My Quiet, Sweet Birthday

Chris made delicious French toast for my birthday breakfast . . . served with homemade whipped cream and raspberries!

My favorite gifts: The children made me a flower vase (out of an old spice jar), a hot pad, and a yarn-sewn cross.

Even Margaret 'signed' my birthday card: see her mark?

My birthday picture from Mary: Mama cooking chickpeas!

I delight in drawings by Mary (5). This one is Mama wearing a top hat--with a flower sticking out and a birthday gift shooting out of it--while she cooks chickpea cutlets (one of Mary's favorites) next to a tree with a bird sitting above her nest which contains three eggs.

Other recent photos by Mary are also precious: this one "a recipe for how to make popcorn" (showing Mama doing a handstand for joy) . . .

. . . and this one Mama and Mary beneath a rainbow and pink clouds. Girls and boys are so beautifully different. On the day Mary drew this bright and cheerful rainbow picture, John drew a get-well picture for a little girl in the hospital. What he drew for her was a house on fire with two people standing outside of it screaming and crying while the well-detailed fire engine races from the station to the burning house. Action and drama!



Back to my birthday . . . I stayed home with Margaret and Joseph who were finishing up an illness. (I like to wait 24 hours after they are free of fever or other spewing things before I take them out in public.) In our family, we like to have a Mass said for each of us for birthdays, anniversaries, and the like, so today was 'my' Mass.

Too bad I missed it, as Candlemas is a beautiful Mass with a lot of different components than a regular Latin Mass.

I had organized a blessing of candles for the laity to occur after Mass--and had also taught the homeschooled children about candles and we made beeswax candles at the co-op art class I taught two weeks ago--as well as a chili-themed potluck for this cold weather. But Mommy-vocation calls us first and foremost, so Chris and my right-hand helper M---- took over and did a wonderful job serving the parish today. Wish I could have been there!

The best kind of walk is a Cookie Walk.

 After the two little ones woke from afternoon naps, I took them on a walk in the warm, soft air. Chris was on his way home from church at that very moment, so as I walked along the road, he pulled over in his car, rolled down the window, and showed me a big bowl of fat, chewy cookies he'd brought home from the potluck: "Want a cookie?"

Why, yes, I do! Meet you at home!

And I munched my way down the road (with all four kids, at that point, who wanted to walk the rest of the way with me).

In lieu of a priest, the father does the Epiphany blessing.

In the evening, on this last day of the Epiphany season, we finally got around to doing our house blessing and choosing a patron saint of our home for this year!

It was an unexpectedly quiet birthday, but a very sweet one!


EDITED with an interesting meditation for myself, as brought to me by a friend: She had me look back ten years . . . Ten years ago, I was not yet Catholic, nor had I met Chris, both of which happened about eight-and-three-quarters years ago. That's a whole lot of life lived in a beautiful, short time! Amazing how God can change one's life.