A Wonderful Christmas Thank You!

Tis the season to celebrate the wonders of the Lord. Here's an update and a thank you from Emily's mother. How appropriate for this Christmas season. Enjoy these wonderful 12 days that most of the world will be missing :(

First let me wish everyone a very MERRY CHRISTMAS.

I know everyone is wondering how Emily's tongue is doing. Well that answer is what Christmas is all about. Gods best miracles. She is completely cancer free. Her recent CT scan came back clear. Just some scar tissue from the surgery. She is also pain free and eating everything she wants. She finished up her semester making all "A's". Which is pretty amazing considering she missed 2 months of school. She only had to drop 2 classes because of clinicals. She will be finishing her degree in May and then graduate. My husband told Emily how he can't wait for her graduation. Emily asked why? She said "Dad you hate those things." He said, "Emily, I can promise you that this graduation I would not miss for anything."

Jesus promised where 2 or more are gathered he is there. Emily got her miracle. I have to say this again, it was because of all of your prayers and faith. Believe me I had many hopeless moments. Times when I looked up and just cried. In September I was told I had less than a year left with my first born child. This Christmas was suppose to be our last one on earth together. But everyone said wait. God has the last word. He is the true physician. Prayer services where held. No one gave up hope. So many of you emailed me and promised not to stop praying for a miracle. Well I still cannot believe My baby is OK. Better than OK. She is perfect. She can talk, eat, laugh, and live. While I would never want this for anyone, I would gladly go through it again. My faith grew tenfold. I saw how strong my daughter was. She brought a huge family closer (I mean everyone reading this). I witnessed my brothers and sister's unconditional love and faith. Friends became family. Through these emails we laughed, cried, and waited. We prayed and hoped. We cared. Many of you have never met my daughter and you loved her.

God so loved us that he gave us his only son. Jesus said trust me and if you can't trust my words than trust my wounds. Our mother Mary said "yes" and all that came with being the mother of God. Heaven is really there. In 2 days we will celebrate the birthday of Our Lord. Christ the King.

This Christmas our family promises to take a moment and remember each of you. All your kindness for our family. All your love and support. All of your tireless praying. Jesus said to love God with all our being, then he said to love our neighbor as ourselves. All of you have done this.

If you feel you haven't done enough good this year, you are wrong. You loved our family. In the darkest hours of my life, you listened and wept with me. You visited me with your words when I was in a what felt like prison. Many of you brought food when we were hungry at long days of chemo. And yes, many of you clothed us with blankets and items to keep Emily warm and occupied. We were lonely and so many of you sat at the hospital with us. The amount of tears I shed is only a drop in comparison to the love and support you sent me. How can "Thank you" be enough. It will have to do.

Truly you have been good. Your reward is not in this world but in the one to come. Where it will never be lost or stolen.

May our future St. Pier Giorgio Frassati pray for us!

God bless you and again Merry Christmas,

Love,

Theresa, Emily and All of the family!

Merry Chrstmas!

Here's wishing all of you a very Merry Christmas!

Little Kids think of Everything!

In an effort to ensure that Santa (who will be entering our new house via the fireplace in the den) knows exactly where the Christmas tree is, Mr 4 yo asked his sister to pen the following note and tape it to the mantle of the fireplace:


It always amazes me how that kid's brain works!

Have a quiet and blessed final week of Advent!

My Shower Saga

I would like to begin by stating that I am not addicted to coffee. I might enjoy a good, strong cup, but I don't need it to get me going. What I DO need to get me going each and every morning is a nice, warm shower. I can't explain it, but the day just doesn't seem to go as well if I don't get that shower first thing in the morning.

That being said, imagine my surprise/horror/anxiety when we discovered that the bathroom that my husband and I would be using in our new house DID NOT have a shower. It has a nice blue tub, but I am not a tub person, and so, after having a mild panic attack, my husband assured me that we could probably find an attachment that would make the tub into a shower.

In the meantime I would have my choice of the nice shower in the girls' room (which is really the master bath but because it is only a three bedroom house, we had to put all the girls in the master bedroom which gives them the nice, big master bath with the big closets and the double sinks and the nice shower....but I digress...) OR I could choose to go down to the basement (the unfinished part, mind you) and take a shower in the very primitive looking, campground type cement shower stall.

