God's best gift, my Sonyji

Today my husband celebrates his 33rd birthday.  I still don't know what I did to deserve a husband like him. I know I prayed so much to get a God-fearing guy as my husband but God just added a lot more qualities to the list and gave me my Sonyji.  I can only thank Jesus today for creating him so that I could have a great man by my side to be called my husband.

He is a great public speaker, very vibrant, goes way beyond his limits to help others, lays down his life for the Church, never complains, hard worker, a great talented musician (plays guitar, drums, piano), History teacher by profession, lover of Christ etc.

WYD Sydney

He has expanded my little world by showing me the great movies like  Lord of the Rings, Hobbit, Star Wars and the list goes on.  I can watch these movies over and over if I had the time..lol

I am so thankful to this man for loving me so much especially in my worst moments, being kind, gentle and patient even when I did not deserve it, trying his best to understand me even though it is difficult to understand a woman.=P Thank you for listening to my nonstop chatting, being silent instead of getting angry, for playing with George and Anna and really showing them the love of God the Father, being so patient and kind to them even when they get on your nerves, for helping me with chores at home even when you have a million things to do for work, church, ministries etc.  Thank you for patiently dealing with my silliness and answering the 100 questions I ask on the phone.  You keep calm even after seeing me forgetting to turn the stove or oven off  a thousand times.

The thing that amazes me about you is how quietly you leave the room early in the morning to go to work so that you don't wake us up.  You take extra shifts by teaching night school during the week so that I can stay home and take care of our children.  I am sometimes so astounded how you wake up early morning on weekends to finish up all your extra load of work for school, church, youth ministries etc so that you can spend more time with us when we wake up.

This was the surprise waiting for me one day when I got back from work

I don't know how you do this my Sonyji but I just want to say that none of these things that you do go unnoticed.  I might not say this on a daily basis or often times what comes out of my mouth is complains but deep in my heart I know how much you love us and care for us.  Thank you for sacrificing the many things in your life so that you can bring joy to our little family.

I know you won't be home today to celebrate your birthday because you are going to help out at the retreat. I will miss you but I hope to celebrate your birthday when you come back home.

Happy Birthday my Love!

Frodo Baggins

For some reason George reminded me of Frodo Baggins from LOTR.  He just wanted to wear his backpack and he took the broom and started sweeping the floor.  I guess it was fun for him.  Well we just enjoyed watching our little frodo..haha

We are big fans of Lord of the Rings Trilogy.  It is actually Sony who introduced me to this whole new world of Hobbits, Orcs and Goblins.  I would say that out of the many great movies I have watched this is my favorite.  We have watched LOTR 3-4 times in the past 5 years and we just finished watching the extended version of LOTR trilogy.  Every time I watch this movie I understand something different.  The author J.R.R.Tolkien is a Catholic himself and we can see our faith being portrayed through out this movie.  I think that is what I love the most about this movie.  Sony is so great at  putting movie dialogues into day to day life situations and bringing a good point out of it.  One of the many things I love about my husband :))  

Even though I wrote this post just to show my George resembling Frodo I guess I ended up writing about my favorite movie also..lol  Anyways if you have not watched it I highly recommend watching it.   I cannot wait to introduce the LOTR book and movie to George when he is old enough to read  and watch the movie.

The Weather Outside is Delightful

After 3-4 months of long winter we had some nice beautiful weather this week which came up to upper 50's. Even though I did not get to go out and enjoy the weather, it was just beautiful enough to see the grass finally after being covered in snow for the past 4 months. I had the curtains fully opened and the sunlight just brightened up our living room.

More than anyone else this little one seemed to be enjoying the weather and talking to the branches.  I put her on the bouncer near the window and the next thing you know she started singing and talking looking outside at the tree and the people walking.  She was sitting there for quite a very long time.

