It's beginning to look a lot like New Year's

It's beginning to look a lot like New Year's Day
Ev'rywhere you go
Football on every screen
Glistening once again
With yard lines and pigskin aglow.


...too bad my game isn't on until Wednesday.....

The Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph

Today is the Feast of the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph. (Wikipedia, About.com) These are particularly powerful readings, but one especially touched me:

I am the woman who stood near you here, praying to the LORD.
I prayed for this child, and the LORD granted my request.
Now I, in turn, give him to the LORD;
as long as he lives, he shall be dedicated to the LORD.”

1 Samuel 1:26-28

Of course, then Hannah left her toddler son Samuel at the temple. Maybe that's not SUCH a good idea.....

This feast always reminds me of the song Wind in the Willows on Paddy Noonan's Christmas Time in Ireland album.
As I went a walkin' one mornin' in spring
I met with some travelers in an old country lane
One was an old man, the second a maid,
And the third was a young boy who smiled as he said
Chorus:
We've the wind in the willows,
And the birds in the sky,
We've a bright sun to warm us,
Where ever we lie
We have bread and fishes and a jug of red wine
To share on our journey with all of mankind

I sat down beside them,
The flowers all around,
And we ate on a mantle spread out on the ground
They told me of prophets and princes and kings
And they spoke of the one God who knows everything I asked them to tell me their name and their race
So I might remember their kindness and grace
My name is Joseph, this is Mary my wife
And this is our young son, our pride and delight
We travel the whole world, by land and by sea
To tell all the people how they might be free

Chorus

Sadly, I left them, in an old country lane
For I knew that I never would see them again
One was an old man, the second a maid
And the third was a young boy who smiled as he said
We've the wind.... [Chorus]

lyrics from makem.com

What an image of the Holy Family! I can just see the precocious little Jesus talking to his fellow traveler about "prophets and princes and kings... and the one God who knows everything," lilting melodiously about the beauty of God's creation.

A Resolution - Part I

It seems like ages ago that I promised to post. In the interim, we have decorated our house, made tons of ornaments, gone shopping, ridden on the mall carousel, wrapped presents, met Santa Claus, sung "Happy Birthday" over and over, and skied in our backyard. Well that skiing thing was a one-time occurence(today), but I hope that we can do it again :)

My promise to post was made in good faith, but somehow free time in front of the computer has never quite materialized. I won't claim that I haven't had the time, but more that I haven't set aside the time to do it.

So here is my resolution:

3 posts per week. 1 of the "link" variety, 1 of the "think" variety, and 1 of the pic variety.

Let's call this the "thinking" post. Stay tuned for a link and a pic.

Excuses excuses

I know that a promised a real post soon, but we have been keeping ourselves incredibly busy building graham cracker gingerbread houses, designing a Christmas card, making dough ornaments, painting, and playing in the snow.

There are pictures of some of these events, and I will be uploading them to Flickr soon. But I won't promise that it will get done this weekend -- we have guests stopping by tomorrow and I need to actually start Christmas shopping at some point.....

Posts in progress

I have "written" several blog posts in my head, but have not had the dedicated time to commit them to keyboard.

If I don't post in the next few days, please start peppering me with emails asking about Thanksgiving, Christmas decor, preschool, the power of routines, and hugs.

If the FDA regulated the Eucharist

Read the whole thing at Ironic Catholic.

Sean was right

What American accent do you have? Your Result: Boston You definitely have a Boston accent, even if you think you don't. Of course, that doesn't mean you are from the Boston area, you may also be from New Hampshire or Maine.
North Central
The West
The Midland
The Northeast
Philadelphia
The Inland North
The South
What American accent do you have? Take More Quizzes

I hate it when that happens.

Thanksgiving Menu

We'll be having turkey for Thanksgiving. How 'bout y'all?

We are hosting a small T-day get-together for the warillever family -- just me, Mr. warillever, his mother, Uncle Ichabod, and the Agents. Nothing like the forty-person dinners that I'm used to at my folks' house.

Dinner for six should not be stressful -- I do it frequently -- but this is the mother of all feasts, a holiday based upon the abundance of tasty food. I am a little nervous. I have my menu planned, and have been testing out squash dishes for weeks. By the way, I have settled on butternut squash casserole from Allrecipes.com. It is too sweet for my taste, but Mr. warillever approved of it, which might be a first for him on a cooked veggie.

Otherwise, everything will be quite plain:

• Turkey
  
• gravy (jars as backup)
• mashed potatoes
  
• squash casserole (make on Wednesday, in oven last hour of turkey)
• green beans (steam on stove)
• corn (frozen)
• carrots (boil on stove)
• stuffing (Thursday am)
• cranberry sauce (from can)
• crackers/pretzels/breadsticks (from bags)
• veggies (chop, blanch some)
• 3 dips (Wednesday evening)
• oatmeal raisin cookies (kids make Tuesday)
• apple pie (kids make Monday, bake Tuesday)

Catch a Tigger by the tail

The frightening part is that this video was shot before he consumed his weight in candy at a Halloween party.

Books. Is there anything they cant do?

With all that we have heard about the harm of carrying heavy backpacks, it is refreshing to hear that heavy textbooks are good for something -- protection from school shootings.

OKLAHOMA CITY, Oklahoma (AP) -- A candidate for state superintendent of schools said Thursday he wants thick used textbooks placed under every student's desk so they can use them for self-defense during school shootings.
"People might think it's kind of weird, crazy," said Republican Bill Crozier of Union City, Oklahoma, a teacher and former Air Force security officer. "It is a practical thing; it's something you can do. It might be a way to deflect those bullets until police go there."

Read the whole article here.

