The Post of Christmas Past

The boys are settled down for the evening viewing A Very Merry Muppet Christmas so it's only fitting to do a brief flashback to the holiday season.  I would be lying if I said Christmas was perfect.  It was great to spend time with the family celebrating the nativity of our Lord but this being wife and mom adds a whole new dimension to the festivities.  Perhaps I find it particularly stressful because I feel the weight of instilling in our boys the REAL reason for the season.  To be completely honest, I was darn near exhausted myself at the thought/presence of our new baby that I didn't spend ample time pondering the birth of the Christ child.  Thank goodness Pete was around more to tend to the boys and give me the opportunity to indulge in the naps I shamelessly craved during the first trimester  (Yep, that's right folks!  If you didn't already know...baby Schafer #3 is a cookin'!).  More on that later.

The adventures began with a family outing on the Polar Express.  Uncle Stevie and Aunt Sarah supplied the tickets as a gift.  We seized the chance to get decked  out in our p.j.s and travel by rail to the North Pole.  The ride included hot chocolate (but not too hot :-), a chocolate chip cookie, a reading of the story all catered by volunteer elves on the way to the North Pole (a.k.a Peninsula, Ohio)where we picked up Santa Claus who visited with the children and passed out jingle bells.

This was our boys' first encounter with the jolly man in red.  Luke was puzzled by his questions of good behavior and what he wanted for Christmas.  What word would you use to describe the boys' expression?  I would certainly attest that they were not scared, but I could hardly purport that they were delighted either.

If you look closely, you'll notice that our oldest son, given the name Luke, insisted on his name being Curious George as displayed on his name tag.  This trend continues to this day although with a few added twists or personality options.  When we say his name he responds, "No.  I'm not Yute.  I'm Thomas!"  or "I'm Wall-E", or "I'm Woody", or "I'm Nightning Mt-Tween".  Most recently though he incorporates the lot saying,  "I'm not Yute.  I'm yots of names!".  Oh, hi Lots of Names.  Is that something like Dances with Wolves?!?!?.

Initially, we were planning on announcing the presence of our new baby at Christmas time when all the family was around.  After further reflection,  I found this to be somewhat facetious.  Our second thought was Gaudete Sunday but Pete's parents weren't cooperating.  You see, we wanted to share the news with them first since our previous two pregnancies we revealed to my parents first (if only by a few hours or a day).  Luke because he was the first grandchild for my parents and Augustine because we just so happened to go for the ultrasound earlier that day when my parents decided to come for a surprise visit to Maryland for Luke's first birthday.  Surprise visit, eh? We'll show you a surprise.  Back to the initial story, we decided to share the news on December 12th, the feast day of Our Lady of Guadalupe-patroness of the unborn.  Foiled again, Grandma and Grandpa Schafer decided to stay in for the evening and forego attending Mass for the third time in one day. Despite it being near, or past, their bedtime we interrupted their quiet night in with an appearance.  We did, however, come bearing gifts...

A bag of bags of nuts for Grandpa.

And, "Here dramm-ma.  Here is your twilt." Luke explained as he handed Grandma the unopened package.

At this point the quilt was not quite a quilt, but it was suitable for proclaiming the announcement.  Granted, Grandma was slightly confuzzled by the inverted view supposing that there were mommy and daddy handprints included and the punchline was located on the most distant corner.

Overhead view

In actuality, Pete and I had taken a design from a baby quilt book and tailored it to our specific needs to include the handprints of all the grandchildren with a projected image of the baby's footprint.  It was a fun project getting all the grandkids involved, even though, Lisa essentially guessed the secret when she brought over her four to make their contribution.

The project was fun and Pete was excited because he was in on the surprise rather than being the recipient this time.  The most difficult challenge was probably choosing the fabric.  We wanted to incorporate some of the aspects of life/grandparenthood that my in-laws most enjoyed [from our perspective] but had trouble tying the colors/prints together.  After getting over the hurdle that everything didn't blend together perfectly, we were able to make progress rather quickly.  I mean, with sports, and toys, and VW bugs, and musical notes, and ICE CREAM, Grandma and Grandpa would be a little forgiving right?!!?  Around the border,  I tried my luck with applique in adding a rosary.  God knows how many rosaries Grandma and Grandpa have offered up for us all so far.  Plus, pregnancy [and motherhood] has led me to pray more fervently.  Particularly with the expectation of a new child the delicate, early phases of pregnancy where you don't see or feel baby you simply hope and pray trusting God that tiny person continues to live and grow.

