A girls' trip to plantation country, meeting a New-Old Friend, and a really chunky sailboat ride

Our friend Craig took us all sailing last weekend on his new sailboat. Faith was a handful wiggles-wise, but had a blast--that baby girl loves the wind! Gabriel, however, was cranky and fussy much of the time. Michael was helping our friend Craig man the sails, so I had both kids all to myself...which was unfortunate at times because Gabe threw a couple of temper tantrums worthy of a three-act play. By the time we sailed back through the channel to get back to our marina, I had a plastic smile plastered on my face and was saying Hail Marys for patience. Gabriel was finally quiet though, hugging me with his head on my shoulder.

At that point, Gabriel was the source of a dramatic event event that could actually be the perfect name for said play: The Incredible Flying Chunks.

It was gross. Other than the baby-spits-up-every-ounce-of-milk-she-just-consumed episodes I've had with newborns, I haven't ever been thrown up on like that. Ick. 

I was going to post the hilarious iPhone picture Michael took of my disgusted face and drenched shirt, but I decided otherwise. :)

In other news...

The weekend before last weekend, I took the kids and drove up to Natchitoches, Louisiana for a girls' trip with my mom, my sisters, my aunts, and some family friends. We had a lovely time touring plantations, shopping, and relaxing at a beautiful bed and breakfast right outside the city. The bed and breakfast had toys for the kids, and Faith adored the walker (we don't have one at home). Look at her go!

Front Street in Natchitoches is so cute! There is this neat old streetcar that you can walk right up to and play in.

Baby Faith wanted to stay in the stroller at this point. We tired her out dragging her to all of the plantations and restaurants with us!

Mom, Staci and Olivia

So much for time outs...my sister Rivers and I came up with another punishment for my unruly 2 1/2 old

My mom and I

Our friend Staci, who came on the trip with her daughter Olivia, bought this adorable little apron for Gabriel when we went shopping on Sunday. He feels so special in it. :)

When I got home, I found this--a new flagstone walkway from the driveway to the front porch of our house. This grass in this little area was always trampled down by the kids and me getting in and out of the van. The new walkway really looks great. I was so thankful and excited that Michael did such an awesome "Honeydo" project while I was away with the kids for the weekend! (Now for re-painting our badly peeling and stained kitchen table and chairs? Anyone want to schedule a girls' trip sometime soon?:)

One of the highlights of the weekend was getting to swing by Shreveport (to pick up my sister, who is in med school there) and meet a New-Old Friend, Katie Sciba. Katie blogs at The Catholic Wife, and she and I struck up a friendship about a year and a half ago--something like that anyway. We have emailed and talked on the phone a lot, but we had never met in person. What a great pleasure it was to meet her! We hit it off in person just as much as we did over email and by phone.:) 

Might I add that I heartily enjoyed the delicious iced tea and special peanut butter cupcakes Katie served me during our afternoon "play date." I hope I can return the fabulous hospitality sometime. Everybody has to visit Houston sometime, right? :)

Ambition

I found this picture and couldn't resist :)

Besides, strangely enough, it speaks to me right now.

I love to write. I love to share my faith. And I love blogging. :) My tiny, humble little corner of the World Wide Web has been a blessing to me over the last three years, and (to my great surprise and solely by the mercy of God) it has blessed others. I'm honored and humbled that the Lord sees fit to give me Humble Handmaid, which truly is more than a hobby to me--somehow it seems to have become a small ministry. 

I've been thinking all this year about ways to do "more" with Humble Handmaid. My head is full of questions and concerns though.

For example, should I get into more guest posting? What about doing topic series and joining link-ups with other blogs? Should I have a professional blog logo and button designed? Should I focus on building my "likes" on Facebook? Wouldn't all of those things ultimately bless more people by expanding my visibility online? Would all of those things just come to be a burden to me and make me less present to my family? Do I have too much going on already to do "more" of anything in my life? 

I'm not sure if I'm chickening out or am spot-on in discerning that "more" isn't the right path for Humble Handmaid right now. Probably the latter, not that I claim to be the queen of spot-on discernment all that often. 

So, while I wait and discern, I'll keep writing about what's on my heart and in my life. Starting with a little "in my life" news in my next post. :)

Mother's Rule update - Reality check, portion control, and the Preschool Olympics

I talked to my mom on Wednesday this week, and she mentioned that she had gotten tired just reading my list of goals and weekly routines related to the Mother's Rule I've been working on. And wouldn't you know, that after going back and reading the post again, I got tired too! :)

There are two things I have to say about that, however. 

