Truly Rich and Blessed

One Word for 2013: {In} Courage

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I’m linking up with {the awesome and inspiring} Melanie of Only a Breath
and the One Word 365 Community.
(Thank you, Melanie, for your awesome artwork!)

Remember how I said in my New Year’s eve post that 2013 is a year for bigger, better and brighter things? Well, it’s only the tenth day of the New Year, and already, God has been amazing me with His blessings and grace, especially for our family (more on that in another post — soon!).

Needless to say, choosing my one word for this year was really tough. At first, I was deciding between “abundant giving” (OK, I know, that’s TWO words! Bear with me, ok?) and “courage.”

But after some more prayer, reflection, getting to know a little bit more about my companion saint for 2013 (thanks again to Allison for her help and inspiration!), and writing my 2014 reflections for one of our daily devotional guides, Didache, I felt God impress this word in my heart:

{IN} COURAGE
The term is not originally mine to claim. There’s actually a women’s daily devotional site by the same name: (in)courage: home for the hearts of women. (Do check it out — it’s very inspiring!)
So anyway… back to my one word. Why {IN} COURAGE?
Looking back at 2012, I realize that the reason why there were so many times when I failed and faltered, stumbled and fell, and showed my broken, imperfect, “ugly” side is that I did not take the time to regularly dwell in God’s presence. I was not that intentional about spending time with Him, so even if I meant to be more intentional in loving my family, I failed miserably a lot of times.
So… this year, I want to dwell more deeply in God’s embrace.
A play on the word “encourage,” {IN} COURAGE draws its roots from Romans 8:37-39. 
Source: New American Bible on the USCCB website
{IN} reminds me that I have to remain in Jesus at all times, so that I will have the COURAGE to do what He wants me to do. This includes being brave and claiming in faith that our baby‘s future and health is in God’s hands. It also includes having the courage to achieve all my life dreams for this year (material for another post!), and the courage to dream and claim in faith that God will use me powerfully this year, even through this little blog.
 
{IN} COURAGE as a whole reminds me that God also calls me to be a source of inspiration and courage to others — to encourage others to live their best lives, according to God’s plan. I also believe that God is calling me to encourage more people to explore the homeschooling lifestyle and to choose a specific advocacy where He can use me to the fullest. 
{IN} COURAGE also reminds me that as long as I have Christ in me, I need not be afraid of what happens “outside.” No matter what happens, as long as I have Jesus, I will stand strong. (The same goes for you, dear friend.) 

 
By the end of 2013, I want to be able to say that I have grown deeper in love with Jesus, and that the fruits of abiding in Him can be seen in my relationships with others, especially my husband and children. I want to be able to say that I have let Him use me this year to inspire and encourage others, in every little thing I do, say and, yes, write. I want to be able to say that I have grown braver, and have really witnessed and experienced the bigger, better and brighter things God has in store for me this year.
 
How about you, dear friend? What’s your one word for 2013?

How We’ve Been Celebrating Christmas & the New Year So Far

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I can’t believe it’s almost been a week since my last post here. Time has flown by really fast and it’s already the sixth day of 2013, already the Feast of the Epiphany, the twelfth day of Christmas. (Yes, it’s STILL Christmas, folks!)

I’d been meaning to write several posts this week, but, well, life happened. In case you’re curious (and even if you’re not, teehee!), here’s a rundown of what we did on Christmas Eve and the days after: (Please forgive me for the extra-looong post and for bombarding you with photos! 😉 I promise it won’t happen again!)

Christmas Eve was spent with my parents and youngest brother here in our humble apartment. My eldest sister and her family are based in Brunei, and weren’t able to come home, while my older brother and his family spent Christmas in Valenzuela. (I wrote a post describing some of the things we did, and what I believe Christmas is all about on Philstar.com, which you can read here.)

Rysse loved dancing with her Lolo while we prepared for Christmas Eve dinner. 🙂
She loved playing blocks with him too! 🙂 Thanks, Papa! 😉
The kids LOVE having their Tito Jay around! 🙂
Christmas Eve Dinner time! 🙂 Our fare was very simple.
We didn’t have Noche Buena at midnight anymore. 🙂 
After dinner, we lit our Christ candle and said our family prayers and sang “O Come All Ye Faithful.”
We let the kids open a few of their gifts. The rest we saved for after Christmas Day Mass. 
Then we put up our simple Happy Birthday Jesus  / Christmas decor. 
The kids were TOO excited and so they placed the Baby Jesus in each of our Nativity sets even before it struck midnight. 🙂 It’s a good thing too, because Rysse fell asleep!
So at midnight, it was only Tim who was awake to sing “Happy Birthday” for Jesus with us. 🙂
On Christmas Day, before going to Mass with my parents, who slept over at our place, the kids got to check out what St. Nicholas had left in their stockings. After Mass, my parents left for Malolos, while we headed home, opened the rest of our gifts and prepared to go to my in-laws’ place.
Happy faces! 🙂 
I St. Nicholas made sure to include these notes for the kids. 🙂
After Mass, Rysse got her chance to blow out the candle on Jesus’ birthday cake.

