WWRW

This is my first time participating in What We're Reading Wednesday, but I hope to make this more of a regular thing, since I owe such a debt of gratitude to Jessica and everyone who participates in her link-up. It is just too hard to find and pre-read enough quality books to keep up with my kids. So, thank you everyone! Here's what we read over Spring Break:

I'll start with Sun and Moon, Ice and Snow. We have become big fans of Jessica Day George in our house, so I was excited to see that she had written a novel based on the fairy tale "East of the Sun, West of the Moon."If you aren't familiar with this story, it's kind of a Scandinavian version of Beauty and the Beast and even closer to the myth of Cupid and Psyche. As adaptations go, this one is nicely fleshed out yet still stays true to the original version of the fairy tale. The heroine, a poor girl known only as the Lass, agrees to go and spend a year with a monstrous polar bear (really a prince in disguise) in an enchanted castle.

In the interest of full disclosure, there is one aspect of this book which some might find scandalous or creepy.  As in the original story, when the Lass goes to sleep in the enchanted castle, a stranger comes and gets into the other side of the bed with her. (In the somewhat edited version of the fairy tale in the anthology my kids have, the bear remains a bear and sleeps at the girl's feet.) In this version, the prince is definitely a man, At first, the Lass is horrified by this intrusion, and gets out of bed to sleep on a couch in her room. The stranger picks her up, tucks her back into her side of the bed, and goes to sleep. Since this is the only time he touches her or speaks to her, the Lass gets used to her unorthodox sleeping arrangement as time passes and even nudges the stranger when he snores. When the Lass is allowed to return to her family for a visit, she tells an older sister about her bedfellow, and upon her sisters insistence, smuggles a candle back with her to get a good look at him (just like Psyche), breaking her promise and setting the stage for her quest to redeem herself and save the prince.

My sixth grader loved this book, and even opened up her bedroom window AND turned her fan on full blast so she could chill her room to a frigid 68 degrees to help immerse herself in the story. My poor little Arizonan. 

A bonus for me was the author's afterward, where she describes her lifelong love affair with Scandanavian language. She even studied Old Norse in college so she could read the Eddas in their original form. So now I love Jessica Day George even more. There is a glossary in the back with all of the Norwegian and Old Norse words used with a  pronunciation guide, which the word nerd in me got all excited about. 

We have really enjoyed Shannon Hale's books, too, and I myself am partial to a good sci-fi story, so I had high hopes for Dangerous. There is a lot to love about the teen-aged heroine, Maisie Danger Brown. She's home-schooled, smart, and driven. She gets along great with her parents and her nerdy best friend Luther. She has her sights set on becoming an astronaut and she doesn't let the fact that she was born missing an arm below the elbow or the rude comments mocking her disability get her down. She wins a contest that sends her to Astronaut camp, where an whirlwind adventure featuring aliens, nano-robots, and super-powers commences.
Despite the fact that this novel was not Hale's strongest writing, it would be a really fun story for my middle schooler if not for the romance. During the course of trying to save the world, Maisie spends a few weeks shacking up with her shady love interest and there is a scene where he (unsuccessfully) tries to get her to sleep with him, even assuring her that he is packing protection. So...not for my 6th grader.

This experience has taught me two important lessons.
1. I can't really trust any contemporary authors to have the same level of appropriateness throughout their body of work.
2. My library's system of separating Teen lit from Children's is totally crazy. Dangerous was classified as Children's literature, yet The Goose Girl and Hale's other Bayern books are all "Teen." I don't understand...

My third grader read All of a Kind Family. I'm sure many of you are familiar with this gem about a Jewish family living in New York City during the beginning of the 20th century. It's a family favorite, but we have never tried any of the sequels. I hope to try them out soon.

Back to fairy tales, my kindergartner is currently obsessed with Mercer Mayer's picture book version of East of the Sun, West of the Moon, which we borrowed from the library to compare it to the other retellings. Mayer's prince is disguised as a frog, not a bear, and it looks like his story takes place in Russia, not Scandinavia, but it is beautifully told and even more beautifully illustrated:

I spy icons! 