First, all moms work hard. We all have different situations, but we all work hard. Michael and I have close friends who are incredible parents and just all-around amazing people. They have six grandparents who regularly watch their children for them, plus Montessori preschool twice a week for their oldest, and they are also blessed to have a housekeeper. But I would bet you that on almost any given day, this couple works just as hard or harder than Michael and I. They have more going on in their lives than you can imagine. I am always so inspired by their teamwork, their cheerfulness, and their great humility in everything they do.

We are each given our portion, I think. Not too little, not too much. Just what we need to keep us strong and healthy and growing in grace and stature before the Lord. He knows what is good for each of us; He knows what He made us for.  

My second point about my Rule journey so far: I have so much going on that I feel I don't have a choice but to get organized and discipline myself even more. Having no plan at all--or being too lazy or free-spirited to stick to one--has not worked for me. 

Here is where I bare my soul and give you a couple of examples that illustrate why I'm trying to embrace the discipline of assigning a time to each priority and regular task in my life. 

• When I don't having something planned for dinner, and I have an empty pantry and refrigerator and freezer, we end up spending money we shouldn't be spending eating out. My husband, who frequently works outside all day long right now, doesn't get the healthy food he needs. Neither do my children. And then we don't have leftovers for Michael to take to work with him, and he has to eat out again--unless he wants to eat peanut butter and jelly and a cheese stick for lunch. Again. (Which he has done way too often and way more cheerfully than I deserve!)
• When I don't stay on top of a laundry schedule, clean laundry stays piled up in the living room for days and days. True story: I have actually single-handedly moved a huge pile of clean laundry four times in one week to and from my bedroom to "hide" it when I knew visitors were stopping by. :)

And I could talk for days about how skimping on prayer time and spiritual reading has held me back spiritually. 

Getting organized is great, but I'm trying to stay balanced and remember to let spontaneity and a realistic flexibility keep me well-rounded in all of this. No week is going to be perfect. Things just seem to come up, as happened this week! 

• I missed mass on Thursday morning because Gabriel had a rough night and slept in a little that morning. 
• I forgot until the youth minister called me on Tuesday that Michael and I were scheduled to give a talk to a youth group on Wednesday night. (Praise the Lord that we found a babysitter in time!) I completely bailed on cooking and cleaning chores on Wednesday to prepare. Managed to whip up something extremely unappealing for dinner, so I skipped out on dinner and, yes, ate an order of tater tots from Sonic on our way home from the talk. 
• On Thursday, we had a business meeting come up suddenly that Michael and I both had to go to at 3:30pm. We host Family Dinner, a potluck meal for our community, at our house every Thursday night, starting around 5:30pm. I had left all of the cooking and cleaning until that afternoon, so I got home and frantically worked with two grumpy babies following me all around and whining and crying for me. (Note: Michael had to go right back to work and couldn't help at all that afternoon. Epic fail of planning on my part, but by the grace of God FD went beautifully, as always. And my last-minute pumpkin bread was a hit. It was baking all through dinnertime, since I had gotten it in the oven right when people started arriving, so my house smelled delicious and everyone wanted a piece when it came out!)
• The laundry I was supposed to have folded by this morning is actually folded and put away now (yay!), but it sat in the living room all day and got trampled by my kids, who both need a bath but didn't get one (again) tonight. We were out late doing an activity as a family after dinner, and so I did do the ole' Quick-ey Warm Soapy Rag Bath.  (This is also a slightly ashamed call for any kind commenters to assure me they have given their precious dirty babies Quick-ey Warm Soapy Rag Baths too...)
• As you can probably tell, since this post is being published on a Friday night, my in-home date night with Michael didn't happen tonight. A close friend stopped by this evening, and since it is his birthday, we invited him to stay for a visit and a drink...

So there's the update! More to come....God bless and good luck to all of the HH readers who are reading the book with me! Feel free to email me with questions or thoughts. 

In other news...:)

Some friends and I hosted a Preschool Olympic Games play date at a local park this morning, in honor of the Opening Day of the Olympics. Gabriel didn't participate very much for some reason, but he did win the One-Man Tricycle Race! 

