Lean In

One of the best things (if I can even call it that) that my son's death taught me was to "lean in." Lean in to the grief, the sadness, the emptiness because there is no other way. Lately our sweet 2 year old has been tough to handle. I say right, she says left. She throws fits over every.little.thing. And bed time-bed time! The once great sleeper now screams and throws fits each night as we forcefully put her to bed. And there is part of me that is tempted to just run from it. Distract her with "things" or rewards instead of doing the hard part of following through with discipline. After a long morning with lots of errands and lots of tantrums I thought to myself on the drive home "lean in." Lean in to this season where apparently she needs more of me than before. Don't resent it, don't make it more than it is-just lean in. Put your routine and your schedule on the back burner for the time being and buckle down on the follow throughs. Lean in. Such a simple thing but hard to do. I'm glad I learned it with my first. The hard part now is leaning with all of our children. Caleb's grief is heightened because of this pregnancy. Abigail's attitude is exhausting. This new baby makes me more and more physically tired as the weeks go on and I get bigger. Lean in. I'm going to keep leaning in because I know that's the answer in the end.

Abigail pretending to be....Can you guess? A pizza slice! She saw a man dressed up as a pizza slice at a festival recently and has not stopped talking about it since!

Baby Boy # 2 at 18 weeks. Looks a lot like an alien to me!

Our sweet first born

Its a BOY!

Baby Carr #3 is due to arrive in January. We are happy, excited, scared, nervous, a little of everything. I was SURE it was another girl so learning it is a boy has been somewhat of a roller coaster of emotions. Pray with us that this baby be born alive and well and that death would never again enter my womb. St Jude, pray for us!

Travel Much?

This summer turned out to be a lot crazier than I anticipated with travel! I think I made the mistake of booking trips back in April and May and didn't bother to look at the calendar to see how close together all of them were! Basically from July 4th-August 16th we have been on the road. Day trip to Chicago, weekend in St. Louis, 9 day vacation back to see family in North Dakota, Girls trip to Wisconsin and then a speaking engagement up in Chicago. We had so much fun visiting everyone and seeing things. Looking forward to just staying put this Fall and letting things calm down a bit!


From North Dakota:

Abigail with her Great Grandma who is 90! Such a great woman who raised 12 children!

Aunt Georgia's dog, Miley!

Great Grandma Bonnie, Nate's mom Gwen, and Great Grandma Loraine. We were blessed to have them all together for a cook out one night!

Picking her first carrot from the garden in North Dakota

With Aunt Georgia

Watching Daniel Tiger with Grandma Gwen and Cousin Kitara

These two are only two weeks apart!

Playing in the sand in South Dakota at the Christenson's home

Abigail loved laying in Gemma's big girl bed!

LONG CAR RIDE

A Birthday Cake for Daddy!

 In Wisconsin:
Each summer my mom and her close friends get together and take all their daughters and daughter in laws together for a fun weekend away. This year was low key but its a good thing because we had: 2 two years olds, 1 twenty month old, and 1 five year old. Busy Busy girls that loved to play together!

They had a bounce house!

coloring

backyard splashing

All tired out!

In Chicago:

We were invited up to speak at a Day of Commissioning for the Respect Life Coordinators in the Archdiocese of Chicago. We got to have a booth all day and share pregnancy loss resources. In the afternoon we had the opportunity to share our story of Caleb with the whole group (about 150 people). It was the largest group I've been in front of, not counting the radio. It went great and we even got to meet Cardinal George. 

Getting our picture with Cardinal Francis George

Overall it was a great summer! So fortunate to have the time and freedom to travel!

Why Everyone Needs a Front Porch

This week I gave our front porch a good scrub down. As I was moving things and cleaning, my mind kept drifting to how much I love this little porch. When we bought our house I couldn't have cared if there was a porch or not, especially this porch. When we bought the house it was in poor shape- old windows, CARPET, and dusty red bricks-basically the previous owners had been using it as a storage space and it did nothing for the house. 

