Playdate!

Check out these adorable pictures and video clips from our impromptu playdate with baby Audrey Fontana today. Audrey is just six weeks younger than Gabriel.

Handsome boy!!!!

Either pooping or about to scream--I can't remember...he looks so disturbed that is was probably both!

Getting a little too frisky with Ms. Fontana

Audrey is almost crawling already! Gabriel has some work to do. 

Gotta love those little Catholic babies :)

Baby revived after mom's touch

When I was pregnant with Gabriel, I read several things about cuddling with your newborn as soon as possible. This story definitely adds more to that argument!

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/health/2010/08/30/mom.touch.baby.life.cnn?hpt=C2

A White Elephant weekend, complete with some very Tasty Francos, and some laughs from Gladys and friends

We had a great weekend, full of friends and good food (always a winning combination).

On Saturday night, we hosted our first party at our new house, and it was an enormous success!

We sent out a cute email invite touting the soiree as a "White Elephant Party and Dessert Exchange." Everyone brought a dessert to share and also a small gift for the White Elephant Game. We had all manner of desserts and all manner of gifts. Some highlights included a roll of toilet paper, a tape dispenser in the shape of a little man sitting on a toilet, a bottle of 90-proof Chinese liquor, and an alarm clock that launched a space shuttle in the air to wake you up.

Michael made everyone his famous "Tasty Francos," a surprisingly yummy concoction with lots of fruit juices and flavored liquors. They were quite a hit :) And I made a fantastic fruit pizza for our dessert offering (I posted the recipe below for readers who were at the party and kept asking about it. It was gone in about 45 minutes!

And because everyone knows that all good parties end with a small group huddled around a laptop watching hilarious YouTube videos, here are the links to some old favorites that make me double over laughing pretty much every time.
Double Rainbow - "What does this mean!?"
David After the Dentist - "Is this real life?"
Bed Intruder -  The original news story and the fantastic music remix (It's on iTunes and is making this guy a lot of money now, go figure) - "Run and tell that!"
Gladys on Ellen - "Well now, I have to be honest with you. I love Jesus but I drink a little."

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Fresh Fruit Pizza

Ingredients: 
1 roll of refrigerated sugar cookie dough
2 tablespoons of melted, seedless raspberry jam
3/4 cup lemon curd
Strawberries, blackberries and raspberries

Instructions:
Just press the sugar cookie dough into 12" or 13" circle and bake (I pressed it to about 1/4 to 1/3" thick). Make sure you don't bake it too long so that it gets hard and brittle. Cool the sugar cookie "crust" completely and then top with jam and then the lemon curd. Arrange the fruit on top and--voila!--instantly gain a stellar cooking/baking reputation with all of your guests! :)

An interesting perspective based on work of Pope John Paul II on the proposed Islamic center in NY: http://tinyurl.com/24pven3

Lovely lady dressed in blue

I just found this very old little prayer card while cleaning up my desk.

God sends me little things like this to encourage and sustain me when I'm having a hard time (like today). Interestingly, my scripture meditation this morning was on coming to Christ with the faith and trust of a little child. And lo and behold, this sweet prayer card helped me to get into more of a child's trusting mindset.

Mary knows what all of us mothers are going through. I forget that. Here, she reminds me again to take my struggles and joys all back to Christ--with the faith of a child who knows her Father will take care of her.

"To Our Lady"

Lovely lady dressed in Blue, 

Teach me how to pray!

God was just your little Boy, 

Tell me what to say!

Did you lift Him up, sometimes, 

Gently, on your knee?

Did you sing to Him the way Mother does to me? 

Did you hold His hand at night?

Did you ever try

Telling stories of the world?

O! And did He cry?

Do you really think He cares

If I tell Him things--

Little things that happen?

And

do the Angels' wings

Make a noise? And can He hear 

Me if I speak low? 

Does He understand me now? 

Tell me--for you know.

Lovely lady dressed in blue, 

Teach me how to pray!

God was just your little Boy, 

And you know the way. 

I unashamedly teared up when the prayer asks her, "O! And did He cry?"

I need to read!

Michael and I have established that I like to read books about parenting and babies, and he doesn't. He feels that--for the most part--everything will just "come to us" with parenting. I, on the other hand, strongly believe in getting as much advice and how-to as I need from friends, books and elsewhere! I learned quickly that of course it doesn't all come naturally--at least for me!