Gabriel and I won the one-man tricycle race! 

All of the kids lined up to receive their medal (and a sticker:)

Parenting with balance: Happiness Speaks Louder than Words

It has been on my heart for a while now to write about parenting. Each time I sat down to do so, however, I chickened out. Who was I to think I could have any wisdom or insights into parenting? Shouldn't the parenting manifestos be left up to rockstar-superwoman-wife-mother-theologian-blogger-authors who were older and had twelve children?

Probably so, I told myself.

Probably so, I tell myself even now.

And yet, it continues to strike me over and over that there is something missing in much of the everyday conversation and especially literature about early childhood parenting that I have encountered so far.

Too often, we lack down-to-earth, yet Heaven-focused balance.

Bottle versus breast. Co-sleeping. The family bed. Baby wearing. Stay-at-home mom versus working mom. Schedules. Pacifiers. Demand feeding. Attachment parenting. Time outs. Spanking.

Which one of these words sets off an Alarm in your head?

Why?

I've read (and probably own, thanks to the used books section of Amazon.com) popular books about all of these topics. My husband Michael and I have connected with some ideas and passed over others. The mindset and ideas that we have implemented in our home are a mish-mash of bits and pieces of every parenting book we own.

It can be tough to stay balanced when many of these early childhood parenting books try to subtly or not-so-subtly demonize other methods and mindsets of parenting. Even among friends and family, I've seen that sometimes conversations about parenting become judgmental and polarized incredibly quickly.

Michael and I have definitely made plenty of young parent mistakes, had some sleepless nights, done some crying (both parents and baby), and had plenty of we're-so-clueless-let's-just-laugh-at-ourselves moments. Overall, however, we have been comfortable with and blessed by our parenting choices in our home.

I think that a major part of why we are happy with our parenting choices so far is that we have tailor-made all of them for our particular family. We have read many books and talked with many other parents, but all with a grain of salt. The salt being the reminder that every parent and parenting writer out there wants to raise happy and healthy children, and their is probably at least one tiny nugget of good advice that each of them can give us. It is impossible to claim otherwise--and also claim to have any balance.

Michael and I are not worried anymore about what our friends and family think. We are not worried about using one of the Alarm words above, even with friends or family who have strong Alarm word opinions. We are not worried about following one method or another to a "T," or completely avoiding another method in order not to spoil our children for life.

That's because our children are happy and healthy, and so are we. In the end, happiness speaks louder than words.

As Catholics, we believe that the dignity and the work of the married vocation is to lead our families and others to Heaven. It is important to remember, however, that marriage is the vocation. Beyond centering our lives on God, our marriage should be a priority for us--even above our children. Our parenting decisions should be such that they are not a source of strain in our marriage. One of the greatest gifts we can give our children is to have parents with a strong marriage.

We all have the same goal, but we also all come to the table with complex factors that go into what is the best, the most peaceful, the most effective way for our particular family, in a particular season or state in life, to reach that goal.

Whatever parenting choices clearly lead you, your spouse, and your children to grow steadily in grace and virtue, whatever supports a strong marriage and a happy, healthy, holy home on every level--those choices are what is right for you and your family. That's all there is to it.

Every family has a different set of needs. Just in my own experience, I know families with a wide range of circumstances that necessarily call for different methods of parenting their children, sometimes even from birth.

I know a family of five in which one spouse has been deployed for long periods of time.
I know a family in which an older child has special needs that require huge amounts of time,  money and energy.
I know a family in which both parents must work full-time, in addition to the mother attending school at night and the father working a second job on the weekends.
I know a family with triplets.

There are also many not-so-obvious situations that each family can bring to the table. Some babies come out of the womb more needy and and sensitive than others. Some parents are more high-strung than others. One spouse may be an incredibly light sleeper. Dad may work nights. A couple may find intimacy and communication especially difficult without regular time away from their children together.

All of these are examples of factors that parents should include in prayerful discernment of their parenting choices.

These past 2 1/2 years as a young mother, I have stumbled through some tough lessons, feasted on humble pie, laughed at my hilarious kids every single day, and learned little by little about real teamwork in my marriage.