Here's the kicker

A couple other challenges that presented themselves throughout the project included having to do some piecing on the reverse side of the quilt and quilting the darn thing period.  Because I didn't have a big enough piece of material to make a solid back, and,  I wasn't about to go out and buy more fabric, I fiddled around with the material and pieces I already had cut.  It took some time but overall I was happy with the result.

The backside

The gift message

With Pete's quilts last year I had the luxury of working with Lisa's mother-in-law who has a special quilting machine that practically takes up a whole room.  Now that I am more interested and "experienced" at this sewing gig I wanted to do all the steps from start to finish with the materials and tools on hand.  We considered this at the onset of the project in designing the quilt to be a reasonable size to manage on a normal sewing machine.  I'm not sure what the finished dimensions were of the quilt, 5' X 6' perhaps.  There was a lot of fabric to move through the machine at times but it was a good size for my first machine quilting attempt.  My next quilting attempt may include homemade stockings for Christmases to come.  You'll see in the picture below that our current ninety-nine cent for two felt stockings are under duress.

In conjunction with the quilt project for Grandma and Grandpa Schafer we wanted to spend some quality time with our nieces and nephews as their Christmas gift.  The "other" Schafer boys, Jacob, Nick and Nate went sled-riding with Pete and the little guys,  came back to our place to add their handprints and birthdays to the quilt and then we all went to Chuck E Cheeses.  I was as excited as the boys since I have never experienced the venue myself.  A good time was had by all.  We are still determined to take out the Snyder gang ;-)

Other preparations included making our homemade wrapping paper.  I cut out some snowflakes using paper plates then had Luke use sponges and paint to add the impressions to layers of white tissue paper.

Paint refill

squish, squish, squish

 Following are a few photos of opening presents at my parents.  Luke received a large garbage truck which came in handy in cleaning up the wrapping paper.

clean up

We stretched out the Christmas celebration and didn't do our own present ceremony until the 6th day of Christmas.  Pete actually got pretty sick from the 26th to the 27th and was out of commission.  The following day I was under the weather.

Augustine's gold- beginner's band set and piano

Luke's myrrh- felt board

Luke and his "hook"

And for our other family tradition- pasta making on Holy Family Sunday we decided to try pierogis. We did three different fillings 1.) potato and cheddar 2.) sauerkraut and mushroom and 3.) apple blueberry

As we head into the third month of 2014 we continue to thank God for His many blessings: family, friends, health, and resources.

St. Luke...Pray for Us!

It's become a tradition to dust off the baptismal candle and celebrate with our children the feast day of their patron saint.  St. Luke's feast day is on October 18th.  For 2013 we were able to celebrate on the actual day and went with the Thank Goodness It's FRY-day theme.  We tried making our own potato chips and bloomin' onions, threw some tots and mozzarella sticks into the fry daddy as well and popped some corn dogs in the oven.  We topped the feast off with DIRT- that delectable dessert that every child loves...well, the gummy worms at least.  We were practically asking for a heart attack- but hey, at least St Luke is the patron saint of physicians that should give us  little help right?!?!!  Luckily only one injury was sustained... that day anyway.

Sliced his thumb while operating the mandolin to perfect the thickness of the chips

Helping with the DIRT

Finishing touches

Schafer Boys-Fun times with cousins

A teaching gift- doctor set with various implements

His "periscope"

A few weeks later, Luke suffered his first "real" injury.  Being the wonderful mom that I am I did not rush him to the doctor.  In fact, the injury happened on a Wednesday minutes before we were supposed to leave for our first play/prayer date with a group of moms and kids.  While standing on the chair and teasing Augustine who was in his high chair, Luke found it fun to give Augustine a few shoves to send him rolling.  Leaning in a bit too far, Luke's perch tipped.  He held on tight crushing his finger between the chair and the floor.   After a visit to STATCare, we wrapped his fractured left ring finger with the metal brace and tape for 6 weeks.  Of course this didn't slow him down.  It took him a few days after removing the brace to regain his full range of motion.