Well, I'm at my wits' end with Gabriel on a certain issue: he is in a stage in which he does these piercing screams to get my attention. These are not pain or terror screams: they're purely angry, irritated, give-me-your-attention-or-something-I-want screams. He screams when he is bored, when he finishes a bottle, every single time we put clothes or a bib on, and (the worst) at every single session of eating baby food in his high chair or in the Bumbo seat.

My strategy has been to completely ignore the screaming and remain perfectly calm and patient, but it's been weeks and weeks and I think things are actually getting worse. I don't know what the problem could be, but I think it's with me, which makes me incredibly frustrated, because I have know idea what to do. It's not coming naturally how to teach him to have pleasant meal times at home. Gabriel's teachers at Mother's Day Out say he eats beautifully and always eats all of his food. I can barely get him to eat anything at home most days! Go figure.

I did ask a good friend for some advice recently. She recommended I just make Gabriel a brother. Well, considering that particular solution would be at the least nine months away, it wasn't very helpful, but thanks anyway, Lucy :).

I know I have some great baby books and Websites I can consult about this, but I am so busy working, paying bills, cooking, doing housework, taking care of Gabriel, or running errands that I just pretty much work on my to-do list from the time I get up in the morning until when I go to bed. When there's a poo stain on the carpet to shampoo out and we have absolutely no food for breakfast in the morning, reading up on baby care isn't the first thing on my list!

This is where a few of you kindly point out that I make time at least to blog every day or so, and you'd be right. :)

I suppose it's time for me to stop whining and wasting time writing this blog post. I have some reading to do. And maybe I will just plan to start work on that little brother idea too.

I know you're all just here for the pictures--and explosion stories :)

Since, deep down, I know that my readers just want to see pictures of Gabriel instead of read about my life's little adventures and philosophical musings, here are some recent gems of Gabriel and our beautiful new house (which I haven't posted of pictures of at all!)

He LOVES eating frozen banana chunks in this little snack teether I found. It has a little net that you can put food into and they chew and suck on it. I give him the frozen banana when we go on walks. It gives him something to do and helps keep him cool--it's so hot outside right now. 

I wonder why they planted a tree and bushes directly in front of the front door? Oh well, it is a pretty tree when it's blooming, and it provides a little more shade, which is always appreciated in Houston!

In baby explosion story news, Gabriel threw up in Michael's mouth this morning. Michael was throwing him up in the air and--all of a sudden--I looked up from the sink and saw copious amount of lumpy white goo dripping out of both of their mouths. Granted, Gabriel had eaten a large meal about 30 minutes before this. Michael was so grossed out that he almost threw up on me. 

A new woman, and rambunctiousness

Mother's Day Out has been so wonderful this past week! I feel so much less stressed, Gabriel loves his little class and teachers, and I get to have one hat on at a time (well, much more of the time). My work for my job is already greatly improved in quality and focus--as is my mothering. I also get to establish more of a predictable routine for both me and Gabriel.  I feel like a new woman! :)


Gabriel and I go to daily mass two or three times per week now, and it's been lovely and a challenge at the same time. I've been wanting to start taking Gabriel to daily mass for a while now, but I honestly just haven't made it happen. Our church, however, has a convenient 8:30 a.m. daily morning mass that lasts about 30 minutes. That means it ends just in time for me to walk next door to drop Gabriel off at MDO around 9:10, then get back to work consistently for around 9:30 a.m. God couldn't have been any more clear that He was dropping in my lap a perfect opportunity to grow in my faith and start a little foundation for Gabriel's faith.


I've always wanted to teach my children to be quiet and respectful during church, and I figure that starting early is a most excellent way to do that. I've been quite humbled these first few masses, though. Gabriel is a textbook example of rambunctious: "Difficult to control or handle; wildly boisterous; turbulently active and noisy."


Yep, that's him. And I don't mean to exaggerate (much). He sits quietly in my arms or lap for 5-8 minutes at a time sometimes. But even if I feed him right before or during mass, whether he is sleep or well-rested...the child just doesn't like to sit still.


Yesterday, Gabriel was near-constantly making some kind of noise in church, including one loud, juicy burp, baby babble, giggles and several prolonged piercing screams. I spent about 2/3 of the mass bouncing him on my hips and otherwise entertaining him at the back of the church.