I know I have many more lessons to learn and bridges to cross (and possibly babies to bear!) before this parenting adventure is done. For now, I am humbly thankful that Michael and I have simply managed not to "throw the baby out with the bathwater" in making our choices so far in parenting. We have truly tried to be open to taking precious nuggets of wisdom from wherever we could. I have an imperfect, but happy little family, whose image and witness I hope points others to the Lord--as our wise and merciful God designed every family to do.

Mother's Rule update

Here's an update on my Mother's Rule of Life journey. I have started organizing (i.e. scheduling) all of my basic daily, weekly and monthly household chores. Remember that I started a lot of this when I read the book last summer, but then promptly had a baby at the beginning of September. S

A few things I've been working on lately (the last three-ish weeks):

• I have gotten laundry down to running laundry (including hand-washables) every Monday and Thursday, getting everything in a pile in the living room before I go to bed, and then getting up a little early the next day and folding and putting away everything away. I've been doing this for a while, but was getting a little undisciplined about it, and laundry was starting to just stay piled in the living room for days on end. 
• I have stuck, when at all possible, to Popcorn-and-Movie-at-Home Date Nights with Michael on Fridays 
• I have been jogging on Mondays, Wednesdays and Friday mornings 
• I've been doing more reading and also structured homeschool/pre-school activities each day with Gabriel at home to support the pre-pre-school playdate we have been doing for a few months on Tuesday mornings with another family. 
• I've kept up with going to daily mass on Tuesdays and Thursdays 
• I've been meal planning and doing my grocery store run on Mondays 
• Family Prayer time together with the kids at some point before bed 
• Working with Michael on getting into a routine with him working from home now, and us trying to handle our individual responsibilities for the business. One thing we decided was that Monday and Wednesday evenings will be my "work" nights for the business and possibly for the small PR projects for businesses that I have taken on this year. After dinner, Michael will clean up the kitchen and living room for the day and do bedtime routines with the kids while I go into the office and get some work done for a couple of hours.

In the works:

• Blogging and pre-scheduling posts on Tuesday, Thursday and possibly Saturday evenings (trying to start this week, as you can see.:) 
• Get on top of liturgical calendar feast days and holy days and celebrate special ones with a craft or activity with the kids 
• Get on top of family and friend birthdays and try to do more hand-made gifts and cards 
• Daily spiritual reading and Bible study 
• Scheduling in regular work on the three small PR projects I've taken on this year 
• Starting up my Tuesday Mommy's Night Out again 
• Continuing to attend monthly Evenings of Recollection downtown

Feeling like this in my soul--I'm excited to be getting more on top of things with the help of God's mercy and grace! Already I have been able to be more caring and present with Michael and the kids.

I feel like this poor woman sometimes. Bone-tired and doubtful I can do it. With hungry children hanging off of me. 

Talking a lot more lately to this beautiful Lady :)

My new life coach, and helpful quotes from a saint

I am continuously amazed by the practical wisdom and great holiness of St. Josemaria Escriva. I am thankful to have "found" this saint over the past year. I feel like he's been an unofficial "life coach" of sorts for me.:)

As I wade through the middle of a trying week, these quotes from St. Josemaria have calmed my heart, challenged my soul, and inspired me to keep going for goodness. I hope that some of these will speak to some of you, too, in whatever you have going on in your life. (Our merciful Lord knows we all have something going on, doesn't He?:) 

Peace be with you!

“Christian optimism is not a sugary optimism, nor is it a mere human confidence that everything will turn out all right. It is an optimism that sinks its roots into an awareness of our freedom, and the sure knowledge of the power of grace. It is an optimism that leads us to make demands on ourselves, to struggle to respond at every moment to God's call.” 

"Never correct anyone while you are still indignant about a fault committed. Wait until the next day, or even longer. And then, calmly, and with a purer intention, make your reprimand. You will gain more by one friendly word than by a three-hour quarrel. Control your temper."

"Gossip is a disease that infects and poisons the apostolate. It goes against charity, means a waste of energy, takes away peace and destroys one's union with God."

"Get rid of that 'small-town' outlook. Enlarge your heart till it becomes universal, 'catholic'. Don't flutter about like a hen, when you can soar to the heights of an eagle."

"Holy purity is given by God when it is asked for with humility."

"Do everything for Love. Thus there will be no little things: everything will be big. Perseverance in little things for Love is heroism."

