As Christmas Approaches

Our household has sure been enjoying the Advent season.  Our special Elf has been letting Santa know about good and not so good behavior in the house as well as requests for gifts.  Our Advent wreath has been a focal point at dinner time with much anticipation as to whom will blow out the candle.  I have even gotten a couple requests to read the Advent prayers!  Emmanuel-God is with us these precious days before the celebration of the Incarnation.  Baking cookies this year was especially fun.  Then we got a snow storm dumping almost 2 feet of snow onto us this past weekend.  Preparation for Christmas Day is going well.  Today the children will do their gifts for eachother.  We decided that they will offer eachother tasks as gifts this year.  For example, "I will clean your room"  or "help with a chore".  That way the children can cooperate on household tasks instead of focusing on what things they get.  I hope it is a success.  It is such a joy to watch the children get so excited.  Our Advent Elf calendar has been fun too!  God bless and Happy last days of Advent to you!

To Move or Not To Move

The subject of whether we should relocate closer to my husband's office has been brought up many times over the past 3 years.  He lovingly commutes to Indianapolis (by lovingly I mean that it is a labor of love for him to do so as traveling these days is a hassle and that he sacrifices many a night's sleep trying to get home to us as often and quickly as possible).  Well, the subject came up again recently with a deal attached to it that needed to be seriosly considered.  In conjunction with these new considerations I had been feeling increasingly aware of our oldest boy's need to have his Dad around full time, not just on the weekends.  We talked about all of these things and decided to pray on it.
After many days of prayer and asking for God to show us His will I decided that I should just give it all to Jesus.  My worries, my concerns, my sadness at the thought of leaving my friends and family, the move itself, our son's needs, my husband's lonelyness... all of it.  And He answered me loud and clear-we are to move.
The new house is beautiful and much larger than ours, the catholic school is free and very conservative, the parish is vibrant, the pastor is orthodox (reminding of our good friend who is a priest), the town is wonderful, my mother is supportive and the list goes on....
So here we are getting ready for a major relocation.  We have such mixed feelings about it.  The outpouring of love from are friends has been so wonderful.  We are going to miss everyone so much what a fabulous community we have here.  We are also sad to leave the awesome school here, we have been so pleased with the formal and informal education given to our children at RLA.  Anyone who could go there should it is a gem.
God has blessed us richly both here and in Indiana.  We are so thankful to our wonderful heavenly Father for His generosity.