Of course, everyone is so nice that it makes me want to cry sometimes--especially if I'm at my wits end by the end of mass, like yesterday. Father Bob always gives him an enthusiastic blessing at communion, and talks about Gabriel joining the choir when he's older, and everyone smiles sweetly at me when we're leaving.


I will admit now, though, that I realize now that I used to be something of a snob when it came to people and loud, rambunctious children in churches. I always knew that my children were never going to be loud, run around, munch noisily on snacks, whine and be wild, thereby distracting all of the other poor people trying to glean an ounce of faith formation from the mass. My own parents were somewhat out-of-the-ordinary Cry Room Parents. We had to sit in the cry room for years while the younger ones were very little, but us older ones weren't allowed to misbehave whatsoever.

Now that I've got a naturally rambunctious little boy of my own, I have a lot more respect for parents who even take their kids to church. Bravo to them for even going! And to the parents whose children all sit respectfully and quietly all (or most) of the time, please email me immediately and we'll set up a call! 


Interesting enough, a family with eight children--the oldest a boy who looked about fourteen--came for mass one morning last week. Except for one emergency potty visit, those kids barely made a peep. I had my hands full with just one...


I should have gotten that momma's number.

http://ping.fm/R7g2u

New embryocidal drug approved by FDA

http://www.catholic.org/national/national_story.php?id=37847

A new embryocidal drug was recently approved quietly by the FDA. The new drug, nicknamed "Ella," in some cases prevents an embryo from implanting in the uterine wall, effectively killing the new baby.

From the article:

[Ella] is a selective progesterone receptor modulator (SPRM), meaning it works as a contraceptive by blocking the progesterone needed for the ovary to release an egg.  The drug's purported life span is the same as a sperm, so according to the drug's makers and marketers, ella is a safe, effective way to prevent unwanted pregnancy even after having sex.  Nothing more.

Not so fast.  Ella is chemically very similar to the abortion drug, RU-486 (mifepristone).  Everyone familiar with how human life gets its start also understands that progesterone is needed to sustain a newly implanted, developing embryo.  Cut off the progesterone and the new life will die.  This is how RU-486 works, and since ella operates the same way, it could act as an abortifacient.  In fact, the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians & Gynecologists calls ella an embryocidal drug.

Suppose that 5-day window happened a little differently?  Suppose sex and ovulation both happened on Monday and a child is conceived.  If the woman decides to take ella on Tuesday or Wednesday or Thursday, ella "works" not by preventing ovulation and conception, but by denying the new life the progesterone needed for survival.

I think that in general, late-term and partial-birth abortions are difficult for pro-choice/pro-abortion advocates to defend because they are so graphically and so (in my opinion) obviously murderous actions. Also, babies are born four and five months early every day to parents and families who desperately love and want them, and medical science is amazing enough to save many of them.

Abortion by abortifacient and embryocidal drugs at the very beginning of life is much easier to defend--and disguise. 

Soon it becomes acceptable, even rationalized as "better" than an abortion at 6 weeks or 12 weeks because the baby is so small, so unformed as to be considered barely human yet.  Yes, surely if a woman wants an abortion, it's better she does it this way when there's "not really a baby" yet.  And with little resistance, society as a whole soon decides this type of abortion is agood thing.  It's simple, accessible, cost-effective (since it's covered by insurance), and best of all, done in secret.  Where public opinion is concerned, out of sight is out of mind.

The writing on the wall is impossible to miss.

A pro-abort commenter on Jill Stanek's blog said it painfully well:

"Chalk up another win for the Pro-choice movement. you guys have been at this for what 40 years?  Don't worry I'm sure your day will come, lol. "You know with these types of pills becoming more effective and accepted you guys should be happy; those awful pictures you hold up will be a thing of the past.  As time goes on it will be easier and easier to abort a pregnancy long before any type of real growth can happen.  There will be no more aborting fetuses that in any way resemble a human shape.  Heck, they won't even be fetuses since they will not be allowed to implant in the uterus. Just a small clump of cells in the beginnings of division." 

Mr. and Mrs. Fixit--and company

Mr. Zip and Mrs. Mignon came into town this weekend, and I feel like I have a house full of personal handymen at my service!

Today, Mr. Zip (my amazing and completely blind father-in-law) single-handedly installed a new garbage disposal and a new floodlight in the backyard. Of course, Mrs. Mignon was reading directions and fetching various tools with names like "Philips" and "Flathead" the whole time.