"How many mothers have you known who have been the heroines of some epic or extraordinary event? Few, very few. Yet you and I know many mothers who are indeed heroic, truly heroic, who have never figured in anything spectacular, who will never hit the headlines, as they say. They lead lives of constant self-denial, happy to curtail their own likes and preferences, their time, their opportunities for self-expression or success, so that they can carpet their children’s lives with happiness."

We all make mistakes.

"Often, actually very often, God allows his greatest servants to make the most humiliating mistakes. This humbles them in their own eyes and in the eyes of their fellow men. It prevents them from seeing and taking pride in the graces God bestows on them." --St. Louis de Montfort

A little jailbird, a wedding and a shark picture

Here's a weekend photo roundup!

Our dear friend Lucy got married on Saturday, and I had the privilege of arranging her hair on her wedding day! I was also the Something Borrowed friend for her...she wore my wedding veil. :)

Your royal happiness, Faith Lucia. What a trooper. No morning OR afternoon nap, and she was still this happy...

My brother in law, Nick, came to visit us this weekend, and we took him out to the Kemah Boardwalk for the afternoon. I begged Michael to let me be touristy ("for the blog!") and take a family photo on the shark bench by the aquarium. I'm beginning to wonder if I will ever get Gabriel to smile in a family photo...

There is a little "jail" at the Old Country Town part of the Kemah Boardwalk. We put Faith in jail briefly as punishment for laughing uncontrollably at her brother all during mass this morning. We had to take her to the back at least six times..unacceptable. :)

   

Family photo! Trying to get more of these in, especially when we get "all dressed up." 

This picture is actually from Friday, when the kids and I dressed us for National Dress Like a Cow Day at Chic-fil-a. Everyone who dressed up like a cow could order a full meal for free! We got three full meals for free from our local Chic-fil-a, and had a lovely time.:) Thanks to Kate and Shannah for reminding me to dress up this week! 

Sweet-smelling humble pie

Today, my humble pie tasted like tears and smelled like flowers.

I had a discouraging couple of hours with Gabriel this morning. More me Making Mountains out of Molehills than him being a Terrible Two-Year-Old. In all honesty.

I got home at lunch time from the morning's activities, and--bada-bing-bada-boom--there was some drama involving a hungry, impatient little boy and his over-emotional mommy (and one loudly fussing little sister)...and then Michael walked in the room and I burst into tears.

I love having Michael work from home now, but there is a new element in my life that I didn't foresee...the fact that Michael is around the house more to see all the little daily dramas that come with raising little ones....and how I sometimes don't handle them very gracefully.

Being the amazing husband that he is, Michael bought Gabriel a bouquet of flowers to give me in apology for being so awful this morning. I heard Michael come in the door, beckon me to stay in the kitchen, and then two minutes later, precious Gabriel walks up to me with a huge grin and says with the utmost gravity, "Sowwy Mommy. I yuv you!" I teared up again...because my little boy probably deserves flowers of his own in apology from me for being awful to him this morning.

Ah...gotta love that humble pie. Especially when it's this sweet. :)

Keep calm and carry on

A close friend told me this afternoon that a new friend of ours remarked to her after meeting me that "she loved being around my calm presence." Hearing this about myself made me absolutely cringe with guilt at first, since my first thoughts about the comment involved an ugly mental slideshow of all the times I have not been calm with my family recently. 

Did anyone else notice the "Keep Calm" Facebook fad a few months ago? For a few weeks, it seems like everyone was posting some clever version of the famous World War Two British "Keep Calm" poster. (According to Wikipedia, the British government put out the poster in 1939 as a propaganda tool intended to strengthen the public's morale if there was a wartime disaster.)

I need this poster framed in my house. In my kitchen somewhere. I can always use reminders to keep calm and carry on. Especially since much of stay-at-home motherhood is spent alone, at home, with your children. Where there are no other Not-Your-Husband adults to impress with your saint-like patience.

In all honesty, it's easier for me to stay calm when I am around other people. I know well that God is most pleased with me, though, when I am calm and no one but Him is watching. How wise is God to know that I needed this particular vocation to marriage to challenge me to holiness. He does that for all of us, though. From the moment he forms us in our mother's womb, he knows the vocation we each need to draw us toward Him in being the man or woman He created us to be.
My own versions of the Keep Calm poster would probably sound like some of these:
"Keep calm and remember that he's only two."
"Keep calm and bring up this topic with Michael again later."
"Keep calm and just clean up that Huge Mess at naptime."
"Keep calm and trust that God will work this situation out in his timing."
"Keep calm and don't burst into tears in front of all these people."
"Keep calm and order pizza."
"Keep calm and blog about it later."
"Keep calm and trust that God will provide."