We spent the afternoon at my in-laws’ and had dinner with other family members from my mother-in-laws’ side. We went home early though, so we could play a few “birthday party games” to celebrate Jesus’ birthday. This is me and Tim playing “St. Cecilia‘s Musical Chairs.” (Rysse was too busy with her new tricycle! 😉

On the second day of Christmas, the Feast of St. Stephen, December 26, we just stayed at home. I read the story of St. Stephen to the kids from their children’s Bible, and we spent the day just enjoying one another’s presence. I had to report to the office on December 27 and 28.

On the fifth day of Christmas, December 29, Tim went bowling for the first time ever, as part of his cousin’s birthday celebration. He had SO much fun! 🙂 And was pretty good for a first-timer! 🙂

The bowling “coach” and his “student” 🙂 
Rysse had lots of fun playing with her “best cuz”! while the older kids were bowling. 🙂

We went to Mass on the Feast of the Holy Family (December 30) and bought a few things for the apartment; mostly stuff to help us be more organized — and to help me work from home better! 😉

The kids posing with the Baby Jesus (at our parish)

New Year’s Eve was spent re-arranging and de-cluttering our bedroom (we’re STILL not done yet though — Lord, help us!). I am SOOO happy with the work space my husband came up with for both of us (thank you, Honey!) — one of the BEST gifts ever for the New Year!

The kids had a blast blowing their trumpets and watching the fireworks displays happening all around our apartment at midnight. (I, on the other hand, wanted sooo much to sleep! Ha, ha!) Before midnight, we said a prayer of blessing for the New Year. Prior to that, we had dinner at my in-laws’ place.

New Year’s Day (the Solemnity of Mary, the Mother of God), found us going to morning Mass and the boys (Anthony and Tim) going for a check-up, as Tim had had intermittent bouts of slight fever, starting the night of December 29. He had also developed a bad cough, and Anthony had had a cough for quite some time. After their check-up and buying the medicine they needed, they joined Rysse and me on a trip to visit our relatives in Malolos, along with my parents and siblings, nephews and nieces.

Fast forward to today, the Feast of the Epiphany.

Work officially started for all of us earlier this week, and I’m already swamped with stuff to proofread, write and edit! Not to mention all the pending blogs posts I’m supposed to write!

Rysse is now sick, too. Our all-around helper will only be arriving next week, so Anthony and I have been busy with work and the kids, etc. (Thank God, though, for our parents, who have been helping us take care of the kids when we can’t do so!)

And, as I mentioned in my New Year post on Philstar.com, we’re still not done de-cluttering / cleaning / reorganizing the apartment. We’ve been doing it in between all the other stuff we need to do so… this is what the other room looks like (please don’t judge me, ha, ha!):

DISASTER AREA! Yikes! I hope to finish fixing this room before Monday!

In fairness to me (ha, ha!), at least I FINALLY was able to finish arranging most of the kids’ books in this new bookshelf we bought. I plan to label each shelf according to the “genres” of books it holds — e.g. faith-themed books, Caldecott Medal winners, Social Studies-themed books, etc. (Yes, I am attempting to be more organized this year!)

I wasn’t able to take a picture of the whole shelf — just the top three layers. 🙂
Thank You, God, for the chance to buy this!
You all know that part of our Advent traditions is unwrapping one (or more) books a day. Well, I was a bit “OC” and wanted to continue that activity at least until Epiphany. 🙂 So far, so good! The kids have thoroughly enjoyed looking for the “book for today” and reading more Christmas and faith-themed stories! 🙂 We’re also still listening to Christmas songs and hymns (we didn’t or avoided doing so as much as possible during Advent) and love greeting one another “Merry Christmas” every morning! 🙂
They’ve also enjoyed moving the Three Wise Men from our nativity set, starting last week.
Yes, our Christmas decorations are still up! 🙂 I plan to take them down on February 2, the Feast of the Presentation of the Lord, which, , is also when the Vatican puts down their Christmas tree and nativity. Cool, huh? 🙂 That’s 40 days for celebrating Christmas! 🙂 I LOVE IT!  
Waiting for the Three Kings. 🙂
(This is a pop-up nativity paper doll play set/book I got from Booksale.)
Also waiting for the Three Kings. 😉
What a journey it has been for our Three Wise Men / Kings! 🙂
Tim helped place the numbers 7 to 1 so the Kings / Wise Men would know where to go per day. 🙂
“We’re almost there!” said the Three Kings.
Meanwhile the Kings for our other nativity set (shown here) are patiently waiting behind some books. 🙂