Journey through Lent

Lent has begun.  Are you ready to go through the next 40 or 50 days of lent?  I am an Eastern Catholic and belong to the SYRO Malabar Church. We have 50 days of lent instead of 40. This lent is special to me since this is the first time I am actually helping George understand the meaning of Lent.  The beautiful fact is that more than me helping him understand I am the one who is learning a deeper meaning of Lent through all the activities I am making him do.  I guess that is what the Lord wants because George learns and understands his faith by seeing and watching me practice it.  There is no other better way to teach them other than through our own example.  If we are not doing it right then why blame the kid.  All those times I point my finger at him and correct his mistakes deep within I know that I did that mistake first and that is how my child now knows how to do it.

This Lenten season I am really reflecting upon what are the things that the Lord really wants changed in me.  I can give up many things during these 50 days but by the end of Lent what is the point if I am still the same person I used to be carrying on all my bad habits and sins.  I am praying that the Lord will help me to grow closer to him and help me change the many areas in my life which needs to be changed.  Here is a Lenten reflection by the International Pastor of the Catholic Movement called Jesus Youth (which I am part of).  Lenten Reflection   I just loved his reflection and really helped me to get another view point of this season.

Here are few activities I am doing with George so that it is more child like for my little guy.  We put the Crucifix and the statue of Pieta out at our prayer table.  Now we pray before the crucifix and Pieta during our morning prayer. I do have to answer 101 questions which George ask about the crucifix through out the day regarding why Jesus died?, why is he sad?, what is the statue of Pieta?, where does blood come from? and it goes on..  Yes, I do get tired of answering the same question several times a day but it is worth it because I don't want him to doubt about these things later.

I also created a Jesus Tree inspired by Jessica at Shower of Roses.  The second I read about it on her blog I fell in love with it.  I wanted to buy it but decided to save money and make it on my own.  It was fun making it but it is a lot of hard work.
 

First I traced out the tree on the paper looking at the pattern on Jessica's blog.  Afterwards I stapled it on to the felt and cut it out.  Then used tacky glue and pasted it on to the blue felt.  I tried doing this since last week but for some reason I did not get the time to go to the store to buy it.  Finally when I did go and this is after the noon mass with both the kids I drove up to the fabrics store.  I bought everything I needed and thankfully before the kids got cranky I was at the billing area. Well I guess God really wanted to see whether I was ready for the Lent by testing my patience.  I used my credit card and guess what??  It got declined. Ahh....what can I do at that moment?  I left everything there and got the kids back in the car and came back home with George crying and complaining that he did not want to go home. lol  I really thought at that point maybe God does not want me to do it.  But I was finally able to finish it last night.  I still have to make the ornaments for each day which I will make each day.  

Today we read the bible reading from the New Catholic Picture Bible about the Presentation of Jesus in the Temple.  The ornament for today was two doves.  (St Joseph's offering of two pigeons at the temple) 

If you want to use this for your Lenten Journey with your kids and don't want to go through the hassle of making it you can also buy this at Leaflet Missal.  

We did a Lenten Calender also using the ideas of Jessica.  She has given all the details in how to make this calendar and made mine and the many others lives easier Lenten Calendar.

So yesterday morning George came to me asking for cookies and I told him we don't have it and normally when I say we don't have any he get very upset and irritated.  I was expecting the same thing to happen. Just for a trial I started bringing up the idea of offering it up us a sacrifice for Jesus.  I told him about the many poor boys who don't have anything to eat.  I did not expect him to understand at all but to my surprise he did not say anything and just asked me few questions about poor boys.  You have no idea how happy I was that it worked and he actually was happy to not eat the cookie.  So I gave him a cross to color and put it up on the calendar and he did.  It was a real experience for me as well as for him. 

I also made Lenten Sacrifice Beans for George.  Its a lot of fun to do this with him.  He so far has like 8 or 10 beans but every time he does something good I run with the bean bag and he enjoys putting it in them.  I hope in few days he himself will start telling me about putting bean when he does something good.

  

May God bless each one of you abundantly and help you to lead a a beautiful and spirit filled journey through this season of Lent.