So lovely

That's it for now. Only three more weeks until school gets out and we have more time for reading and blogging. Linking back to Housewifespice for more recommendations!

JP II

Pope John Paul II was canonized today. The internet is flooded with images of him: as a small boy with his parents, as a young man skiing, hiking, praying, smiling, suffering. I can't help but reminisce about the day Lili and I met him face to face. She doesn't remember it, but I will always count it as one of the most incredible experiences of my life.

Lili had been born three weeks earlier.  Those first few weeks with our first newborn were more wonderful and difficult than I could have ever imagined. As any parent knows, having your first child unmakes you. Your dreams, desires, hopes and fears are is torn down and rebuilt in a different shape around this tiny little stranger with whom you have fallen madly in love. I remember feeling blindsided by the new found realization that my chosen vocation was not always going to be sunshine and roses and dinners out at Bucci's.

 

That Sunday when Lili was three weeks old, I was still not recovered from a long and difficult labor in a foreign country, I was having a really hard time nursing, and my mom had just gotten on a plane to fly back home across the Atlantic. I was having a hard time, as many new mothers do.

 

We were going to Mass at San Tomaso up at Castel Gandolfo with our latest visitors, Erika and Travis, who wanted to go to the papal Angelus. We were going to skip it that day, as I was just hoping to make it home before Lili woke up, so I could struggle with feeding her in private.  

 

Happily, Providence had other plans, and we ran into our friend Baldo, a captain in the Carabinieri, who asked us if we wanted to receive a Papal blessing for the new baby after the Angelus. That's not the kind of unexpected opportunity you politely decline. Only one parent would be allowed to present the child to the Holy Father.  I wanted Luke to take her, partly because (I'm ashamed to admit) I am a naturally shy and insecure person and I was afraid of doing something wrong. My husband, however, is confident and sociable, and I was pretty sure he would be able to conduct himself with dignity. Lucky for me, he is also a very generous man, and put his foot down and made me go instead. 

 

During the Angelus I was pretty distracted with worries running through my head, "What am I supposed to do? I'm supposed to kiss his ring, aren't I? How am I supposed to aim a kiss at his ring when both hands are busy holding  the baby? Am I supposed to say something? What if the baby wakes up and wants to nurse and starts screaming?"

 

And then it was my turn and all of those inconsequential thoughts flew out of my head as I put my tiny baby on the Holy Father's lap. He gently raised her up and kissed her forehead, and then put his hand on my face and looked me right in the eye. And that was it. My turn was up. (I hadn't done things right, by the way, I wasn't supposed to stop and kneel.) I did screw up after all, but it didn't matter a bit.

 

Only a few seconds...a kiss for my baby, his hand on my face, and a look. I don't think he even said anything,  My only memory from that moment is the beautiful bright blue of his eye as he looked straight into mine and the undeniable sense of charity pouring out of him. As our dear Bishop Conley put it so beautifully and simply in his recent essay, " One does not forget the glimpse of sanctity."

 

Anyone who saw him in those last years remembers how very very tired he seemed, how bowed with suffering he had become. You would have thought he would be in a hurry to get through the line of mothers and babies, so that he could retire to his chambers and rest, but I had the overwhelming impression that one hundred percent of his attention was focused on me in that moment. It was as if I was the only other person in the world. Peace, and hope, and joy filled my heart as I found my way back to my husband. Lili had slept for three hours straight (a minor miracle in and of itself.) Luke forbade me to wash her forehead. We went home to our little apartment.

 

I'm not usually someone who is overly emotional about my faith, but I can't look at a picture of John Paul II or even think about him without my eyes welling up. I think it is because my encounter with him, brief as it was, gave me a glimpse of what it will be like to have all of your petty thoughts and worries wilt away in the blazing light of pure Love.

