My Little Saints

As is tradition in our house, we celebrated All Hallow's Eve (Halloween) by dressing up as Saints. Then we went to our Parish All Saint's Party and had lots of fun. Our oldest, Jamie, was St. Bernadette. Our son decided to dress up as our parish priest. And Gianna was St. Therese as a little child. (minus the long curly hair). Then they carved their "Saint-O-Lanterns".

Little Flowers Meeting #3: Love of God

This month the girls learned about the virtue of loving God: the queen of all virtues. In order to live out all other virtues we 1st must have love of God. The flower was the peony which has many layers, just as our love for God can be expressed through so many other layers of virtues. They learned that in order to love God, they must 1st get to know him, like through prayer, and then they can show their love for God by serving Him and others. The saint for this virtue was St. Agnes, who like so many others showed the ultimate love for God through martyrdom. The craft was custom bracelets with the words "Know", "Love", and "Serve" on them.

Awesome Wisdom from JP2 on Pregnancy!

I'm reading Prayerfully Expecting: A Nine Month Novena for Mothers To Be, and this month there was an awesome quote that I just had to share:

Although both together are parents of their child, the woman's motherhood constitutes a special part in the shared parenthood, and the most demanding part. Parenthood--even though it belongs to both--is realized more fully in the woman, especially in the prenatal period. It is the woman who pays directly for this shared generation, which literally absorbs the energies of her body and soul. It is therefore necessary that the man be fully aware that in their shared parenthood he owes a special debt to the woman. No program of "equal rights" between women and men is valid unless it takes this fact fully into account.

--Pope John Paul II, Mulieris Dignitatem

Imagine, the divine wisdom that this holy man had, and contrary to popular criticism, the fact that he is a celibate single man does not cloud his capacity to reach out to women and families.

Awesome Video on Mary

This is an excellent video for understanding Mary in the scriptures:

Natural Lifestyle: No shampoo??

Has anyone every heard of going "No Poo"?

It wasn't the first time I heard about this, but I ran across this article about how to maintain your hair without shampoo.

It makes sense. Our hair oils have a supply and demand just like breastmilk. The more we strip them away with shampoo, the more it will produce.

Besides, shampoo was nonexistent forever. And the number of chemicals we put on our scalp today is frightening, many of which are not regulated by the FDA.

I haven't tried this yet, but I'm seriously considering it. It requires using baking soda on the scalp and apple cidar vinegar on the ends. I've looked up some other natural recipe shampoos as well. That could be a possible alternative if I don't like this, but it would be way more costly.

If I make the leap, I'll let you know!

My Gianna is 2

Today I celebrate the life of my precious one: a celebration of life. The world can be such an ugly place sometimes, full of hatred and pain. But one look at my Gianna brings a smile to my face and peace to my heart. Happy Birthday sweetie! I love you and thank God for you every day!

MIA but back with news...

Yes, I've been MIA. I can't tell you why exactly. I've been distracted (and I'd say that's probably an understatement as far as blogging goes). But as I have some exciting news, perhaps you will forgive me, and know I have PLENTY to talk about now:

Baby #4 is on the way!

We are thrilled, although at first admittedly shocked. I was so ready to have another one, but we were trying to wait a little while to let my bones strengthen with my body's natural hormones during the monthly cycle. WELL...I've got the hormones alright! But now I will have to face the challenge of seriously considering weaning MUCH sooner than I would like. It's just the ONLY way to get my cycles back, and the back to back prolonged nursings have just worn my bones thin.

Why did we get pregnant? Well, I've talked it over with my "bosses" at CCL and they agree that it was a method pregnancy. Meaning, that the rules we chose to follow were 96.9% effective (in comparison to other rules that are more effective) and guess what? We were the 3.1%. So there you go. It happens, and if we had a mortal reason not to get pregnant, we WOULD have been much more conservative. I thank God for making this choice for us when we thought it wasn't time.

The good news is that I'm exercising now and taking lots of vitamins (though it is much harder right now with the morning sickness). But I will manage eventually. Perhaps I will have a fighting chance to strengthen my bones after all! I plan on getting my next scan right after the baby is born (due June 4th).

God Bless my awesome NFP doc, Dr. Joseph Behan. He doesn't see this as a serious problem, especially because I have yet to break a bone to show that the "proof is in the pudding" as he put it. So that's good news and reason to believe that my test results were probably exaggerated for someone my age. Whew!

I look forward to blogging about all of my new thoughts this time around. With a natural lifestyle well underway, will I have the courage to make the necessary changes for this pregnancy?? We shall see!