’s not what I’m getting at.  What I’m getting at is society’s general view of children and the gift of life.  We contracept them out of existence, we abort them out of existence and those that are born are often seen as more of a commodity only to have when there is enough money, when they are convenient and exactly when we want them. 

Children are the greatest gift we could ever be given; greater than the most marvelous gift we could ever dream of giving someone ourselves.  Nothing compares to the gift of life, the gift of a child is greater than anything else in life.

January is quickly coming to an end and that means it's time to finalize our Candlemas plans.  I have candles to buy to have blessed at Mass that day and food to buy for our lunch.  Thankfully with the chickens I have plenty of eggs for crepes.  Last years celebration can be found here.  I think we're going to do something very similar this year, it worked well, so why reinvent the wheel.  I'd love to hear what others have planned.

Wow, this is hard to believe.  I really can't believe I'm writing this already.  In some ways it feels like she should only be a few weeks old at most and in other ways it seems like she's been part of the family forever.  Veronica is still the smallest thing around, but is getting bigger.  She's only about 9 pounds, so she's gained about a pound and a half since she was born.  She is 23 inches long though, so she's grown 3.25 inches in two months.  No wonder the newborn clothes aren't fitting, she's definitely gotten long.

She is the happiest baby around, smiling all the time.

She has the silliest side smile that makes her look like she's winking; she does this all the time and sometimes it's hard to tel if it's a smile or as Grant calls it, her snear

She is probably my best sleeper (at night) since Grant.  She's sleeping 7-9 hours at night, wakes to eat and then goes back to sleep for several hours.  If I could get her to sleep earlier than 10-11pm that would make it perfect, but I'm going to take what I can get at this point.  Of course she is loved by her brothers, which is probably one reason she's always so happy, she doesn't want for much.  She is trying to talk and make noises, but doesn't quite have that down yet, she moves her whole body though; it's really cute.

A few pictures of her from yesterday and today.  I love this flowered sleeper, but it's a newborn size and she's getting too long for it.  She'll probably only wear it a few more times before it has to get packed away.
 

I love this outfit.  Matthias told me the last time she wore it that it wasn't girly enough because it wasn't a dress and it wasn't pink; a hair bow solved the lack of girlyness issue.  Today he told me he liked it.

Today was another snow day for local schools with over 6 inches of snow coming down between 2am and noon.  So it was time to head outside, this time with Mamma who was home from school today, for some sledding. Mamma promised the kids last night she'd go out with them and she did.  Matthias wanted to head right out this morning to make sure their sled run stayed good with all the new snow.

I took a few pictures from inside the house since I was holding Veronica

I then decided to bundle Veronica up in her snow suit (thanks to a friend who lent us one) so I could get some better pictures.  It's really funny to see these little babies in these huge snow suits; she was lost in it, but super cute.  Her feet fit down inside the leg section, but she had her hands tucked up by her face.  She wasn't happy when I first put her in, but once I stopped messing with her she was fine.

The boys had a great time sledding, throwing snow at each other and I'm sure eating a ton of snow

We had a very quiet start to the winter with almost no snow until we got well into January and now we've had 3 storms in a week all with fairly significant snow amounts.  The little boys have been looking forward to snow because it means sledding, snow man building and snow ball fights.  The older boys, Grant especially, have turned the corner from looking forward to snow to dreading it.  Now that they have to help clear snow they aren't nearly as excited about it.  They will, with prodding from me, go out and "help" the little boys with sledding. The big secret is, they enjoy it after they are out there, even though you'd think I was sending them out into a torture chamber to start with.

Grant took these pictures of the boys outside sledding the other day. 

Augustin is the kid who LOVES the snow and BEGS me to go out.  He doesn't care if it's for sledding or snow removal jobs, he just wants to be out and moving.  He'll stay out for hours too.

More snow today means more fun (and work) outside.

This has been something I've wanted to focus on for awhile now, but haven't taken the time to really put anything together.  I think this is something we've really over looked and want to make it the focus for this coming year.  So each month we are going to focus on one spiritual and one corporal work of mercy and try to incorporate them into our lives.

My plan is to make a poster board for each one that we add to as we go through the year, so by the time we're done we have a beautiful poster for each on that explains each work of mercy, how to apply it in our every day life, scripture, etc.  I really think that by applying them the kids will learn them and hopefully it will be something that sticks with them through life.

