Merry Christmas!

Wishing you a Merry Christmas from our family to yours!

At an Ugly Christmas Sweater Party (Yes, Keith is wearing a women's sweater)

Ephraim with Saint Nick

Ben with St. Nick, as close as he would get.  He's currently not allowing Santa or St. Nick to come to our house because he's afraid of his Ho, Ho, Hos. 

Some peace finally

I've been getting bogged down with things not being as they are supposed to be, or at least what I want or what the picture of the ideal is in my head.  It's been a rough month and a half and finally yesterday, a priest helped me get out of it. Sometimes, confession isn't all sparkles and leaving with a new perspective and that is okay.  It's still necessary to do so, so that we keep on keeping on in this Christian walk of ours, however, when you do have that woah, God is awesome feeling, it just makes you so glad that you have the act in itself and that feeling Jesus really does care about us.

I can't go into too much detail because that would be airing a bunch of dirty laundry that I should not do, because what goes on the internet goes all over the internet.  But basically, I think that I was really struggling with wanting to change people so that my life would be so much better, at least in my head again.  I think I thought, if these people just did this instead of this, I would be so much happier.  But I was completely missing the point.

First, God loves us imperfect and all.  So he loves me and he loves you and he loves the guy down the street who just stole someone's purse.  I think for a while, I could never understand the mentality of folks that just came and went and didn't want to devote their whole lives to Jesus.  The people that may be registered at the rectory but never really come to mass except when convenient.  Those people bug me, but really that means all people bug me, because we are all a mess.  But it doesn't have to be that way.  My awesome husband, challenged me to think about the parable of the 10 lepers that were healed by Jesus.  Only one came back, but he still healed all 10.  And this is where I need to change my thinking because I want to follow Jesus, and if he still loved the people who didn't really want to say thank-you, I love you. I need to as well.

In something that I had heard many times, the priest told me the verse, "For the gate is narrow and the way is hard, that leads to life, and those who find it are few."Matthew 7:14.  But he explained it the reason that the gate is narrow is that so few chose to accept their cross.  And yes, this was me, I am failing to accept my cross.  I want to have what I see others having.  I was being prideful and selfish.  I wasn't accepting that maybe I was given this to be able to grow.  And I need to be at peace with that.  Because the peace will never come, I will keep feeling like the victim and I will keep feeling like all is against me, which is exactly in my mind what I was trying so hard to avoid. 

So my prayer this advent and probably this whole liturgical year is to really try to accept my cross, because then and only then will I find peace and courage and faith and strength.  Then and only then will I learn to love. 

Breath of Heaven

"Breath of Heaven, hold me together

Be forever near me, Breath of Heaven
Breath of Heaven, lighten my darkness
Pour over me Your holiness for You are holy
Breath of Heaven

Do you wonder as you watch my face
If a wiser one should have had my place?
But I offer all I am
For the mercy of Your plan
Help me be strong, help me be, help me" -Amy Grant

After a year off, I went to a spiritual direction session.  It was good because, well, it made me get outside the chaos. It helped me to get perspective and see that I still really am trying to work on the same issues I have been. I don't need to be perfect and nor will I ever be.  I'm a work in progress and will be for the rest of my life.  But it was different because I am in a different place than I was last time I did this.  

The above song "Breath of Heaven" totally slipped through my radar for the past 20+ years its been around.  It wasn't until this past weekend when a choir performed it at mass, and there I was 27 weeks pregnant with two crazy boys overwhelmed with life till this song sunk in.  And now I'm crying every time I hear it.  But its a good cry.

I think for a long time I was taught that emotions had to be held in, that I had to be okay with everything and just be happy.  But the thing is this hasn't been good for me.  Instead of growing, it made me stuck, it made the anxieties too heavy.  I feel like I am just starting to grow knowing that a good cry is really a good thing.  God gets it and he understands.  He doesn't need me to be put together 100% of the time, or even 90% of the time.  He needs me to be me and be the best me I can be so I can love and bring God to the world.  So Breath of Heaven, do hold me together because well, I'm definitely not in control even if I so badly want to be. 

What I Wore Sunday, 2nd Sunday in Advent

Happy 2nd Sunday of Advent, or the Feast of the Immaculate Conception!  It was a crazy weekend, and we ended up at Saturday evening mass, so this is really WIWSaturday evening.  We had breakfast with St. Nick this morning and my oldest had Atrium, so we figured to try to minimize break downs we would try mass on Saturday. So here is the outfit. 