Fast forward to the first morning that we woke up in our new home. It was a Sunday and we had just spent the previous two days working very hard from sun-up to sun-down moving our belongings (can you feel my pain yet?) As I rose from my bed, still unsure of my surroundings, I ventured down the hall to that nice master bath to take my nice, warm shower. As the water ran, and ran, and ran and NEVER even got close to being warm, I started to panic again. I quickly came to the conclusion that something was wrong and there just wasn't going to be any hot water coming out of that faucet no matter how long I stood there.

Okay, time to calm down and assess my options: a bath in the blue bathtub, or a warm shower in the cement stall in the basement. HMM, I decided to go for the cement stall, only to find out that since that shower drains into the sump pit and, for some unknown reason the sump pump wasn't working, I couldn't take a shower down there unless I wanted to flood that portion of the basement.

That meant my only option was the tub. Knowing there are far worse things in life than taking a bath, I ventured forth into the blue bathroom to fill the tub, only to find that the thing that plugs the drain didn't work. Indisposed, and totally fed up at that point to bother with finding anything to plug the tub with, I opted for sitting there with the water running and my foot over the opening so that I could keep some semblance of water in the tub.

The final blow to my morning ritual was when I discovered that my new bathroom doesn't have an electrical outlet anywhere in the bathroom! The man who built this house was an electrician - there are literally hundreds of switches and outlets in this house - but there is NOT ONE OUTLET IN THE BATHROOM! What was the man thinking?

Now you are probably thinking, "What's the big deal?" but if you're a morning coffee drinker, you know, the kind who depends on that first cup of coffee in order to even be able to open an eye, imagine getting up to find that your coffee maker broke and you had to get in your car and DRIVE somewhere to get your coffee!

Don't worry, however, things have improved and I've developed a workable routine. We got the shower fixed in the girls' bathroom, so I shower in there, go to the blue bathroom to dress and blow-dry my hair in a third bathroom. While it is not perfect, it is certainly doable and has been a good lesson in detachment :)

Our Advent Update

Wow, it's hard to believe that it has been a week! Okay, a 2 minute update:

- I'm trying to stay up tonight to finish my online Christmas shopping and hoping I won't have to pay extra shipping charges to get it here in time!

- Most of the boxes are unpacked on the main floor. We can finally shut the closet doors in our bedroom, which then makes it possible to walk around the bed without having to turn sideways.

- The basement still looks like a bomb went off, the office area is still a disaster. Oh well, shut the door and I can't see it.

- We've determined where the Christmas tree will be placed - and it won't be the kitchen! Hopefully it will be up this weekend.

- We have some Advent mice that have been visiting and are trying to find the most effective way to get them to go away. I suggested importing some cats but let's just say that one didn't go over too well!

- Old house is mostly cleaned out, although it seems as if every time we go there for the "last" time, there is more stuff there than when we last left!

- Finally got to spend an afternoon (Sunday) doing nothing. I forgot what it felt like. Actually, I don't remember what it felt like because I fell asleep for most of it.

- One more week of Advent. Hopefully I can at least get back to my usual prayer routine before the time is up! Have a blessed last week.

It wasn't a lot, but the sight of the first snow still can make us all feel joyful!

(Apparently his mother never told him the dangers of eating snow!)

Catholics Come Home Project

Starting on the 17th of December, the three major dioceses (okay, so I'm not sure how to spell the plural of diocese, so help me out here) around Chicago are going to be running two very professional commercials about the Catholic church during prime-time television. If you aren't familiar with this project, you must check out the Catholics Come Home website and watch the two commercials! They are positively awesome.

If I have my facts straight, these have been run in two other areas of the country with much success. I believe that they each saw around 90,000 or so people come back to the faith.

We are so excited for this to be happening in our area. I can't even imagine that many people coming back to check out the Catholic faith. Please keep this project in your prayers, with the hope that it can be run in many other parts of the country.

There's No Place Like Home

After a week of hard work (with still some residual stuff from the barn to move) we are finally settling into our new home. While this was not a move we necessarily wanted to make, we are definitely grateful that all went well and that everyone seems to be adjusting nicely. God has been infinitely generous with us in finding us a good home that we can all fit in! Not only that (remember, He can NEVER be outdone in generosity) He has again found us a home on 5 acres with a wonderful view of trees and a small pond! Just so we don't feel homesick, there's a corn field across the street.

For now, as I return to unpacking the 100,000 boxes that we've moved, I will leave you with two pictures. The first is what I see out my back window:
And this one is one of my favorite places in the house!

Wishing you a prayerful First Week of Advent.