Michael had our friend Steve Trabanino over to help him lay tile in our master bathroom. Another good friend of ours, Sean Harrison, came over to help out as well.

Sean's visit was quite a surprise and a blessing for several reasons. Someone was paying him to fly an airplane into Houston today (Sean has his pilot's license), and so he rented a car after arriving this morning and drove to our house for a few hours before catching a commercial flight back home. The best part? Sean kindly packed along his wet saw so we could cut the tile for our bathroom, saving us a lot of money we would have had to pay out in order to rent or buy one for this project!

For my part, I watched the baby and spent almost the entire day cooking. It was very important to me to feed all of my workers especially well today :) So, I cooked pancakes from scratch for breakfast, homemade hamburgers and parmesan-garlic oven fries for lunch, homemade brownies for snack, and red beans and rice and cornbread for dinner.

Thank goodness I wasn't alone in all of this cooking (and all of the dishes!).  Mrs. Mignon and Mr. Zip helped a lot in the kitchen. Mr. Zip even taught me how to make my first roux. I feel like I'm finally embracing my Louisiana culinary heritage now :)

In all seriousness, my parents-in-law have more energy than I ever have or ever will have. They have seemed like near-tireless workers (and party-ers) ever since I met them. They're sort of amazing.

I'm hoping to weasel a couple of more little projects out of my "helpers" before the weekend ends. :) I've been wanting to put up Gabriel's curtains and a couple more things on the walls...

Today

6 a.m. - Baby wakeup call (who needs an alarm clock, anyway? Just have a baby and you'll never sleep through your "alarm" again)

6:45 a.m. - Parked Gabriel in the stroller and decided to pull weeds from my front flower bed. 

7:00-7:45 a.m. - Took a stroll around the neighborhood in our pajamas, checked the mail

8:00 a.m. - Green beans for breakfast. Maybe it will make him well-rounded.

8:15 a.m. - Bottle

8:30 a.m. - Put Baby G down for a nap

8:30-9 a.m. - Got rebellious and took a nap too

9:00 a.m. - Cleaned the kitchen, made the bed, put together MDO diaper bag and food, started working

10:00 a.m. - Took a shower

10:15 a.m. - Done-with-nap-alarm rang. Got baby up, dressed him, changed diaper, roll around on the floor and had a tickle fight, dropped off at MDO. 

10:50 a.m. - Got home and started working again.

Noon - Stopped for lunch

12:15 p.m. - Started working again

1:45 p.m. - Leave to pick up Gabriel from MDO

And that's just until now. I feel like the day is just beginning...

2:00 p.m. - Pick up Gabriel from MDO, run by bank to make a deposit

2:45 p.m. - Michael gets home from work

5:30-8:30p.m. - Cocktail party with a client downtown

8:30-10p.m. - Going away dinner and salsa dancing with my boss and Carol, our summer intern

I wish I could keep fresh flowers in my house all the time! I've been LOVING the beautiful pink stargazer lilies I got for a dinner we hosted last week!

Gabriel started MDO today. It's the end of a rough Full-Time-Mom-AND-Part-Time-PR-Diva-with-Work Deadlines-And-An-Increasingly-Needy-Baby Era!

Cute black high heels needed. Also a babysitter needed.

Female blog readers who live within 30 minutes of JSC (if you don't know what JSC stands for, you live too far away:0) : Does anyone have a pair of really cute, black high heels, size 8 or 8.5 (heck, even 9's) that I could borrow for a cocktail party tomorrow night (Thursday)? I'm sort of desperate but do have an old, sort of shabby-ish pair as my backup. Thanks!

P.S. I'm still looking for a babysitter from about noon to whenever Michael gets home from work for Thursday afternoon.

“If you are discouraged it is a sign of pride, because it shows you trust in your own power. Your self-sufficiency, your selfishness and your intellectual pride will inhibit His coming to live in your heart because God cannot fill what is already full. It is as simple as that.” - Mother Teresa

I am renaming this dish "Home Run Chicken" and it's going in my favorite recipes book:) http://ping.fm/SnTxL

Hungry, tired, energetic 8 month old + long wait at the doctor = a hand full = opportunity to exercise patience and good humor

Slice of a Friday http://ping.fm/TxFEt

Slice of a Friday

I'm sorry that most of my posts have been on such dark topics lately! I thought I'd lighten things up with a Friday slice of life post :) It's been a nice day. 