I’m so excited for tomorrow later, when the kids see their Epiphany “gifts” under our Christmas display. I chose the Epiphany to be our first day of “school” for 2013. 🙂

As “gifts” for Epiphany, the kids will be getting these books — Federico and the Magi’s Gift (from Booksale) and The Legend of Old Befana from . 🙂

We’ll be starting with some activities centered on (what else) the Epiphany, and will “row” The Legend of Old Befana for this week. Of course, Tim will also continue his Math, Language Arts and Religion lessons this coming week — we’ll just pick up from where we left off the week before Christmas.

So that’s how we’ve been celebrating Christmas and how our New Year has been so far. Actually, there’s still A LOT more to tell you guys, but I’m getting sleepy and Baby has been moving around a lot in my tummy — probably trying to say, “MAMA! It’s time to rest!”

Anyway, THANK YOU so much again for taking the time to read this post. My latest post on unBLOGGED actually has a few more details, especially about our patron saints / saint companions for this year, and God’s words for me, which I hope will encourage and inspire you somehow, too. Please do read it here if and when you can! 🙂

Oh, and do stay tuned for my next post(s) — My “One Word” for 2013 + My 2013 Blogging Goals + My Life List! 😉 I hope to get these done soonest, plus the other posts I’m supposed to write! 🙂 Wish me luck Pray for me as I pray for you! 🙂 Remember, 2013 is the year for BIGGER, BETTER, BRIGHTER things! 🙂

Onward to 2013 and Bigger, Better, Brighter Things to Come!

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I know I said in my last post that I’m on a blog-cation, but I just couldn’t let the New Year come without writing at least one teeny, tiny post. (Does this mean I’m addicted to blogging?! Ha, ha! You tell me!)

It has been an AMAZING year for me personally — and for my family and this little ol’ blog, too! I remember posting earlier this year on Facebook about being excited for the year ahead, especially for the new job/ministry the Lord had called me to.

Can you spot me and Tim in the picture? 🙂 Of course, you can see Bro. Bo Sanchez, right? 🙂
So blessed to be part of the Shepherd’s Voice Publications family!

I remember posting that maybe God would grant us a new baby too — and He did! And despite the uncertainty surrounding our precious little one, we are SO grateful for ALL OF YOU, who have been praying with and for us all throughout this journey!

I also recall how He answered two of our most crucial prayers this year in one go — whether or not to continue homeschooling, and whether or not we could move into an apartment closer to work. He amazed us with His answer and really reminded us that, with Him, all is well!

He blessed this blog through my fabulous , giveaway sponsors and by inspiring me to start a 50 Days of Amazing Grace blog post series last Easter — something that opened so many doors and windows for me as a blogger and as a person!

Later on in the year, He revealed to us even clearer plans for our homeschooling, and led us to enroll our eldest in Kolbe Academy. He even led me to spread the “gospel of homeschooling” on TV, and through different events.

He also led my husband to leave fulltime pastoral work (after 11 years!) and move on to another ministry/job, also with one of Bro. Bo’s ministries. Another great blessing!

Yes, despite the many setbacks and challenges of this year, WE HAVE BEEN AND ARE STILL TRULY RICH AND BLESSED. 🙂

And I know 2013 will be an even more beautifully blessed year! I can feel it in my bones. We’ll be welcoming a new baby for starters. 😉 That’s one HUGE blessing for sure!

I pray that it will be the same for you, dear friends and readers. Whatever challenges you faced this year, whatever setbacks, whatever problems and failures that may have come your way, let’s move forward, embracing 2013 with God at our side, and claiming, declaring with all our hearts:

“Yes, Lord, we accept all the bigger, better, brighter things You have in store for us this year and beyond! Thank You in advance for them!”

And just like I wrote at the beginning of this year, let’s welcome the New Year with an attitude of gratitude — probably one of the BEST things we could ever do! 🙂

Happy, Holy New Year, everyone!

P.S. We’re spending New Year’s Eve quietly at our apartment this year, and will be using the Catholic prayers here before we go to bed and blessing our home with holy water. No Media Noche for us, but I hope it will be a spiritual feast instead! 🙂 Perhaps these prayers will be of help to you and your family too, so please feel free to use them! 🙂 God bless, everyone!

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