Before the Secret Service starts bolting books to the White House walls for protection, though, they may want to do some more ballistics tests. Oklahoma Highway Patrol spokesman Lt. Pete Norwood noted that "There are some rifles not even Webster's Dictionary will stop."

Beautiful, Innocent Babies

I love babies.

Cute, huggable, honest babies.

Check out what Luke is saying to his dad.

Congratulations Ruiz family.

My Haiku

I haven't posted anything like this in a while:

Haiku2 for warillever
one too but values like kindness and penitence are the most important
@ aboutmylife.netadvogato.orgblogger.comblogs.gnome.orgblogspot.comdeadjournal.comgreatestjournal.comlivejournal.commyspace.comspaces.msn.com
Created by Grahame

HT: Hello Kitty

Dance Tunes

Agent 002 has quite the itunes playlist going.

• The Hampster Dance Song 3:32 Hampton the Hampster
• Dragostea Din Tei 3:33 O-ZONE
• Carnival de Paris 3:59 Various Artists
• Shake Your Sillies Out 1:35 The Wiggles
• The Chicken Dance 2:05 Fisher-Price Dance, Baby, Dance!
• Dinosaur Dance 4:30 Fab-5
• The Hoppity Song 2:26 John Ondrasik

Anybody know where I could find a version of I Like to Move it without the not-so-kid-friendly voiceover?

You know you’re eating leftovers when...

the menu consists of egg drop soup, spaghetti squash, and potato salad.

Fall Fun

Since I last posted, we have:

been apple picking,

made apple pie

learned about Noah's ark,

made rainbow cookies (see the Noah tie-in?)
jumped on numbers,
jumped on the bouncy castlewith our California friends
built a stepstool,
and watched an exciting pumpkin race.

Wisdom of the Ages (2)

Science can purify religion from error and superstition. Religion can purify science from idolatry and false absolutes.

Pope John Paul II
from Happy Catholic

Did God make Grover?

We are slowly making our way through the Bible as a family. Or at least, we hope to. Inspired in part by the three-year old's "Bible and Rhyme" curriculum at Hubbard's Cupboard, Agents 002 and 004, Cousin F and I have been reading one Bible story a week and doing loosely related art projects. Today's project was "creating" things out of clay.

Then the questions started.

Agent 002: God made me?

me: yes!

Agent 002: God made 004?

meYes!

Agent 002: God made F?

meYes!

Agent 002: God made the toothbrush?

meGod made the people who made the toothbrush.

Agent 002: God made the toilet?

meGod made the people who made the toilet.

Agent 002: God made the cat?

meYes!

Agent 002: God made Grammy?

meYes, He did.

Agent 002: Good.

Then a few minutes later,

Agent 002: Did God make Grover?

me: Hmmm.....

Sneezing syphillis

Now that is an interesting Google search..... I am the #6 result!

Wisdom of the ages (1)

Pray as though everything depended on God. Work as though everything depended on you.

St. Augustine

Apology advice

If Agent 002 does anything to harm another human being, even accidentally, we require that he apologize. The apology must be given directly to the injured party, and the apology modeled for him is specific to the crime as well. For example, "Sorry for hitting you, Agent 004." Apologizing has become automatic for him -- when he bumped into another child at the playground, Agent 002 immediately stopped and apologized. It takes him longer to apologize for acts of anger, and this is probably a good thing. In a four-year old kind of way, he waits until he means it.

Now that Agent 004 is beginning to speak, we ask the same of her as well. In fact, her first two-word sentence was "Sorry, F," delivered spontaneously after bopping Cousin F on the head. She then promptly bopped F again. I fear that instead of teaching her to be penitent, we have taught Agent 004 how to be a hypocrite.

Rationally, I am convinced that my fear is unfounded. I know that the words sometimes come long before the feelings. I understand that she is only two. I KNOW that she is a very good girl (and a cute one too). But values like kindness and penitence are the most important things that we can teach our children.

I make no promise to follow your advice, but out of curiosity I'd like to know -- what do other parents of preschoolers do?

Welcome Baby D!

Our children have a new cousin -- Baby D was born on Wednesday morning. He is his parents' first child, but joins a flock of warillever cousins - Agents 002 and 004 as well as Cousins E, C, T, B, A and Mm. Best wishes to him and his parents!

Note: Our children also have three reprehriestless cousins -- Cousins Aa, Mag, and F. That makes 10 first cousins. Quite a few, but not quite the 44 that I have........

No dessert for you buddy boy

Agent 002 serenaded us at dinner last night:

Happy burpday fart kaka
Happy burpday fart kaka
Happy burpday fart kaka
Happy burpday to you

At least he's creative..........

Update: Agent 002 did not miss dessert because he sang this song, but rather because he continued singing it after he was asked to stop. We are not wanton dessert-stealers. Although I will admit that Mr. warillever did eat said dessert after the agents went to bed. I am told that it was very good, at least as far as instant puddings go.

Wow!

Did I say that there would be fewer football posts? I wrote that when ND was down 31-14.........

I'll admit it, I had given up on this game. A 19-point 4th quarter secured the Irish win. Wow!

Hello again

Inspired by a recent conversation with the Library Despot, I started reading blogs again. I logged into Bloglines and Live Journal for the first time in months. It has been great fun catching up on old friends' lives and travails. I learned about pregnancies, new jobs, and new worries. I also paged through my own archives, and realized that it is an incredible record of what I was thinking and doing at some pivotal points in my life.

I've decided to make another go of blogging. My goal is to post one "Daily Magic" per week, as well as an ocassional reflective piece. There will probably be less commentary on news and football, and more snapshots of our daily lives.