So, we made some changes. We got new windows, tore up the carpet and painted the floor, painted the bricks white, laid down an indoor/outdoor rug and re-painted some old wicker furniture. We also inherited a hutch from friends who were getting rid of it. In the 4 years we've lived here Ive been able to decorate the front porch for each season. So it looks cute, but I had no idea how practical a screened in front porch would be! Here are some reasons I love it:

1. Friends can drop off anything and it stays dry/hidden from street view. Probably at least once a week I have someone dropping something off or picking something off. It saves me time and is so convenient for retiring things to others and getting things back.

This table is the usual drop off table where people can leave things!

2. Strangers don't come to the actual door, just the porch door. This feels like less of an invasion than if I had to just open my actual door into our living room when random people come knocking. Also, the porch door can be locked for extra safety.

Actual door that leads into our living room-no strangers get this far because its inside the porch!

3. No messy shoes! Shoes come off on the porch and stay there!

4. It's a great green house for the Spring time. This year Nathan and I saved around $200 by planting our flowers from seeds. We used the porch as a green room and it was the perfect temperature with the sunlight to grow things.

The "seasonal" hutch that gets a makeover every  new season!

5. Its just so darn welcoming! I love having this entry way to welcome people. It just feels inviting and cozy.

Great light and sitting space for reading or chatting

So there are a few reasons why everyone needs a front porch. Not really, but I certainly won't buy another house without one. I love, love, love my porch! What are your favorite parts of your house?

Sacred Psalms

For about the last month or so its been on my heart to read a psalm a day. But, to start at the back and work my way to the front. This kind of prayer has been really fruitful because 1) Its not very time consuming 2) I can remember it throughout the day/week and go back to it often 3) I've been going back and forth between The New American Bible and The Message (which as I understand is NOT an actual translation of the Bible, but one man's rewritten, prayerful interpretation of it?).  All of these things have lead to a lot of spiritual peace and breakthrough in what was a dry spell. So I thought I'd randomly post here some of the favorites Im getting out of God's Word.

Psalm 139:11-12

New American Bible

If I say, "Surely darkness shall hide me, and night shall be my light-

Darkness is not dark for you, 

and night shines as the day.

Darkness and light are but one"

The Message

Then I said to myself, "Oh, He even sees me in the dark!

At night I'm immersed in the light!"

It's a fact-darkness isn't dark to you,

night and day, darkness and light, they're all the same to you.

I love these lines and when I read them I was brought back to a time in my life when things were so dark. In fact these verses led me to create a whole retreat around them based on darkness and finding God in the darkness, or rather letting Him find you. So today if you are feeling the darkness, know that God is there, He is near. Darkness is not dark to Him, the one who has conquered all things.

Weekend trip to St. Louis

This past weekend we headed South to St. Louis with my parents for a quiet, low key weekend away. It was awesome! I think the main thing that made it so great was that we did not plan a lot of things. Instead we swam at the hotel pool and did Grant's Farm on Saturday and The City Museum on Sunday. We had never been to either and I was super impressed by both of them.

Grant's Farm was very easy to get to and the only cost was $12 per vehicle to park.You then enter the park and get right on a tram that takes you through an outdoor wildlife preserve where the animals literally come right up to the train! Abigail got to see cows, deer, bison and peacocks up close. Then the train stops and you get off at a small zoo area. Here we walked around and got to bottle feed goats, see elephants and lamas and ride the carousal. Oh and Grant's Farm is run by Aniherser Bush  so free beer samples are scattered throughout-another perk. It was just big enough, but not too big. We saw everything and were out of there within 2 hours.

The City Museum was another highlight. It was the craziest museum I've ever been to. There are no maps and enough to do to keep any age entertained. There were underground caverns to explore, roof top climbing and our favorite-the Toddler Town. Abigail was able to ride in a train, climb through a ball pit and do arts and crafts. The entry cost $12 a person and Abigail was free. I think it was totally worth it because you could spend all day there. Nathan is already planning a daddy-daughter trip back with her when she's old enough to really climb things.

Eating the best fried chicken in St. Louis at a restaurant called Hodaks!

