Our family enjoys praying the Rosary, especially during hard times. During Philip’s recent trip the Afghanistan, at the request of the children, we prayed the Rosary frequently. It’s comforting to take the time at the end of a busy day and pray and think about the lives of Mary and Jesus.

Praying the rosary requires the children to be quiet and still for at least 20 minutes. We’re lucky because our children do enjoy the rosary, but I think that comes in part from including them with their own special rosaries and having them actively participate. We try to make it a special time to be looked forward to, not something done out of obligation.

We know the basics of praying the rosary, but we don’t alway remember all the Mysteries, and we frequently confuse the Apostle’s Creed with the Nicene Creed. Nobody but me knows the Hail Holy Queen. To help us, we use the book “The Holy Rosary.” It’s written for children, so it’s very easy to understand. Each mystery has a brief (one paragraph) reading to help us to follow the example of Mary in relationship with her life with Jesus. Boo likes to announce each mystery and Pumpkin Girl likes to do the reading aloud.

We have quite the family collection of Rosaries. This one is mine, it was a gift from Philip and it has its own box. Both my Rosary and its box are from the Vatican Library Collection.

Philip’s rosary was a gift from me and I made it! He also has a Ranger Rosary, which like Michelle’s husband, he often keeps in the pocket of his ACU’s. He tells me that he always has one in his bag, too. I made his Ranger Rosary, too.

Boo’s Rosary was a First Communion present and…you’ve guessed it, was made by me! It has his initials and the date of his First Communion engraved on the crucifix.

Pumpkin’s Rosary was a gift from my parents and they bought it at the Vatican. Our family has a special connection to rainbows and when my parents found this rosary with beads in the colors of the rainbow, they knew that it should go to Pumpkin.

Even Bip has his own rosary. Yep, I made this one, too. Wooden beads strung on the same parachute chord that the Ranger Rosary is made from make this one practically indestructible. Bip likes to have his own rosary while we pray. It helps him feel like part of the team, as Philip would say. To help keep him busy and relatively quiet, he also has a small collection of laminated holy cards. He likes to look through them and sort them.

The meditative prayer that is the rosary is restorative and calming. However, I’ll be honest-it’s easy, at least for me, to let my mind wander. To help me focus when I’m praying the rosary alone, I like to listen to Praying the Rosary with St. Therese de Lisieux.

We’ve all heard the expression “The family that prays together stays together.” I’ve also heard of several families that say that their days go better when they are praying the rosary regularly. No doubt about it, there is nothing more lovely than the rosary.

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Grief is funny.  There you are, minding your own business, doing your thing and then it hits you - a piece of you is gone forever and not coming back and there is nothing you can do about it.  It really hurts.  Sometimes it’s just a little hurt, like seeing the pretty Easter dresses in a store which are available in multiple sizes.  How cute my little girls would look, all matching for Easter.  Would, being the key word.

Or walking along the ship’s deck on a Disney Cruise.    I know she would love the princesses.  She should be here. Should.

And then the moment passes and it’s ok again.

Sometimes though - wow, it just hits full force and knocks you down and you don’t think you’ll ever get up.  You may not even see it coming.

A few times a year, we sing a song at church that we sang at Rebecca’s funeral.  Sometimes we all make it through, sometimes we get a little teary and some days it is all too much.

Today was such a day.

I fell out first.  I couldn’t even manage the first verse.  By the chorus I had tears streaming down my face.  At some point Philip stopped singing and then I saw Boo was fighting tears.  By the end of the song, the four of us were a sobbing mess, shaking and holding on to each other.  Poor Bip was the only dry eye in our family, the only one not bobbing in the wake of such an intense loss.

We sit in the front row of course, our grief  on display for the whole congregation.

We are all lucky to have experienced such a deep, long lasting love.  When we were parted from the one we loved so dearly, we were left with pain so intense that sometimes it comes bubbling out.  There’s nothing to do but let it go.  I’d like to say it makes you feel better, but it doesn’t.  Nothing does, really.  Except the promise of heaven.