This morning, I had a babysitter come over to watch Gabriel from 9-1pm while I worked at Starbucks. I treated myself to a peppermint chocolate chip Frappucino (yum!), found one of my old college study playlists on my iPod, and sat down to write some press releases for work.

I felt like a college student in a coffee shop again, and I realized I miss it--but just a little bit. I actually get paid to work now! On another note, I also happen to really look like a college student when I'm working away from home, since my laptop case is a super-duper-fifteen-pockets-and-secret-compartments-Swiss-gear backpack-style bag. Michael picked it out for me.

One funny thing that happened today is that I thought for about 30 seconds that Gabriel had had an explosion and that it was all over my new white shorts and new shirt. I had taken Gabriel out of his high chair to give him a bottle in the living room, and when I handed him to Michael to burp, I noticed yellow and brown pieces of something and a couple of smudges on my arm and leg. I was pretty grossed out before I realized that it was all just mushed and dried-up bananas and peas from the seat of his high chair. False alarm, but a good wakeup call that I need to keep his high chair cleaner.

Tonight, we hosted a dinner for the LifeTeen core team at St. Clare. Michael and I cooked a big dinner for everyone, including tortellini carbonara (cheese-filled tortellini with bacon, garlic, parmesan cheese and a cream sauce), caesar salad and garlic bread. For dessert, I served strawberry angel food cake topped with fresh strawberries and homemade whipped cream.

I broke out my favorite plates tonight, and served everything from my beautiful Wilton Armetale bowls. I even had fresh pink stargazer lilies to decorate (they were on sale though). I know we went overboard for this little dinner, but when I say it was our pleasure, we're being honest. Michael and I don't believe that our "nice" things should only be used a couple of times a year! We love having people over. That's probably one of our favorite things about finally having a house--we have the space for company now :).

Aside from the great dinner, the false alarm on a poop explosion, and the rare treat of a Frappucino, my favorite moment today was the following:

I've sure got some keepers, don't I? :-)

Thought for today, on suffering

As I've watched some of my loved ones suffer through illnesses and difficult times in their lives over the past year, I have pondered and prayed about suffering quite a lot.

One thought of mine: I think that sometimes people reject God because he hasn't eliminated human suffering.

What he has done, however, is give meaning to our suffering. Maybe not meaning in a feel-good-media-frenzied-cultural movement type of way, but beyond a doubt in a grand-scheme-of-things kind of way.

All things work for the good for those who love the Lord. Well he knows the plans He has for us, plans for good and not for woe, plans to give us hope and a future.

I am still sad for my family and friends, but I'm peaceful and surprisingly hopeful at the same time.

Just my thoughts today.

Off to Family Dinner tonight! I'm making dijon chicken--yummy and so easy! Possibly some blogging later if I'm not too tired.

My 2nd anniversary :) http://ping.fm/Mapzt

My 2nd anniversary: staycation, good Italian food, Imax films, dragon-lizards, howling at the moon, and the best husband ever

Michael and I celebrated our second anniversary this weekend (We were 8/8/08) with an overnight trip to downtown Houston. It was a true "staycation" that fit comfortably in our budget, made some great memories, and showed us how much we need to spend more time enjoying our surprisingly wonderful new home city.

We had such a great time this weekend! We had such a simple and short trip, really, but it was incredibly refreshing to get away from work and chores and bills and even babies :) to be just the the two of us again. 

After our first anniversary, we decided that we wanted to start going on short trips instead of giving each other gifts. When we thought about it, it was really our time that was one of the most valuable things to us in the end. 

So, we planned an afternoon exploring the fantastic Houston Museum of Natural Science, across from beautiful Hermann Park. We played in the butterfly dome, took silly pictures next to dinosaur bones, watch the huge pendulum-thingy swing in the Energy exhibit, and saw an incredible 3D imax on the Hubble telescope.  