Augustine recently took a similar spill when he was "helping" me make cinnamon rolls and sampling the brown sugar.  I whisked the bag away before he could over indulge which resulted in a fit.  In the two seconds it took me to turn from the table to the counter he tumbled with the chair.  Once again I felt horrible as some blood trickled from his busted lip and bonked nose, not to mention the wailing and stream of tears :-(   After calming us both down and a thorough physical exam to assess the damages I proceeded with the test of "tricks" adapting the "how many fingers am I holding up?" to "Can you find the ball?", "Come on Augustine...let's dance. Dance! Dance!",  "Do you want some milk?", "Say Please."  " Where's your spider?  Itsy, bitsy spider went up the water spout..."  Augustine's performance was top notch complete with verbal responses and hand motions dispelling much of my worries.

I suspect we'll have other injuries and worries to deal with throughout their childhood, but hopefully they'll be minor, few, and far between.  St. Luke, pray for us!

Tea Time

 On January 6th we celebrated my Grandma Francis's 80th birthday.  Even though I had plenty of work to tend to before returning to Walsh for my second semester as a professional advisor I could not, and would not, pass up the opportunity to get together with the family.  Despite having gathered with the big Francis gang numerous times in a few short weeks for my newest cousin Marcos's baptism on Dec. 23rd, our Christmas gathering on the 25th, and my cousin Jessica's baby shower on the 28th we were ready to bust out the party hats again to sing the classic "Happy Birthday" tune two times over for the matriarch.  There was a decent showing and always a fun challenge to see how many people we can fit into a single room.

The picture really only captures about one third of the audience I would guess but it definitely includes the woman of the hour.  My grandparents live in the same house that they built and raised ten children in.  It's a ranch that originally had  three bedrooms and one bathroom.  Although they eventually made bedroom additions there really was only one  full bathroom that 12 people shared for until all the kids were grown and out of the house.  My dad, the oldest boy, had apparently enclosed a more substantial shower in the basement during his high school years to alleviate traffic jams.  Needless to say, all my aunts and uncles survived and are a pretty fun crowd to be around.  The family is pretty dynamic with the original crew, their spouses, their children, and now their children's children  (Luke and Augustine would fall in this category). My two youngest aunts are really only a few years older than me and my older sister Kate who is the second oldest grandchild.  Consequently, I have cousins that are close in age to my children and, Marcos, the newest addition is the youngest grandchild with a handful of great grandchildren that are actually older.  It might seem a little crazy, but mostly it's just CRAZY FUN!

If that's not enough family to make your head spin...I'll just briefly mention that my mom is also 1 of 10 kids.  Imagine marrying in to that!

As a secondary celebration to the gift of Grandma Francis I took the opportunity to share some memories and fun times with my boys.  I took out the miniature tea set that Grandma had got each of us girls one year and made up a tiny feast of our own.  It was as fun as I remember when I was little and the boys enjoyed it too.

The Spread

Honorary Guests

Elegant Pour

The Service.

Let me do it!

Hmmm....I'll try one of these.

Pinky out.

Here I am Lord

1. Water supply pipe corroded and burst at Lakota (our rental house) last night around 11pm.
2. Electricity at our Spangler homestead is on the fritz.
3. I just opened the mail and have been summoned for jury duty.

They say it happens in strings of three.  Needless to say I classify these as a series of unfortunate events.  Ironically, I was reflecting with Pete earlier this week about the readings and homily from Mass on Holy Family Sunday.   Of course, not all that long before...Angel says, 'Yo Mary- you're having a baby boy.  He's God's son. Name him Jesus.' More recently, Matthew's gospel recounts the unstable life of the holy family as they are forced into exile. Angel says, 'Zup Joseph?- Take your wife and newborn child and go to Egypt so Herod won't destroy him'.  After a bit Angel says, 'Hola Joseph, Herod's dead.  Go to Israel.'  Intuitively and forewarned in another dream Joseph leads the family to Galilee rather than Judea to ensure safety.  Of course, the holy family, more specifically the new parents of Holy, Holy, Holy heed the commands/requests without hesitation or delay.  I don't know about you, but as a newer parent myself I find these sort of unexpected announcements and urgent requests to be harder to swallow.  But, hey, that's life.