Sweater: Old Navy

Turtle Neck: Target

Pants: maternity hand me downs from my sister

Necklace: Target

Belly: 27 weeks

Check out more Sunday wear at Fine Linen and Purple!

And now for an out take...

Birthing from within take 1

So I'm finally reading the book the midwife gave me, Birthing from Within by Pam England and Rob Horowitz. It's bringing up lots of things and I'm only 80 pages into it. If you are a boy reader and you don't like talking about birth, then skip this post. 

One major thing I like about the book is that it is helping me to see how this whole birth and healing process can really come together. Instead of being passive, I do get to have a role in all this. I mean I'm birthing at home after all. But the thing is even though I've said that since I've made this decision, I couldn't visualize it. I'm finally beginning to put some pieces together. I can actually name some places I would like to birth and others I would hate. For some reason my bed is one of them of the hate places now. Birthing on some kind of bed is usually the way I see birth in a hospital, and for some reason it was so not what my body wanted to do last time nor really for most of my first time. I'm an active birther and beds make me feel passive.

Next, a lot of this pregnancy I've find myself frustrated and stuck. I feel like I'm not able to do what I want to do physically, and it's not cutting it. Granted most times I'm in real pain but I think I can still change some things up and feel better about where I am at. I am going to at least walk every other day and take it from there. Stretching would be good to since this one seems to like to screw with the sciatic nerve.

There are definite fears this time around. Because, well even though this is the third go of it, it's a whole new experience in a new environment. And last time didn't go well. A lot of times I feel like I'm going to do something that isn't going to let a home birth be possible. But the thing is there are things I can do to check that things are going well. I can do the GD test. I can work on anxiety and thus lower BP issues around birthing. I can be honest with people about what we are doing in a positive way with home birth and I can actually have a before hand game plan of what to do with my children.

I feel like this time around a lot of unsettled issues have emerged again and well, I'm finally working on them. I feel like it's maybe because with number 3 my mom card is really gonna show and I don't want to be carrying any baggage with me into it. Also, I was a third baby and I don't want my third baby to have a scared mom but one who trusts in God. But pray for me in this because a lot of hurt and healing need to happen for this to really be full throttle.

So this is not the usual happy pregnancy post you see on the net, because frankly, I'm not there yet. But I needed this all to be out in words and maybe someone will see it's okay to not be as everyone else wants you to be.

What I Wore Sunday, November 17, 2013

Hi again.

I actually did post another time this week, and have been keeping up the blog for the kids.  I removed myself from Facebook because for me people IRL are way better than what they present themselves on FB to be.  At least this is what I've learned in the few months since being off of it. I still do Twitter, because well for some reason it tends to be less of an issue and people are more real and less promoting of the unreal on there.

Anyway, on to the actual basis of this post, another WIWS!  I enjoy these and am glad that I finally am back into the swing of posting again.  I love the community and positivity that it creates amongst us women.  It's a cold hard world, but its nice to have something every Sunday were people encourage you and care (besides mass that is). Speaking of mass, we actually were able to meet another family in the parish through a small world connection.  The mom used to be a college roommate of one of my grad school roommates before I married Keith.  It was great to talk with her and she used the same home birth midwife for her fifth that I am going with currently.   It was good to hear such positive things because its definitely been a worry that it just won't go well since it didn't last time.

So here is the outfit, friends have made the comment that for some reason this week, I seemed to have  finally popped, what do you think? I'm only at 24.5 weeks, but I guess they might have meant that I actually look pregnant finally to them?

Undershirt: American Apparel

Shirt: Motherhood Maternity

Skirt: from my mom

Tights: Running tights inside out and repurposed

Shoes: Target, from last year on clearance

I hope you all are having an excellent Sunday or Monday or Tuesday depending on when you read this. Check out more WIWS over at Fine Linen and Purple! 

Theme Thursday: Cold

Linking up for Theme Thursday with @celticmama6 today.

We got our first lasting snow this week, it was a bit early as a decent amount of trees in the area still have leaves.  But the littles thoroughly enjoyed romping in the snow and not caring one bit that it was "cold".