The Imax movie was one of my favorite activities of the afternoon, because I'd never seen a 3D movie before. They had a few parts where you traveled through space and the stars looked like snowflakes that were going to hit you in the face. I involuntarily stuck out my tongue and waved my hands in the air in front of my just like the little kids sitting on my right. And after the show, the good-natured elderly couple sitting on my left kindly asked me how I had liked seeing 3D for the first time. Embarrassing. :)

When we walked out of the museum to head back to the car, we came across THIS:

Me posing uncomfortably next to Charro the iguana. He was ENORMOUS! His handler had taken him out of the butterfly dome for some "Vitamin D" (he hides all days in the shady trees apparently). She had just put him on this fountain to hang out for a while when we walked outside to go back to our car. I quite seriously about jumped out of my skin when I saw this huge dragon-lizard about four feet away from me! I don't even like the little green ones around my house! 

A giant waxy monkey treefrog. No joke. See below.

A butterfly of course! Except I can't remember what kind this one was. 

There was a little fish tank with this sucker fish just going at it on cleaning the front wall of the tank. I don't know why we both whipped out our phones to take video of him...

Me and Diplodocus. :)

I don't think Michael was able to capture the essence of our pose. That gorilla had a real "come hither" look and this cocked hip thing going on that I was imitating as well. It was funny in the  moment I guess...

Well, it looks like I stopped taking pictures after we left the museum, so I'll have to describe the rest of our trip in words...

We ate dinner at the delicious Maggiano's Little Italy in the Galleria area. I got a fantastic four-cheese ravioli and Michael got seafood stuffed canneloni. Yuuuuum. 

We then headed to Howl at the Moon, a popular dueling piano bar near downtown. It was a lot of fun because I'd never been to a piano bar before. I knew most of the songs, and the band was extremely entertaining and very talented--if also raunchy at times. We ended up leaving and headed to Dessert Gallery to get something for dessert. I got some kind of raspberry vanilla crumble cake concoction and Michael passed on dessert because he's trying to "be good" and he'd technically enjoyed several desserts of the Crown-and-coke kind already. [I was impressed. Dessert Gallery makes my mouth water just remembering everything they had in there!]

On Sunday, we slept in until 9:15 a.m. (a TREAT!!!), had a huge breakfast downstairs, then headed out shopping and then home. Gabriel was obviously excited to see us. Mom said he had been "looking around" for us all weekend, which made us both tear up. :) Another special part of our anniversary weekend? Sharing it for the first time with our little son! 

We are both sold on getting away together for our anniversary for now on. I am already thinking up ideas for next year :)

Is It Just Me, Or...?

I am starting up a new, recurring feature on my blog, called "Is It Just Me, Or...?" Look for my mind's random questioning of quite a wide variety of topics. And feel free to comment on anything and let me know if there's something that I'm missing that would help me to alleviate my personal bouts of cognitive dissonance.

My first post in the series is actually quite serious (apologies): Is It Just Me, Or...does most of the Western Hemisphere have a serious, dangerous and under-reported drug war and violence problem? Coming across this article earlier set off my thoughts on this for today.

Granted, most people who turn on the news even just once in a while have probably heard some kind of report on things like the incredible violence of warring drug cartels in Mexico. Since 2006, nearly 30,000 people have died in Mexico alone in violence related to drug wars--6,000 people so far this year.

No wonder so many Central Americans want to emigrate to the United States. I know not all of them are angels, but it fits reason that a lot of these people are just trying to create a safer and better life for their families here in the U.S. Perhaps many of them could be back home--or here--making tons of money working for drug cartels, but they are doing the only honest labor they can find--building our homes and mopping our floors and mowing our lawns and doing all of the other jobs that lots of Americans think they're too good to do.

We should all be praying and voting for our leaders to develop wise policies on immigration. And we should all be praying for both the victims and the killers involved in these conflicts.

Fifteen reasons to use Natural Family Planning

Michael and I have been hugely blessed by our use of NFP in our marriage. For both of us, NFP is sometimes a little challenging, but never impossible. My former doctor actually warned me that I'd better not "come running back to her" after my honeymoon wanting a birth control prescription. She is a sweet woman and excellent physician, but I remember being incredibly hurt and offended as she condescendingly explained that our pious little decision to use NFP would be sabotaged by our wild, uncontrollable newlywed passions. 

A lot of people feel uncomfortable with the thought of letting God into the bedroom. And yet the bedroom is one of the places in our lives in which He can strengthen and bless us the most. 


What happens in the bedroom affects almost everything else--our children, our marriage, and our relationships with others. I'd bet you that marriage therapists everywhere worth even a fraction of their expensive fees will probably tell you the same thing. Isn't seeking out what sex and marriage were created to be worth the effort?