In the midst of Christmas and all the joyous celebration of our Savior's birth I had never really stopped to reflect on all the added challenges and inevitable hardships that the Holy family was bound to face.  Just like I can easily forget, amongst all the hustle and bustle of preparing for our own holiday parties getting grumpy because Luke is whining about wearing his light up shoes rather than his black dress shoes, that there are people out there that have a single pair of shoes riddled with holes and soles worn thin as they walk around town searching for gainful employment.  Then of course, there is my aggravation over the static electricity in the air that makes me fear a hug from my child or a kiss from my husband as a charged ZAP! stings my lips or cheek because the furnace is working overtime to keep the environment warm and dry, dry, dry. Oh, but wait-... I'm complaining because I have warm and dry shelter? or people that want to be around me and  share their affection?!?!!?

I guess I've been a little on edge lately wondering what exactly God has in store for me and our family.  Where we'll be? Where we'll work?  If we should work? WHEN? I'm overwrought with wonder.   As natural as I feel it is to ask questions, I wonder that Mary and Joseph ever wondered?  How do I transform, or faithfully let go, so that all the wondering turns into pondering.

 And all who heard it wondered at the things which were told them by the shepherds. But Mary treasured all these things, pondering them in her heart. ~Luke 2:18-19

Could you do it?

One of our less favorable tasks this summer included going through the phone "upgrade" process.  We are simple people and don't care for all the bells and whistles of technology particularly that which we don't think is necessary (data package, or camera on our phone for example).  We use our cell phones to- what do you know!?!??- make phonecalls! 

Consequently this severely limits the choices we have in selecting a phone- which we welcome.  Unfortunately, the process also includes hours-yes I mean hours- of dealing with rude, inconsistent, uninformed customer service representatives.  Before I go into a rant, I'm going to pose a few questions that welcome response or opinions.


-Could YOU survive-living a comfortable and fulfilling life without a cell phone, internet, or cable/television?

- Can you raise competent, well-educated children with little or no access to these "necessities"?

- Would upsetting these social "norms" or "going against the grain" lean more on the side of courage or cowardice? Ignorance or bliss?

- Do you think social communication skills are enhanced or diminished by the regular technology user habits of children? of adults?

Could YOU do it? No phone, internet or cable/television for an hour? a day? a week? a month?

Still growing

Schafer, Schafer fan of 'taters
How does your garden grow?
With hots and bells for salsa smells
And zucchini squash not in rows.

Truth be told I didn't make any homemade salsa this year.  We actually didn't get that overwhelming explosion of tomatoes and our jalapenos didn't do well until the end of the summer.  Regardless, we enjoyed the family project and most certainly the yummy goodness that the God's great earth produced!

Humble Beginnings

First fruits

A little later in the season.

Lovely Golden Acre Cabbage we used for Cabbage and noodles one night.  One of Pete's and my dad's favorites.

Broc-o-lock-a lock-o-li

yumm...sun gold

 My sister Kate started a variety of tomato plants from seed in Philadelphia and shared the seedlings.  They took a little longer to ripen up because they were heirloom seeds but they were worth the wait.  I would tease Pete because upon his arrival home he would stay outside and inspect the blushing skin of the fruit for done-ness before greeting me with his usual "Honey, I'm home!".  Even though I would give him a hard time, deep down I was smiling seeing that he enjoyed gardening as much, if not more, than I.  While we were dating he had come over to my house to help till and plant.  It seemed to foreshadow some of what God had in store for us- plenty of hard work and "dirt", sprinkles of living water to nourish the seeds of faith, hope, and love and nourish the beginnings of a life together, that continues to produce fruits.  Like gardening, marriage requires time,effort, care and  ongoing learning and growth (of course).

First batch of beans

 We tried a new strategy this year and did a second planting of beans mid summer after pulling out the first batch of plants in order to increase our production despite our limited space.  Pete learned of this practice after working at the Interval Brotherhood Home garden in the Akron area for the Hoban High School service week.  This will probably become a consistent habit for us considering our liking for this humble legume Pete's mom dubs "God's candy".

Last major harvest in early October.