Christmas Memories

As the Christmas season is about to end all we are left with are pictures and memories. I would like to share some of them with you, the memories that is. I have yet to learn how to put pictures onto this blog.

On Christmas Eve I took Ethan to his first church service. It was the Children's Mass at my parent's parish. I actually love this Mass and go every year. I love watching the children, and I love the music. Ethan was extremely well behaved. He is very curious and takes all the sights and sounds in. He watched everything and everyone. He stayed in my arms almost the whole time. There was this cute little girl just a couple of weeks younger than Ethan. She was staring at him and cooing. She kept trying to get his attention. She eventually did. He watched her for a few minutes. She was smiling he was very serious. Then he turned his head and his attention went to other faces and people. As my mother and I watched this scene we giggled. Then came the icing on the cake. I got to bring my grandson to the alter to have him blessed. It was a privilege and an honor to be the first to introduce him to God and bring him for his first blessing. I hope I will have many such occasions in the future. I was told in the past that Jesus must have been around 8 or 9 months old when the wise men came to him bearing gifts. Seeing how Ethan was with others makes me think of how Jesus may have been when the Wise Men came. How he would have looked at them and cooed and giggled.

I mentioned in that past that Ethan tried to talk and have conversations. This has temporarily stopped. I was told because he is teething. He has two tiny pearly whites on the bottom gum. He does love to be held and it is so wonderful to see him look at me with adoring eyes. He doesn't seem to have much trouble being passed around from one person to another in the family and when he is in a good mood he sometimes goes to the friends.

As far as opening presents, he doesn't have that quite down yet but he does love paper. It was fun to watch him tear it up :). All in all we all enjoyed the wonderful week together. I can honestly say I really miss my little guy and I miss his parents too. My other son and daughter-in-law will return to their home tomorrow. I will miss them both very much but I look forward to meeting the child they are to have in June. I am lucky my daughter is still with me for another couple of weeks.

The Best Christmas Ever

The time has finally come! Christmas is here and the house is filled with family. But the Christmas treat is having my grandson here. We had another wonderful experience today. We were blessed to see a live ultrasound of our new unborn baby. My other daughter in law is pregnant now. She is at 14 weeks yesterday. We took my mom with us. She had never seen anything like that. The new little one was very active.

The meeting between my mother and Ethan was a very emotional moment. No not for Ethan but for my mom. She started to tear up. As I sit here and write this, she is in the living room having a blast with that little stinker. Let me tell you how spoiled he is. He will not eat store bought apple sauce in a jar. It must be freshly made. Guess what his mom is doing right now? lol

Ethan is a riot. He still can't crawl but he gets around with an army crawl. Let me tell you his crawl is pretty fast too. He is so enjoying the attention. There are 9 adults in this house at his beck and call and we all enjoy playing with him. He laughs more now than he used too. I just love sitting around watching him and of course holding him and hugging him and kissing him. I guess the greatest thing of all is that he will come to me. He recognized me right away.

There will be more coming up as the days go on.

Christmas time with a baby in the house.

Christmas is almost here.

Again I don't know where this is going tonight but I felt I had to write. I went to Mass tonight, Yes, I worship in the Catholic Church, and the deacon gave the "sermon" or whatever they call it now. I found it very interesting because I felt he was right on as to what I have been feeling all week. This is the first Christmas in years where I have felt an unbelievable amount of joy and peace. You might say that I basically have it all, I have much to be thankful for. I have a wonderful family a grandson a grand baby on the way, my husband and kids are employed, I don't have to go out and work, a warm house etc. I am extremely grateful to God for providing all these things to me but it has been more than that. Since Advent began I have actually felt Christ's presence. You have to understand that I don't feel that often and every Christmas for quite a few years I have not felt that at all. I honestly don't know what has changed unless it is me. I know I won't always feel this way but I am enjoying this feeling at the moment. The deacon told us that Jesus is the reason for the joy. I have been studying a section of the psalms this year and they have made it very very clear that God is truly with us always, that he cares about everything we do, that he protects us and watches over us. What is different is that I am truly trying to take this to heart especially the Trust in Him statement. I have become frazzled several times in the past couple of weeks but I have told Him that I trust him and have truly tried to do that and I guess he honored that by filling me with joy. This is not the joy of excitement for Christmas though I am because I am expecting all the kids to come, but a peace that surpasses all understanding. As the deacon told us Joy begins with the letter J as does Jesus. Jesus and joy go together. I liked that.

I have also found a peace in having everything finished early though in the past everything was still done early and yet there was no joy. I have found great joy in going to church on Sunday. That too doesn't always happen. I want to thank my God for this joy and hope that he will give me this peace even as the house settles down and the children leave.

I sit in front of the tree in the evening and look at the manger. I think of my grandson as being the age of when the wise men probably found Jesus. I have been told that it took them several months from the moment they saw the star till the day they found him. I have had time to meditate on the shepherds that saw the star and went to that manger and saw the baby. I have thought about being one of the shepherds and how cool would that be to see that star and find a baby. If I found that baby what would I say? What would I do?

On that note, I say goodnight. More will come as the family arrives. I believe that this is meant to be a very special Christmas that will be unique. No other Christmas in this family will ever be the same with the same joy and peace as this one. Thank you Lord for this special gift.