For anyone who needs these words today...

Press play and read the lyrics...

Be still, my soul; the Lord is on thy side;

Bear patiently the cross of grief or pain;

Leave to thy God to order and provide;

In every change He faithful will remain.

Be still, my soul; thy best, thy heavenly, Friend

Through thorny ways leads to a joyful end.

Be still, my soul, though dearest friends depart

And all is darkened in the vale of tears;

Then shalt thou better know His love, His heart,

Who comes to soothe thy sorrows and thy fears.

Be still, my soul; the waves and winds still know

His voice who ruled them while He dwelt below.

Be still, my soul; the hour is hastening on

When we shall be forever with the Lord,

When disappointment, grief, and fear are gone,

Sorrow forgot, love's purest joys restored.

Be still, my soul; when change and tears are past,

All safe and blessed we shall meet at last.

(For Maria)

FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL!

On Friday Therese brought me her workbook and said to me, "Mama please teach me!" How do you say no to that? I knew I wanted to begin earlier than most home school families because the baby is coming in March, and it would be ideal to be done with school by then. So if we begin early, and if we don't take off for Advent and Lent (which is what I did last year), then we should blow through the year in time for our next  little present to arrive...

I have misplaced ALL my home school supplies somewhere among our stored things. So I found these books at Costco and bought one for each of them...

This book has JP's work separated into many topics, not just reading and math, but phonics, reading comp, vocab, addition, time, money, etc. It's great.

Here's the kiddos at the work table. I would like to add that Therese also has on her plastic heels as well.

We're learning religion this year from the St Joseph's First Communion Catechism...

John Paul's first spelling lesson... this was week one. So what do I do now? Crazy smart kid.

And here is Therese's craft work... which of course used almost the entire container of glue... she's so eager to do work that I will have to find other stuff for her to do. John Paul was not interested in art/crafts,and PreK is not that involved in the home school world. I kept saying, "Therese, you're done with school, you can go play." But she refused to leave and ask for more things to do. 

And as for Jacob, he played magic tea party, then I let him mess around with scissors. You heard me. I was standing right there and he had a wonderful time and was totally occupied. Micah was in his bed and eventually fell asleep. I know that won't work everyday, but he's a climber and so if he's not napping he'll be attempting to climb the table. He's really not the "sit in his high chair and color" type, so I'll have to come up with something for him when he decides not to acquiesce to my napping request.

Good good first day! Praise God!

Glordinary...

Today we celebrate THIS... the Transfiguration. Basically Jesus became glowing with His own awesomeness and Moses and Elijah (representing the Law and the Prophets) came to chat with Him. This experience revealed to his three closest apostles that HE was the fulfillment of the law and the prophets and that He was exactly who has had been saying He was. Actually the Voice of God told them, too, when it boomed from a cloud: "This IS my beloved Son. Listen to Him" which is why I like this image best- those apostles are FREAKING OUT!! They are literally blown away by how AWESOME and GLORIOUS their friend/savior/companion really is. The reality is almost too much to handle. Why does He do this? He's giving them strength- a mountain-top  (a great post by my sweet friend at Humble Handmaid) experience to empower them to undergo what happens after this, which is, of course, Jesus' suffering and crucifixion in order that they might also experience the Resurrection.

So my prayer today has been that God will reveal His glory to me and to David, that we may have hope to help us to continue doing what we're doing. So what happened at Mass? After communion I prayed that same prayer - Lord show me your glory that I may have courage to do what you call me to do- and do you know what he told me? "The glory is in the ordinary" WHAT?!?! Seriously. Womp Womp. I am not to proud to admit that I was a bit disappointed in hearing this. If we're honest with ourselves, we can say that we desperately want (and expect) that if we ask God to reveal Himself to us that He will come in all that awesomeness that Peter, James, and John were allowed to see. And because this doesn't actually happen most of the time, we're pretty disappointed with God...

So what do I do? What does God mean for me to experience this Feast Day? I know He doesn't mean for me to feel disappointment. So I'm thinking about exactly what the "ordinary" looks like... I call to mind what I received from the retreat (Focus on what God IS doing and not on what He is NOT doing), and I am looking around at the ordinary and finding glory in it...

We are living in a 4800 sq ft home (granted it needs COMPLETE renovation, has bees and a broken dishwasher) that is large enough to be worthy of both inside and outside activities for my kids. We get our Daddy home at 4:30 every day because he walks home from work in 5 minutes. Judging by the constant queasiness, we are in fact blessed with another precious life that is helping our family to grow to the size that we've hoped for (a BIG size). The dishwasher is broken, and in washing each child's/husband's dish individually I am amazed at how it evokes a DEEP appreciation for that person's life ("Aw, Jacob's oatmeal bits, Micah's banana pieces on his bottle, David's sopping up every bit of everything on his plate that I barely need to wash it). We are minutes from more parks and libraries than I can count. All our home school stuff is somewhere in storage and I cannot locate it, but I am so pumped to get started early so that by march (baby time) we will be through and can love on our newest addition. There isn't a morning that David doesn't wake up with a huge smile on his face just to see me  (oh and it's a pretty sight, indeed). I have time pretty much every afternoon where all four are sleeping or at least horizontal, allowing me to have to time to pray, sleep, cook, chat, or blog.

Ordinary... but truly Glorious... Glordinary? New word. Write it Down.

Best and most of all, I see that our children GLORY in their ordinary days. I don't see them waking up with anything but TOTAL excitement that another day has arrived. I want to be like that. They don't even know what the day holds are what day it even is, but they love to be US- our family. That is glory and awesomeness to them. "Would that you would be come like little children {to enter} the kingdom of God"...

" The angel carried me away in spirit to the top of a very high mountain and showed me the holy city Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God. The city had no need for sun or moon, for the glory of God gave it light, and its lamp was the Lamb." Revelation 21:10,23

This realization of God's glory in the ordinary (His Glordinary :) is what can empower me (US) to do what we have been called to do. How often do we say/hear that the world is going somewhere in a hand basket? What can we do about it beside sit back and say "oh, what a shame" ? We can have Glordinary! We can live day in and day out in the monotony- and LOVE IT! This will change hearts, because the first hearts it can change is MINE! Then it flows to my kids and  their precious hearts will change others, and so on and so on. That is the power of the Transfiguration! That is Glordinary power!! I am finding mine...

"And He lead them up onto a high mountain, and there He was transfigured before them..."