I think of all the babies he kissed, all the people he gave seconds and minutes of his life to, the inexhaustible wells of strength and love he drew from and poured out for others. I am so filled with  happiness that today the Church in Her wisdom has given him to all of us as a saint and intercessor.

There will never be another like him.

JP II, we love you, pray for us!

Lately

We've been kept so busy with school and extracurriculars. Luckily VDM's official yearbook photographer managed to snap some pictures of the kids at one of Lili's basketball games. By now they are a month and a half old, but oh well.

Lili and her fellow Crusaders have grown so much since last year. I was so proud of them, and I loved getting to see snippets of their games in between trying to keep Isaiah from charging the field.

Luke helped coach both girls' teams, which he really enjoyed.

Audrey leisurely taking in her sister's game.

Kateri has changed so much from the shy little girl who started kindergarten 7 months ago. Here she is chatting up her favorite high-schoolers. She starting to sound less like Elmer Fudd, which I know I should be happy about, but I will miss hearing her funny little impediment, like when she yelled at Isaiah after he snatched my phone off the nightstand; "You'll never get away with it, you wascal!"

Isaiah is still lighting up our lives with his mischievous little smile. It is hard to remember what life was like without a little boy running around wreaking havoc.

Spring: as told through Instagram and incomplete sentences

Because how else am I going to catch up with this darn blog?!?Making lemonade with our backyard lemons.

Surprise visit from some Dallas Birds!

Nanny!

Nanny's ice cream cure for teething went over pretty well.

Papa!

Luke's 2 week business trip necessitated the call for reinforcements. What would we do without grandparents?

Playing in the hose.

Into every life a little rain (or Norovirus) must fall. 

Luckily everyone was well for St. Patrick's day and laughably elaborate hairstyles...thank you Pinterest!

And thank you Burchjerks

You guys sure know how to throw a party!

The photo wall was his favorite part.

Fr. Francis! And Giraffes!

My girls' personalities epitomized by one photo.

The happiest little girl I know.

Charge, Simba!

Not too grown up to pose with the waterhole sculptures.

Our little St. Joseph's day altar...nothing takes me back to my New Orleans childhood  like the taste of an anisette cookie.

Isaiah's magic shirt

Here is Isaiah in what we call his magic shirt, so named because of its apparent inability to be outgrown. The tag says 3-6 months, but he is 16 months now and it is just starting to get too short in front.Twelve years ago, when Luke and I were two giddy newlyweds expecting our first child half a world away in Italy, we were huddled together over the sluggish internet connection in the RA office at Due Santi, doing some online shopping at Baby Gap. We weren't going to find out the baby's sex (much to the shock and horror of every Italian we tried to explain this fact to) but we decided to order this shirt and a little sweater vest "just in case." We both had a hunch baby #1 would be a boy. Then Lili was born and I packed the little shirt away, thinking, "maybe next time." 

After daughter #3 was born and I packed up her baby clothes, I almost gave the little shirt away, since I was by this time positively convinced we were going to be a family of all girls...like the Bennets, or the Marches, or the Ingalls. After all, if anyone fit the feisty, second-born-of-a-house-of-daughters mold cast by such literary greats as Lizzy, Jo, and Laura, it was my Audrey. I am still kind of hopeful/terrified that she will someday write a book about her childhood and skewer us all. But I digress.

I decided to pack the shirt away one more time just in case. So it was there in its plastic wrapper ten years later when Isaiah surprised us all by being a boy. I REALLY was convinced he was a girl, so convinced that I found it annoying in the midst of contractions that my midwife kept calling the baby " he." It just goes to show that you never know what (or who) God has in store for you. I'm still a bit surprised that, twelve years later, we have a son to put into that magic shirt, a little mischief-maker whose eyes match its particular shade of blue perfectly, and who has rolled around in the grass and ground bananas into it until it is battered and stained. I'll never be able to get rid of it, and I'll probably be pulling it out and weeping into it when Isaiah is a big stinky teenager. It will always remind me of how surprised I was when God gave me Isaiah.

And boy, was he ever worth the wait!