So many times I want to pull my hair out with frustration and discouragement. But it's all small stuff.

I am coming to understand more and more how much it hurts His sacred heart when we don't let Him suffice for us in the small stuff. After all, what else does He have to do to show us He is worthy of all our trust, that He--and we--are bigger than all the small stuff?

St. Teresa of Avila wrote this beautiful note inside her breviary. I need a poster of this as well (in the kitchen:).

 

Mid-year resolutions?

July 2 marked the exact middle of 2012...time for some mid-year resolutions? Here are a few of mine. I've already started on all of these, but it always seems to help when you put things in writing, right? (Especially when you're a blogger and you know other people will be reading it too.:)

Blog more often. I only blogged four times in June. Pretty sad. :( I am hoping that mid-year resolution #2 will help me find more time to blog more frequently. I love writing so much, and I hate that I have so many blog posts in my head that never get written.

Start jogging again three times per week. I've fallen down to a half-hearted once or twice a week for the last few months. I feel so much better physically when I get outside and work up a good sweat a few times a week.

I found this image and was inspired, especially since one of my goals is to keep jogging. I find that "just do it" is a good mantra for me, because many times, the more I think about doing something, the less likely I am to do it!

This is the exact Phil & Ted's jogging stroller we have. I LOVE this thing.

Get up in the morning before my family. Everything seems to go better when I'm out of my pajamas and at least somewhat pre-prayered for the day by the time the kids are up! I just joined a book club that my friend Kate is starting, and I know that the book we are reading will really help me in my get-up-a-little-earlier resolution. We are reading A Mother's Rule of Life, which I read last summer and loved--but didn't fully implement in my life before, oh, having my second child last September.:) We are starting a Facebook group to connect with each other as we read the book. Anyone can join! Please send me an email if you are interested in reading with us: humblehandmaid_at_gmail_dot_com.



Family prayer. We've been doing this more consistently for a little while, but as I said, it helps to put things into writing. :) I want to find one moment every day to call my family to prayer. Squirmy, crying babies and busy toddlers and tired mommies and daddies and all. No one ever said everybody had to be still and paying attention and focused when praying together as a family. As a family, I want to thank the Lord for our blessings, to invite him daily into our home and our lives, and to ask his mercy to cover us and his Blessed Mother to pray for us.


Isn't this a beautiful image?

Buy, cook and eat more healthfully. This means drinking more water, eating fewer carbs, less fast food, less sugar, less oil and butter in cooking, more lean meats, and more salads and veggies. It also means cutting back on soft drinks and treats, especially when eating out. For me personally, I am cutting back on sugar. I have a HUGE sweet tooth.  I should probably go on one of those sugar fasts. :) I don't buy any junk food for us, but the problem is that I've become very good at "whipping up" things when I want my "sugar fix." For example, when I was pregnant (and, if I'm being honest, much more recently than that), I used to make little "frosting shots" of chocolate icing just to satisfy my sweet tooth. I'm way better than I should be at mixing up perfectly lovely concoctions involving anything I happen to have on hand...chocolate chips, cocoa, powdered sugar, butter, milk and vanilla...oy ve.

THIS, my friends, is a frosting shot. And it's wonderful. This recipe is for Chocolate Mousse Frosting. I can't believe I'm giving you the link to where I found this picture...when I'm talking about eating more healthfully. Oy ve. Again. 

Redesign my blog. I feel like God has finally given me the green light to start doing more with Humble Handmaid, including creating a custom header and button, starting a Facebook page, and also start learning the basics of web coding. Michael and I have a good friend (who designed CrossCutt's website and logo, actually:) who has agreed to help me. I am shooting for August to begin working with him, so look for some ch-ch-changes to start rolling out this fall! :)

Read to my kids. I haven't always been the best at reading to my kids. Gabriel was too squirmy and disinterested for the longest time that I sort of gave up for a while! He likes books now though, and even takes a stack of books in to his room with him during nap time/rest hour. He usually looks at his books until he falls asleep. So, my goal is to read to the kids for at least 15 minutes per day. :)

Gabriel is very much into Thomas the Tank Engine these days. I need to go to the library and check out more Thomas books--we only have one. We made the mistake of finding a big cache of Thomas episodes on Netflix, and since it's rained a lot lately in Houston we have watched so many now that we are all saying things like, "I'm getting cross!" and "You're the Most Really Useful Mommy!" and "Cinders and ashes!"