In the immortal words of INXS, “Sometimes you kick, sometimes you get kicked.”

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Roll Away the Stone…and see the glory of God.

Have a Blessed Easter, everyone!

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I have nothing exciting to post.  We didn’t “celebrate” Leap Day or do anything worth blogging about.  I did have a moment of inappropriate hilarity today at the Stations of the Cross as we started singing “At the Cross Her Station Keeping.”  I was thinking of what Pumpkin Girl said and what I wrote and then “Bohemian Rhapsody” started playing in my head. I choked back a giggle and gave myself a stern look and focused harder.

Honestly, sometimes I’m no better than a kid.  Maybe it was the smell of the carbohydrate heaven soup supper waiting for us in the activity room.

Mostly, though, I wanted to post something on this date since I won’t have a chance for another 4 years.  At that time Bip will be 6, Pumpkin Girl will be 11 and Boo will be 13 - and let’s not even go there.

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I like to decorate for the seasons and holiday.  But what does this Easter decoration:

have to do with the Resurrection of Our Lord and Savior?

And poor St. Patrick.  What did he ever do to merit this decoration for his feast day?

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I hab a code in by nose.

When I was younger, I could handle colds just fine.  They barely slowed me down.  Now they make me so tired.  Like lay down and sleep all day tired.  Or at least sit in bed and look at yarn catalogs while my children bring me lunch.  Which is what happened today.

Anyway, what I really wanted to share was pictures of our homeschool group’s Epiphany play.  The children wrote it themselves and they acted it out after mass on Saturday.  Then we had a pizza party, complete with a Kings Cake.

Here’s the caravan/chorus:

While not “on stage” the children stayed together off to the side.  They sang Christmas songs in between scenes.

The Magi study maps and scrolls to figure out what the star is all about.
Our group has only 3 school age boys, so girls played the Three Kings.  That’s Pumpkin Girl as Caspar in the middle.  She had some major issues with having to play a “boy’s” role at first.  But later, when she learned that she was one of the stars of the show and had a lot of lines, she embraced the role.  We were really proud of her, she learned all her lines by herself and really tried to act them, not just say them.

King Herod and the High King discuss the prophecy of the Messiah.

The Star of Bethlehem points the way to the Holy Family.  Boo is Joseph and Bip is toddler Jesus.  Because of course, Jesus was no longer a baby when the Magi found him.

These pictures are actually from the dress rehearsal, when I was able to move around and get close to the actors.  During the play, the greenery in the background was lit up with white lights and Bip refused to play Jesus. “Me no want to!” complete with crossed arms and pouty face! We brought a backup baby, our family doll Pumpkin, who at the age of 37 is quite the veteran of many a church Christmas play and didn’t act up a bit.

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And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn.

And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night.

And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid.

And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.

For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.

Luke 2: 7-11

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I’m having a hard time to adjusting to real life.  In spite of getting up early every day of our cruise and turning in at night with the children, we were living quite the life of leisure.  I particularly liked eating breakfast on Deck 9, out near the Mickey pool, watching the ocean float by.  Followed by an outrageous game of what I can only describe as gorilla ping-pong with Philip, then dropping the big ‘uns off at their club or taking pictures with princesses…yes, it’s a life I could easily become accustomed to.  Actually, I think I already did.

We’ve started back to school with less than our usual enthusiasm.

And in spite of my best of intentions, we’re not even having enchiladas for dinner on this feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe.  sigh.

But in honor of the day, let me share with you one of my souvenirs from Cozumel, Mexico

How cool is this?  It’s a puzzle, of all things! She weighed too much to travel in the suitcase on the way home, so I had to hand carry her.  Well worth it, I think.

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I had so much to say in answer to the following question that I thought I’d tackle it in two separate posts.  Today I’m answering the part in bold.

