Miscellany!

A blessed feast of St. Lucy, namesake of our little niece, to everyone!

Also a belated happy feast of  Our Lady of Guadalupe, Patroness of the Americas.  I love how so often Our Lady shows herself to the poor, the young, the dispossessed, and the humble  (its this last one I particularly need to work on.) She shows us the love of Christ for them and His power to use everyone to do great things for the kingdom of God. I pray I will be open to her and her Son, like Juan Diego, the children of Fatima, and Bernadette, my own patron saint, were.

Finally, a very happy belated feast of St. Nicholas to you all!  (If you have never read about the real St. Nicholas, I strongly advise you do so here.)  I remember in college my roommate's mother had a friend from home play St. Nicholas and fill our shoes with goodies.  I hope one day to start a St. Nicholas tradition with my children, although this year Finn is too little to have any shoes to fill.

Look how big he got since last time I posted!

I haven't blogged in a while.  As my husband said, "You better post soon or you will lose all your followers.  That's pretty bad considering I'm one of them."  Not to make excuses but we've had quite a busy little month here.  Right around Thanksgiving, of course, Finn had either a little sickness or early bout with teething pains, making him a very cranky little buddy.  I was quite undone.  My angel baby suddenly needed constant attention, would not be satisfied and cried for seemingly no reason. He wouldn't eat normally- it involved lots of thrashing and loud complaining not to mention a completely crazy schedule- and all my work on getting him to take naps in his crib went out the window.  I guess I shouldn't pray for patience so often, because this was certainly an opportunity to gain patience.  I need it pretty badly, considering my low threshold for frustration.  I found myself saying things like, "You should be ashamed of yourself" to a four-month-old. Pretty ridiculous, right?  Thankfully, I have a loving and helpful husband and family.

Lookin good for Thanksgiving.

Finn has been doing much better, but because he no longer likes taking naps in his crib, (read will not do so) I have had much less down time to blog.  That's my excuse for now.

Last time, I talked about how I wanted to increase my little family's awareness of Advent as a time of preparation.  Here's what we decided to do for this year.  Hopefully, next year, and as Finn grows, we can add more Advent traditions.  My husband and I have been attempting to abstain from meat on Wednesdays and Fridays and hopefully on the Ember Days of Lent.  We are saying the Christmas Novena or St. Andrew's Novena, which starts on his feast day, November 30th and goes until Christmas.  Unlike a normal novena, it is longer than 9 days and repeated 15 times a day.  It goes like this:
Hail and blessed be the hour and moment in which the Son of God was born of the most pure Virgin Mary, at midnight, in Bethlehem, in piercing cold. In that hour, vouchsafe, O my God! to hear my prayer and grant my desires, through the merits of Our Saviour Jesus Christ, and of His Blessed Mother. Amen.
I strongly encourage you to try this, even though its so late in the year or perhaps make a note for next year. I think saying it helps you remember Advent throughout each day.  Although I always intend to say it about hourly, I usually end up finishing a bunch of them at the end of the day.  We also made a very simple Advent wreath with a pine wreath centerpiece and votive candles for now and try to remember to do our Advent devotions after dinner or before bed. We often fail to remember even these few things. I just wanted to give you some ideas of simple ways to remember Advent and try to hold myself accountable after telling everyone how important Advent is.

In honor of Gaudete! Sunday, we have rejoiced in the coming of Christ by splurging on a real, live Christmas tree.  Finn adores it.  It's right next to the glider where he eats and he gazes at it lovingly all the time. 

He did not, however, adore cereal.  We tried to feed him some to teach him about eating and help that growing boy sleep a little later in the morning.  No such luck.

I'm really not so sure about this, Daddy.

Here are five other things Finn has discovered he does adore this past month:

5)Sitting up (almost).  He can only sit without assistance for about 20 seconds so far, but with someone to steady him/ hold on to the back of his clothes to keep him from face-planting into whatever he is trying to devour, Finn can see and eat the world so much better from this position.  He is doing better everyday working on those ab muscles, though he hasn't rolled over yet.  Oh well, no baby is perfect.

4)Peek-a-boo.  He can't do it himself yet, but he loves to have a blanket put on him and taken off with those magic words.  "Where's Finn? There he is! Peek a boo!"

3)Other Babies, Children and Cats.  He could watch his cousins and second cousins forever.  He finally found a cat that let him touch him and they both loved it.  The cat found a scratching post and Finn found a big fluffy toy.

 Sidenote: Tommy was baptized this month and is trying to catch up to Finn in size.  It's a little early, but here's a comparison

He is very smiley now.

2)His toes.  He can finally grab them by himself! So cute and hours of entertainment for everyone.

1)His Daddy.  He constantly wants Jf to hold him, sing to him, make him into an airplane, anything.  This is just the beginning of a very beautiful thing.  Daddy and his little buddy.


Well I suppose now that the baby's in bed and my blog has been saved from sure ruination due to gross neglect, I should probably eat something and hide Daddy's Christmas present.  Thanks for listening!

Today is: The Feast of St. Lucy
Finn is: one day away from being FIVE MONTHS OLD
Mama recently finished reading: The Turmoil by Booth Tarkington

Maybe one day she can read again. . . If this little cute face lets her.