Keep my plants alive. I almost killed my lovely orange bouganvillas when I went on vacation and didn't ask the little girl next door to water them for me while we were gone. I came home from the beach and I was pretty sure they weren't going to make it. But I pruned them all a little bit, cleaned out all of the dead leaves, and have watered them faithfully every day since we got back. And lo and behold--I already have flowers on one of them again, and precious new green leaves sprouting daily all over both of them. This spring, I also planted gardenias, rosemary, ixora, vinca, jasmine and knockout roses...I haven't been able to kill them quite yet, by the grace of God. And probably by the higher water bill we have this summer.:)

The Family Beach Trip, and a beach with no babes

Michael and I got back last week from a lovely trip to the beach with his mom's side of the family. We had almost 40 people on the trip, and we had a great time! One of the rooms that was rented for the trip was a penthouse at the resort where we stayed. It was the official gathering place for everyone on the trip. It was absolutely ENORMOUS, with five bedrooms and a thirty-foot kitchen island, plus hot tubs on the balconies, a huge dining room table, and a large living room with several couches. Did I mention there was more than enough room to have all of us eat dinner together every night? It was wonderful to see many aunts, uncles and cousins that we do not see very often, as well as Michael's parents and most of his siblings (including my precious new baby nephew!).

I will admit though that I had a really hard time at first with the kids. They were so fussy and difficult to deal with for a little while. I am happy to report that after a day or so, the kids did great, and we were able to spend lots of time toward the end with everyone, and even put the kids down for bed in the penthouse so that we didn't have to leave everyone and go back to our own room when the kids were ready for bed.

Notice that I have steered clear of calling this trip a "vacation." There's a difference, to me at least.:) Trips with little ones can be so much work. I'd say that a vacation, to me, is just me, or just me and Michael, off by ourselves for a night or two or three or four. Off-duty. :) (We are looking forward to a Just-Us cruise in November though!!!)

So...I had swimsuits on my mind for a while before we went on this trip. My only swimsuit is a red bikini I bought for my honeymoon four years ago. It is a halter-top that ties behind my back and neck, and the bottom is a short skirt. It's been a long time since I fit into it, with having two precious babies and all. :) Also, most of the places I have worn it have been splash parks with the kids, places where I could wear a t-shirt and running shorts to stay more covered up--and practical, to be honest.

It really hit me this year, as I looked forward to this beach trip, that I don't think I can wear that swimsuit anymore. I think about walking out in that swimsuit in front of any of my male friends, and I feel...for the lack of a better word...a red flag. I have underwear that is more modest than that swimsuit. At least the everyday stuff. Which throws up another red flag for me. :)

For whatever reason, I do think God chose this moment to make me rethink my own swimwear. To make a long story short (is that possibly when I blog though?), I ended up buying a new swimsuit. It's a long tankini top with a tennis skirt-length bottom that slides on over the bottoms. (In this picture of it, the model doesn't have the skirt on though!)

I was so happy that the suit fit me perfectly (especially since we were leaving a few days after it came in). The suit is secure enough on top that I am not worried about "gapping" or "flashing" passers-by when I'm chasing after my children or changing diapers or fighting off grabby little fingers pulling at my top. I don't feel totally frumpy in it. And I love red. :)



There is such a range of opinion on modesty. I have talked to several friends (as well as my husband, of course:) about the topic of modesty lately, including several very good, honest, Godly men I respect quite a lot. Each of those men had a different opinion. As did my husband, and almost every girlfriend I happened to talk to about this.

Several people I talked to about swimsuit modesty recently said simply that "you should wear what you--and even your husband--are comfortable wearing." On one hand, I disagree with that, but on the other hand, I agree with it--after all, that's just what I've done. My conscience is comfortable wearing my new suit instead of the old one.

The parts of me that weren't comfortable with wearing my new suit are all pride, and all vanity--nothing of substance.