Q:How in the world do you actually find time to educate your children,take care of your household duties, and find the energy necessary to do all those cool crafty projects you always show us? All of that, and still manage to keep your sunny personality and your faith so strong! I wish I just had an ounce of that!

Sunny personality? Well, I don’t know about that.  I’m actually quite the pessimist.  I’m the quintessential Eeyore.  But a long time ago I learned a good lesson.  Philip was off fighting in Desert Storm and we weren’t married yet.  I was living alone in San Francisco, going to school and working part time.  It was one of the most difficult times of my life.  I realized then that I had two choices everyday - sit home, watch the news and cry or get up, go to school, go to work and survive.  I had to make that choice every day.  Oh, I allowed myself to cry when I needed to, and be scared and angry and all that.  But every day I just put one foot forward and started moving.  Sometimes life is like that.  You either let it kill you or you survive.  You can’t control what happens to you but you can control how you react to it.

As for faith - it’s simple really.  I must have faith or I won’t survive.  I would just quit right now, crawl into a hole and die.  I MUST believe that Rebecca is waiting for us in heaven or I couldn’t get up in the morning.  I MUST believe that God loves her more than I ever could and that he will use her life and death for good.  I know absolutely the reason she had to die.  I don’t know why she left so young, but I know who to blame that we are all mortal.   I know what I must do to see our family reunited.  I know it’s going to be better than I could ever imagine.  I’m glad she “brought her baptismal gown unstained into the next life.”  I have faith and so I have hope.  I don’t know how people without faith can survive the death of a loved one, I really don’t.  I have no explanations for matters of faith, I leave that for others.   I found this quotation by Albert Camus be so appropriate:

“I would rather live my life as if there is a God and die to find out there isn’t, than live my life as if there isn’t and die to find out there is.”

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Whew! The Jesse Tree Swap is completed and all the packages have been taken to the post office. I was going to share a little bit of the behind the scenes goings on, but let’s just get to the good stuff.

Everyone did such a wonderful job with their ornaments. I can’t say enough about each one of them. I had so much fun opening the packages as they arrived and marveling over the different interpretations of each symbol.

I also want to say a big THANK YOU to Mary Chris who drove up from Virginia to help me pack and mail the boxes. She’s also hand delivering 4 of them. If not for her, I think I’d still be trying to unload my car at the post office.

And so without further ado, I present, in no particular order, the Jesse Tree Craft Swap Ornaments of 2007:

Bethlehem Prophecy

God’s Forgotten Scroll is Found

Ruth and Boaz (Sheaf of Wheat)

In the Beginning

Sacrifice of the Son (Lamb)
(due to a miscommunication, 2 sets of sheep were made. The other one is similar)

Christmas Star

Bronze Serpent

Noah’s Ark and Rainbow

Angels Proclaim the Miraculous Birth

Joseph in Egypt (each colorful coat is different)

The New Covenant

Prophecy: Prince of Peace

Prophecy: Good Shepherd

The Fall of Adam and Eve (the apple is a truer shade of red and looks less like a tomato in person)

Tablets with 10 Commandments

Prophecy: Suffering Servant

Return to Jerusalem: Preparation for Messiah (Brick Wall)

Exile and Persecution (Fiery Furnace)


David and Goliath (Slingshot)


Mary, Mother of All Living (each ornament has a different picture of Mary)


Prophecy: A Shoot From the Stump of Jesse

Light of the World

Prophecy: The New Creation (Lion and Lamb together)
(image copyright Stampin’ Up! 2007)

Birth of Jesus

The Blessing to Abraham (Tent and Camel)

Jonah

The Promised Land: Canaan (Cluster of Grapes)

Passover (Door with Blood )

More information about the Jesse Tree can be found here: The Jesse Tree

Details on how to organize your own Jesse Tree Swap are here: Jesse Tree Craft Swap

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