Overall the weekend was so much fun! Did I mention we stayed at my favorite, the Drury Inn? My favorite hotel because of the complimentary breakfast AND 5 o clock snack time? I love this place because every night between 5-7 they put out hot food and snacks that are complimentary along with two alcoholic beverages per adult. Its so nice with a toddler in tow not to have to worry about snacks! There is also always popcorn in the lobby along with fountain soda-the best!

Already looking forward to going back sometime and doing it all again! Now its time to rest up before our next trip in two weeks-North Dakota!

The Feast of the Sacred Heart

When we were planning our wedding, June seemed like a reasonable month to get married. We were leaving campus as FOCUS missionaries in May, so we figured that would give us a month to get settled and do some last minute wedding planning. I remember going to mass and then going to McDonalds for one of our regular breakfast dates. We sat down with the calendar and then pulled up the liturgical calendar online. Nathan attributes most of his conversion back to the Catholic faith to Mother Mary, so naturally he picked June 20 that year which was the feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. It was on a Saturday and we thought it would be great to dedicate our marriage to Mother Mary. So we called the Church-yes they were free that Saturday. We called the reception hall-no they were not free that Saturday but could do Friday. Friday? Did anyone get married on Friday? We thought about it and then looked up the feast day for that date, June 19th. It was (duh) the Feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. We rolled our eyes as we said of course Mary would never want to steal the show from her son and we felt her pushing us towards His Feast day instead of Hers.

So we went for it. It was all practical at that point-cheaper everything because of a Friday wedding. We did have one freak out when we realized the Feast of the Sacred Heart was not only a Feast Day but a Solemnity, which meant we weren't sure if we could use our wedding readings or if they had to be the ones assigned to that day. Turns out you can get married on a Solemnity and you can have your own readings-yeah! So June 19th came and it was special to celebrate our marriage on the Feast of the Sacred Heart. As the wedding day went on I noticed how many images and statues of the Sacred Heart were around our parish.

Can you see his statue-in the right corner? 

I knew little to nothing about the Feast Day but it was nice to have the image of the sacred heart and the immaculate heart as a symbol to represent our marriage. And I'd say at that point, that's all it was, a symbol. I didn't understand it but I liked the idea of a heart being so passionate with love that it was on fire. I also loved the roses on Mary's Immaculate Heart. What I failed to see on both were the thorns and sword, something that is also part of marriage-suffering.

When we moved into our home a year later we felt called to put an image of the Sacred Heart up in our home. We read up on the tradition of Enthronement to the Sacred Heart and we knew it was something we wanted,

The enthronement will restore the family to Christ because the family is putting Our Lord and His interest first. In return the Sacred Heart takes over the interests of the family. Our Lord Himself has promised that He will bless and sanctify those families who enthrone Him as King. He asked St. Margaret Mary, to whom He revealed His Sacred Heart, that He be allowed to reign over the homes of the rich and the poor; that He be solemnly received as King and Friend and that His Sacred Heart be honored and loved. Consider Our Lord's beautiful promises carefully and then full of trust and confidence, sincerely and devoutly follow step by step the Enthronement Ceremony.

So we bought a statue and invited some friends and family over with our priest friend and had a big party to celebrate along with the beautiful prayer that goes along with the enthronement. Whenever someone walks into our home this is the first thing they see:

Over our 5 years of marriage I can see how and why God had us marry on this Solemnity. The love, the suffering, all of it together just makes sense. I love the Feast of the Sacred Heart and the way it shows us how much Jesus understands us. How His heart burns with love for us but is also suffering because of sin. I love that the Feast Day is followed by Mary's Immaculate Heart, also filled with love but suffering as well. 

I still don't have all the words to explain why this Feast is so important to us, but it just is. I love belonging to a Church that acts as a good mother. She knows her children and what they each need. We needed this Feast Day and we needed it to help shape our marriage. Every time I see that statue in my home I am reminded that I vowed to not only love Nathan, but to suffer with him and for him as well. 

Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, Have Mercy on Us. Most Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary-Pray for us!