That is probably the one statement Brad never wants to hear from me.  I am so attached to my camera and he knows it.  My camera has been dying a slow death over the past couple of months. The battery doesn't stay charged as long as it used to, the switch from video to photo doesn't want to stay in place so the default setting is now video which often (but not always) requires that I hold it in the correct position and so on.  Well, yesterday the lens froze in place and will no longer move so the camera won't even turn on now.  It isn't worth fixing so I now NEED a new one.

I was really hoping to nurse the camera along for a few more months and use some of our tax return on a new one.  It doesn't appear that is going to be a possibility though.  So I'm going to borrow Grant's for awhile and put off the new purchase a month or so.  I really don't like making big purchases like this, but they are sometimes necessary.

I'm already missing it.  I was watching Matthias and Augustin slide down the big snow covered hill onto the driveway and wanted so much to take pictures of them and couldn't.  Brad told me to just try to enjoy watching them; very hard for me to do.  So no pictures for now and I'll enjoy just watching the kids.

Today is the second day of February and we've had snow for 2 days now.  We've gotten some where around 20 inches of new snow.  Very white and pretty to look at; not so great to drive in and not so great to have to remove from the driveway.  The kids had a great time outside sledding though.

Grant trying to get Samuel into the back yard

Grant

Augustin trying to get a sled

Samuel eating snow

A good view of the amount of snow we've had in the past couple weeks; it's about even with the top of the picnic table on the gazebo patio

Sledding fun

Parker and Augustin coming down together

Matthias after a nice run down the hill; snow on the face and all
 

Matthias asked me to take his glasses off, they were getting covered in snow and not very comfortable

Samuel does a lot of sitting in the snow, it's hard for him to move around

Sitting in the snow at the bottom of the hill

Augustin heading back up the hill

Grant

Parker, heading in to get a hat

Samuel ready to go in, he gave Parker his hat since he wasn't going to need it.

Candlemas is the celebration of the Presentation of our Lord in the Temple and the Purification of our Blessed Mother.  It derives it's name from the traditional blessing of the candles which prompt us to remember the words of Simeon in the Gospel of Luke when he says to the infant Jesus, "A light to lighten the gentiles and the glory of your people, Israel."

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.