We are starting with....Bear Wrongs Patiently and Feed the Hungry.

I think we all could use help in bearing wrongs patiently and it may help curb some of the yelling and fighting that goes on in the house.

One great resource for these is Faith Folders for Catholics.  I've blogged about this site before, but I can't say it often enough.  There are some truly wonderful lap books there that can be incorporated into daily life.  I don't think we're going to turn ours into a lapbook, but rather turn it into beautiful posters for the family to use throughout the year.  Check them out here.

I'll put pictures up as we create our posters.

I seem to be catching up on a lot tonight...3 entries over the course of a few hours.

Samuel has always been one to fall asleep on my lap, well past the age that my other boys would ever dream of.  I'm not sure why.  I have always attributed it to being busy and his napping on my lap while at weekly gym, my parents (before we lived with them) and the other places where he would nurse and fall asleep on my lap.  He is now over 2 years old and will still fall asleep in the car and then stay sleeping on my shoulder when we go into church or a store.  I always love those times.

On Friday afternoon we were enjoying a quiet day watching a movie.  I had told Samuel that after the movie it was nap time.  He climbed into my lap at some point and I could tell was getting sleepy.  I asked him if he wanted to go to bed and he told me he would after the movie.  The next thing I knew he was sleeping.  Out cold.  Grant took a couple pictures.  I love that he still sleeps in my lap, even as big as he is.

Hard to believe, but Parker is now 10 years old.  Not sure how it happened but it did.  He requested an arachnid cake this year and Papa being Papa, obliged him and really outdid himself....as he typically does.  Of course the request also included gummy worms, as all cakes seem to have for a couple of years now.  The boys love gummy anything...worms, sharks, bugs, etc.

We had a quiet celebration the night after his birthday, but it was a great time.

The cake....

Parker admiring the cake; he LOVED it

Blowing out the candles and enjoying the cake.  Parker got to eat the entire head...and a few gummy worms
 

Veronica enjoying the celebration.  She really isn't as chubby as she looks in pictures.  I weighed her today and at almost 8 weeks she weighs about 8.5 pounds (only up a pound since her birth weight)

A lovely gentleman from church took pictures at the baptism last Sunday and came today with a cd for each family with lots of pictures from the big day.  It was so nice and generous of him to do this for all of us.  I love our church, it is just gorgeous.  The statues, stained glass, crucifixes and art work are supposed to draw our thoughts towards heaven and God.

Marian Alter (a side alter)

Stained Glass windows

St Joseph (side) Alter

High Alter in the sanctuary

St. Anne and the Blessed Mother

Sacred Heart of Jesus

Miscellaneous  pictures of the church.  The first is of the pipe organ in the choir loft

These are below the two side alters

The ceiling right before entering the sanctuary

One of the gospel writers found on the ambo

Catherine praying before making her First Communion

Receiving her First Holy Communion (slightly blurry, but I love the image)

Veronica and I during Mass

Catherine after Mass

People gathering before the baptisms

Alter servers and priests processing in for the baptisms

Entering the church
  

Processing to the front of the church
 

In the baptistery
     

Dedication to the Blessed Mother

Group shots of all those attending the First Communion and Baptism taken from the balcony (below the choir loft) at the back to the church

This past Sunday, the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord, was Veronica's baptism.  Such a wonderful feast to have her baptized on and to make it even more special she shared her baptism with the daughter of some very good friends of ours.  So our day started with Mass where we saw Catherine make her First Holy Communion, she looked beautiful and was very excited to finally be receiving our Lord.  Veronica and Iliana were then baptized after Mass.

The baptisms were months in the planning. Brad and Cesar spent hours working on the baptisms since we were using the Extraordinary Form of the Baptismal Rite.  We had never used the Extraordinary Form, but it was beautiful and I can't imagine not using it again.  The richness of the symbolism that ties so wonderfully into the Easter Vigil Mass, the tradition, the Litany of the Saints (sung in Latin), the blessed salt, the presentation of the white gowns to the girls and the entire ceremony were just beautiful. I wish  could put into words how amazing the baptisms were.  And being able to share the day with great friends made it even more special.