I wish things were more black and white. I know wonderful people who believe that what you wear to the pool should effectively look like a t-shirt and capris. And I know wonderful people who think that bikinis are perfectly acceptable, especially if you "can" wear them. In the end, I think you have to go with your conscience. And I think you have to look very, very honestly at the purity of your intentions.

As a married woman, I know far better than the day I bought that cute bikini for my honeymoon about what men face these days. I know how many, many good men--single men, priests, brothers, cousins, uncles and fathers of all ages--struggle silently to guard their hearts and take control of their eyes. I know I can't control what any person thinks. I know that I don't need to dress as if men are orangutans with no control over themselves.:)

But I know most importantly that I don't want to be a stumbling block for anybody.

In the end, when I meet the Lord face-to-face one day, I would rather have erred on the side of modesty for His sake. Because to err on the alternative side, at least for me, would probably mean I had not fully addressed the vanity and pride about appearance that my little heart has always struggled with. My poor mother can attest to many tears from me, even as a very young girl, over my clothes and hair!

I thought a hundred times about not writing this particular post. :) Mostly because I am desperately afraid that I'm going to offend somebody--especially someone I know. Please don't think I'm judging. I'm just a girl trying to do the right thing. The right thing being everything I can do to serve God more purely and perfectly.

And I'm pretty sure that I am doing a terrible job of properly blogging about everything in my thoughts and on my heart regarding this topic.

God has plenty of things He wants all of us to work on, but He definitely chooses when to bring certain things to our attention. I'm sure He's probably not done with me and Modesty yet. A neat little quote from Vatican II: "[Man's conscience ever calls] him to love and to do what is good and to avoid evil, [and sounds] in his heart at the right moment."

Enough of that. :)

So, following the family vacation to the beach, I had the amazing (amazing, amazing, amazing!!!) gift of a weekend at a beach house in Galveston with some girlfriends! The weekend was Michael's Mother's Day gift to me this year. He and a group of other husbands got together and worked out a date and a place for their wives to get away for the weekend and relax. I am still so overflowing with gratitude for this gift from my husband.

The weekend was wonderful. We ate well, talked a lot, went to bed whenever we wanted and slept in as long as we wanted. My record for the weekend was 9:15am! I especially loved the hurricane shutters on all the windows, because if you closed them, they completely blacked out the room, which is very helpful when you're trying to force your body to sleep in past 6:30am. :)

My very favorite part of the weekend was dinner on Friday night. We were all having a little trouble "unwinding" from being On-Duty as moms, so we broke out the wine and did an icebreaker: We had to go around the table and "introduce" ourselves without talking about our husbands or our children. We had to describe where and how we grew up, what our interests were--and we had to take a drink of wine (or whatever we had) if we slipped and started talking about kids or marriage. It was fantastic. We learned so much about one another, and had some real Girl Talk. Lovely!

My second favorite part of the weekend was that I got to read a book. :)

My third-favorite part of the weekend was that I got to dress up and go eat out with my girlfriends.

My fourth-favorite part of the weekend were Betsy's Dark Chocolate Brownies with Dark Chocolate Buttercream-Cream Cheese Icing.

I ate enough of those brownies that I'm pretty sure my bottom wouldn't fit so well into that old bikini anyway! :) Not that I needed it--we didn't even go to the beach, since it was a short drive from the house. It rained and was overcast nearly all weekend. Perfect weather for staying in, sleeping in, reading, talking, eating and napping. Which was exactly what God knew my little self needed to do.

Praise the Lord in his mercy and wisdom! And thank You. And Michael.:)

Rock-a-bye baby

Faith has turned into the cuddliest of babies (finally!!). She's a little more clingy these days, but nothing out of the ordinary.:) I am snuggling with her and rocking her as often as I can right now, since I am actually in the middle of slowly weaning her. I am so thankful to God that He blessed me with the ability to nurse this baby for so long! So long compared to the 5ish months I was able to nurse her big brother.

In other notes, I absolutely love Instagram. It helps add some beauty and depth to Michael and I's amateur family photos!

Fourth of July, and a quote from a pope

“True freedom is not advanced in the permissive society, which confuses freedom with license to do anything whatever and which in the name of freedom proclaims a kind of general amorality. It is a caricature of freedom to claim that people are free to organize their lives with no reference to moral values, and to say that society does not have to ensure the protection and advancement of ethical values. Such an attitude is destructive of freedom and peace.” 
― Pope John Paul II