One of the most important things the Catholic Church has to say about sex and marriage? We are not animals. I'm happy to report that, as a married couple, Michael and I discovered that we were able to reign in our "raging passions" when necessary while we needed to postpone starting a family for prayerfully-considered financial reasons.

In my experience, Natural Family Planning (NFP) and the Catholic Church's teachings on birth control are by far one of the top most misunderstood (and horrifically underexplained and undertaught) teachings of the Church.


I could say so much more about NFP, but I will stop myself and save that for another time. Thanks so much again if you made it through the ramblings of your favorite amateur theologian and joyful Catholic wife and momma :).

Check out this article from Houston's own Matthew Warner on his excellent Catholic blog, Fallible Blogma.

Pelosi stumbles through CNS question based on her own quotation of "the Word"

http://ht.ly/2kykV
It's so frustrating when people--especially politicians and other public figures--quote the Bible out of context.

In May, high-profile pro-abortion supporter Nancy Pelosi made the following strange statement at the Catholic Community Conference in DC:

My favorite word? That is really easy. My favorite word is the Word, is the Word. And that is everything. It says it all for us. And you know the Biblical reference, you know the Gospel reference of the Word….And that Word is, we have to give voice to what that means in terms of public policy that would be in keeping with the values of the Word. The Word. Isn’t it a beautiful word when you think of it? It just covers everything. The Word. Fill it in with anything you want. But, of course, we know it means: ‘The Word was made flesh and dwelt amongst us.’ And that’s the great mystery of our faith. He will come again. He will come again. So, we have to make sure we’re prepared to answer in this life, or otherwise, as to how we have measured up. 

A few days ago, a young reporter from the Catholic News Service asked Nancy Pelosi this direct question:

You said at a recent Catholic Community Conference [video] that your favorite word was ‘The Word, as in the word made flesh,’ and that we need to quote, ‘give voice to what that means in terms of public policy that would be in keeping with the Word.’ So, when was the Word made flesh? Was it at the Annunciation, when Jesus was conceived by the power of the Holy Sprit, as the Creed says, or was it at the Nativity when he was born of the Virgin Mary? And when did the Word get the right to life?”

Pelosi's response? 

“Whenever it was, we bow our heads when we talk about it in church, and that’s where I’d like to talk about that.”

You don't have to be the brightest crayon in the box to realize how poor her answer was.
The few things I do agree with Pelosi on from her statement:

• "We have to give voice to what that means in terms of public policy that would be in keeping with the values of the Word." 
• "But, of course, we know it means: ‘The Word was made flesh and dwelt amongst us.’ And that’s the great mystery of our faith. He will come again. So, we have to make sure we’re prepared to answer in this life, or otherwise, as to how we have measured up." 

A LOVELY weekend! http://ping.fm/UJozg

A LOVELY weekend

My birthday weekend was fantastic.

Gabriel and Michael finished recovering from the latest Evil Cold to hit our family, and we spent a lot of quality time together. We didn't have a party or do anything exciting for my birthday this year, but for some reason it was really the best birthday I've had in recent memory.

We hit the pool, washed our car together, went shopping with a little birthday money from my parents, bought a new TV (our old one has been deceased for two weeks) had friends over for dinner and games, got our wedding rings cleaned, and slept in (well I did, at least) and ate very well all weekend.

We went swimming with Peter, Kristin and baby Audrey Fontana on Saturday afternoon. Gabriel LOVED the lily pad floatie toy the Fontanas brought!

Michael baked and decorated my cake all by himself. The "24" is made out of dark chocolate pieces. 

My spiffy new Steve Madden birthday sandals - thanks Mom :)

I picked out this wrought iron and rose swag for my mantlepiece (thanks Mom, again:)

I know the picture is dark, but this is the swag hung up on the mantle. It matches the curtains the previous owners left, which is nice! I had wanted to buy/make new curtains for my living room, but when the realized how much fabric costs, I knew I'd have to stick with these for a while! 

This is the cutest AND happiest baby on the block!

On Sunday morning, Michael surprised me with flowers and a hot breakfast of biscuits (big fat hot ones), bacon (the maple kind) and OJ (the good kind--not the cheap stuff). He's a keeper!

Yesterday was the simplest and loveliest birthday I've had in recent memory. My boys spoiled me all weekend :) Gabriel even slept in for me!