Closing out 2013: Christmas and California

 Christmas 2013 was a happy whirlwind. Luke's whole family was able to be together, including all seven Winterings all the way from North Carolina. It was such a blessing to be able to spend some nice quality time with all of the aunts and uncles and cousins. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: my children are so lucky to have such an amazing extended family who makes them feel so loved and cherished. I've said this before, too, and at the risk of sounding like a broken record, I'll say it again: I wish I took more pictures.

 Two days after Christmas, we packed up the car and set off for the California coast. It was Grandma Marceen's 90th birthday, so the whole Speier clan gathered to celebrate.

 Most of the family are based in Santa Barbara, a beautiful spot which I wish we could have had more time to explore. Uncle Kurt and Aunt Jan gave us a tour of their church, St. Athanasius. Getting to see their beautiful icons and was a highlight of the trip for me. It was amazing to see so much beauty tucked away in an unassuming building. Their community is moving to a new space, and I hope one day we can visit there as well.

We had a great time catching up with all the extended family, although we missed Aunt Brit and the Winterings.

We took a little walk on the pier before Grandma's party, and the girls tried to make a new friend.

Kateri's flip flop flew off of her foot and into the drink, a minor tragedy which caused a few tears from Kateri and me to clutch my wiggly toddler a little tighter. After the weekend festivities, we drove down to the Newport area.

 

Here is Isaiah at Little Corona. This beach is amazing. If you go at low tide, you can see so many gorgeous and interesting creatures in the tide pools. We saw sea hares, bright lavender sea urchins, starfish, anemones, and little opaleye fish. Then, after we hiked back up to the street and were chatting with Uncle Justin, Uncle Travis, and Aunt Stephanie, a little girl standing nearby pointed out a whale spouting just beyond the kelp line. The wildlife in the Pacific never ceases to amaze me...it would seem like the population density of Southern California would drive all the creatures away, but no.
All in all, the trip was a big success, and a great way to close out the year. Here's to a great 2014!

Our Hobbit Halloween

First off, if you would like to see some non-blurry shots of our evening, along with a far more appropriate post title...Emily has posted her lovely photos here

Our Hobbit Halloween was an absolute blast, and while I never want to see another piece of brown craft foam, I had so much fun making these costumes (with the exception of Bilbo's waistcoat, which was all Nanny.) We had a little party the weekend before so the kids could play in their costumes to their hearts' content.

Kateri and Finn were my favorite...they are at that magical age where their imaginations are so vivid and they truly believe they look exactly like their characters.

I loved watching Kateri's dress float behind her as she ran from house to house in the dark on Halloween.

Thorin and co.

Those burchjerks sure know how to sell it. Audrey couldn't keep a straight face. I'll miss her singing her own theme music as she plays. She and Lucy were so excited about their costumes it was hilarious...instead of saying "Trick or Treat," they actually bowed and said "Fili and Kili, at your service." I'm sure they completely confused most of the nice people giving out candy one Halloween, but I guess it beats dressing up as a flirty candy-corn or whatever other abomination Party City is trying to market to eight year old girls...

My favorite part of this picture is how proud Finn is of the sculpey ring his mom made him...he reeeeally wants to make sure it gets caught on film.

Lili and Jack went as Mirkwood elves: Tauriel and Legolas. We only know Tauriel from the trailer for the Desolation of Smaug, so I am crossing my fingers that her character isn't lame. Come on, Peter Jackson, don't let us down! I kind of want to take Lili and Jack to the midnight premiere and let them dress up, but that might be taking things a bit too far. Plus they have school the next day. Plus they would probably get super embarrassed.

 

Bilbo having a chat with a hobbit lady-friend and mangling his pipe.

Let's not forget Smaug the Adorable

who was stolen by Tauriel for a few minutes, naturally.

 

Bilbo and Legolas, who is a big softie when it comes to babies hobbits.

 

I think it was our best Halloween yet...maybe we should retire. I hear Party City has some lovely selections to choose from.