We started outside the church and the two fathers knocked on the doors which were opened by two alter servers and asked permission to bring their daughters into the Church.  Once this was done, we signed their heads with the Sign of the Cross and handed the babies to their Godmothers for the remainder of the ceremony.

Veronica with her Godparents, Cree and Jamie walking into the church; wonderful friends of ours who are going to be great a source of strength and prayer for her as she grows.

More pictures from the back of the church where Father performed the Exsufflation (Father breathes 3 times on the face of the baby in the form of a cross and then says, "Depart from her, unclean spirit, and give place to the Holy Spirit, the Advocate")

The Sign of the Cross (Father uses his thumb and  traces the sign of the cross on the brow and on the breast of the child, saying: "Receive the sign of the cross on your brow and on your heart. Put your whole trust in the heavenly teachings. And lead a life that will truly fit you to be a dwelling place for God."), followed by several more prayers and then the blessing of the salt which each baby then received a small amount of in their mouth saying, "take this salt in sign of wisdom. May it be for you likewise a token that foreshadows everlasting life."  Then praying:

God of our fathers, God, source of all truth, we humbly ask you to be well disposed to your servants, Iliana Cecilia and Veronica Catherine.
After this first taste of salt, let their hunger for heavenly nourishment not be prolonged but soon be satisfied. For then they will always pay
homage to your holy name with fervor, joy, and trust. In your tender care, O Lord, lead them to the bath of water where one is born over
again, so that taken into the family of your faithful they can finally attain the everlasting reward which you have promised; through Christ our Lord.

Then Father performed the Exorcism of the Subject

Praying:  "I cast you out, unclean spirit, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Depart and stay far away from
these servants of God, Iliana Cecilia and Veronica Catherine. For it is the Lord Himself who commands you, accursed and doomed spirit,
He who walked on the sea and reached out His hand to Peter as he was sinking. So then, foul fiend, recall the curse that decided your fate
once for all. Indeed, pay homage to the living and true God, pay homage to Jesus Christ, His Son, and to the Holy Spirit. Keep far from
these servants of God, Iliana Cecilia and Veronica Catherine, for Jesus Christ, our Lord and God, has freely called them to His holy grace,
and blessed way, and to the waters of baptism."

Then blessing each of the babies with the sign of the cross he prayed, "Never dare, accursed fiend, to desecrate this seal of the holy
which we imprint upon her brow; through Christ our Lord."

Then before processing as a group to the front of the church Father prays the prayer of Enlightenment, "Holy Lord, almighty Father, everlasting God, source of light and truth, I appeal to your sacred and boundless compassion on behalf of these servants of yours, Iliana Cecilia and Veronica Catherine. Be pleased to enlighten them by the light of your eternal wisdom. Cleanse, sanctify, and endow them with true knowledge. For thus will they be made
ready for the grace of your baptism and ever remain steadfast, never losing hope, never faltering in duty, never straying from sacred truth; through Christ our Lord.

Then we all sang Adeste Fidelis as we processed to the front of the church.  Once there, the Godparents stood just outside the Baptistery with the girls while we sang the Kyrie, the Litany of Saints in Latin and recited the Creed.  Father then blessed the water and performed and exorcism of the water  and at this point the Godparents, speaking for Veronica and Iliana were asked to renounce Satan, they were anointed with  the Oil of Catechumens as he prayed a prayer of Spiritual Combat.  Now they were invited into the Baptistery for a final Profession of Faith and the Baptism.

Veronica and Iliana were then anointed with Chrism Oil as Father prayed, "The almighty God, Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, has caused
you to be born over again of water and the Holy Spirit and pardoned you all your sins. May He now anoint you with the chrism that sanctifies in Christ Jesus our Lord, and bring you to everlasting life."

They were then presented with their white gowns and candles.  The ceremony ended with a dedication to our Blessed Mother as the men chanted O' Sanctisima.  The whole thing was beautiful.

Veronica in her gown

Veronica with Brad and I and her Godparents

The ceremony was followed by a wonderful reception and dancing to celebrate not only the baptisms, but also Catherine's First Holy Communion.  It was so nice to be able to celebrate with so many friends and family.

Brad and I didn't get any pictures ourselves, so I'll post more pictures as we get them.  These came from Brad's sister Nicki....a huge thank you.