Seven Quick Takes, Friday, October 3

1. This week has been a fun week for Feast days. We had the Feast of the Archangels on Monday, St. Thérèse of Liseiux Wednesday in the new calendar and today in the old, the Guardian Angels yesterday, and St. Francis of Assisi tomorrow. We have not really done much to celebrate the specifically besides talking about the saints to the kids. I am making some French Onion soup tomorrow in honor of St. Thérèse. Maybe on Saturday we should go begging for food? Or maybe we should just give some food to the poor, hmmmm…

2. St. Francis will always be extra special for us, because devotion to him was pretty much ingrained after four years at Franciscan University and a school sponsored trip to Assisi when we were studying abroad. I also grew up watching the 70s version of his life, Brother Sun, Sister Moon.  Though there are two other movies of his life that are reportedly the best and worst movies about St. Francis which we will be watching in a couple of months. Besides movies though, St. Francis is pretty cool.

Blanched apples +Victorio Strainer = Apple Sauce + Peels

3. I am sure everyone is just dying to know how our apples canning went. Well, we made 19 quarts of sauce, canning 18.5 of them, and 5 half pints of jelly. The sauce canning went well. However, the jelly ended up needing pectin to be added. I suppose blanched and food milled apple peals and cores do not retain much natural pectin? The jelly is pretty delicious, but I am not sure I want to use it for PB&J. We will have to find some sort of delicacy to use it on. 

If we get snowed in this winter, we will at least have fruit.

4. We were pretty much homebodies this week. After a whole day of the applesauce canning last Saturday, we were pretty tuckered out on Sunday (we thankfully did not witness any cars hitting bicycles on the way to church this time…) and it just kind of rolled into Monday. M had a bad case of laryngitis and had to whisper all day on Tuesday. Then it rained all day Wednesday and Thursday, but we managed a library run today. Restocking on the library books is always nice to do, especially because the kids have a new stack of books to peruse. In fact, because of these books naptime has been especially quiet!

5. G (5) called me into her quiet time to tell me how delighted she was with the collection of fairy tales I had picked out. “It has lots of princesses in it! It even has Rapunzel, but I don’t like this version because the evil witch cuts off all of her hair!” Now, I am pretty sure she did not read the story, but gathered this from pictures. Part of our early home schooling has been a complete immersion into fairy tales and nursery rhymes, so I usually find a different illustrators set of fairy tales to bring home from the library. One of the books I rejected today, however, had the story of Noah’s Ark as a folk tale…while I may not think we need to interpret the incident literally, I am not going to teach it to my kids outside of Scripture as a folk tale…

http://livingwithladyphilosophy.blogspot.com/2012/10/blue-hubbard-pumpkin-pie.html

6. A friend brought up to me that she found my old post about roasting my first blue hubbard, so I thought I would go ahead and link it again for newer readers or people who just want to make their own pumpkin purée. And by the way, the kitchen featured in the photo is that of T and his wife F. We rented from them our first year in St. Paul.

Someone had been trying to wear all pink everyday…

7. And finally I leave you with pictures of our giant carrot. It was peaking out of the ground, just asking to be harvested. We have some other carrots growing still, but they all did not do this well, mostly because our cucumber plant took over that part of the garden. This next week I am going to make an attempt at sauerkraut with our cabbages and pickles with our cucumbers.

“SMILE!”

Once again, I am linking up with Jen at Conversion Diary!

http://www.conversiondiary.com/2014/10/7-quick-takes-about-driving-in-dc-meeting-fabulous-people-and-outing-myself-as-an-airplane-stalker-nerd.html

What We Can Learn from the Family of the Little Flower

A slide depicting the Martin family at home.

For the Feast of St. Therésè of Liseux I was thinking about making a dish that called for “a little flour.” However, since when I use flour I like to use a lot of flour, I am going to just go ahead and link over to an article that I wrote in April about St. Therésè and her family life, comparing it to that of the Bennett family in Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice.

St. Therésè, Jane Austen, and Raising Saints

Seven Quick Takes: Friday, April 25

1. First of all, thank you all for your prayers during our time of loss of our tiny baby. It was hard for me to share what was going on; it almost seemed easier to keep it private. But since I asked for prayers, I have felt an abundance of grace helping us through this time. I am even finding myself quite happy and hopeful a lot of the time, and remembering our loss is less painful.

2. Today, in addition to being Easter Friday, is also the Feast of St. Mark, which happens to be M’s name day. To celebrate, since we are having dinner with our parish home school community, I had the girls make cards for M. I gave them a quick example of a lion drawing, and realized my poor drawing skills:

The girls did a fairly good imitation of mine:

L (3) drew a mouse-like lion, drew M,  and traced capital letters.
G (5) did a lion, her father, lots of hearts, and her name, which is edited out… She also tried to write the date and gave up.

Drawing, check. Writing practice, check. Religion, check. Pre-school for the day, done.

3. When I picked out earrings today, G insisted on me wearing my lions. I think I last wore these to the zoo.

Earring selfie! (Sorry, M, I had to use that word; I know you hate it.)

I am pretty sure I got these from my awesome friend, C, in college, but I do not remember. I had a little thing about lions back before I knew M. Maybe it was a premonition? I am working up the gusto to wear them to evening Mass today. Maybe my veil will hide their ridiculousness.

4. I spent yesterday morning distracting myself by doing a little editing of my blog formatting. Do you see what I did? Any suggestions for other pages/tabs? I could collect things like recipes or posts in certain topics into other pages. Maybe I can delve into home organization next week, as opposed to virtual, while the weather is crummy and rainy. My intentions of organizing during the Winter months vanished with a busy schedule and visiting St. Louis a few times to see my dad.

5. Saturday, during our Easter preparations, M went out to the garden to plant a blueberry bush he bought on an impulse from Aldi. While digging, he found the den of Flopsy, Mopsy, Cottontail and Peter Rabbit. Flopsy and Peter got away immediately, but the other two sat cowering in corners of the garden until M placed them back in their den. The girls thought it was great fun and wanted to keep them, but everything we Googled recommended against it. F (17 months) could not get enough of them and stood by the garden fence saying, “Buh-ee! Buh-ee!” And when I made her bid them farewell her voice became mournful and sad, “Buh-ee… buh-ee…”

Cottontail scared and cold.

When we checked the den on Tuesday, they were gone. The thing is, we thought our garden was rabbit-proof, and now we find that a pregnant rabbit found a way in to give birth and has been returning twice a day to feed her babies. We might have to get the anti-rabbit spray after all to protect our garden from Peter and his cousin Benjamin.

6. If you are my friend on Facebook, you have already heard about F stealing L’s jelly beans. This toddler is quite into her candy. I was keeping the baskets on the table, and she was climbing right up, finding foil-wrapped candies, declaring them to be, “Choc!” and biting right through the foil with her sharp front teeth. She is a little obsessed with chocolate; I wonder where she gets that? I cannot reliably get her to eat foods besides scrambled eggs, meat, processed cheeses, and candy. I guess we have another picky one on our hands, which is too bad because she was really into fruit and vegetables back when they were her only foods. Well, M can get her to eat anything, so as long as he is at a meal, she eats.

7. Last of all, the gracious hostess of Seven Quick Takes, Jen is releasing her book Something Other Than God next week. It is about her conversion to Catholicism from atheism, and should be a good read. I was not cool enough to pre-order it, but I promise I will read it once I get a hold of a copy. 🙂

He is Risen!

Christ’s Appearance to Mary Magdalene By Alexander Ivanov (1806 – 1858) (Russian)

Happy Easter!

We made it to two out of three for the Triduum this year. G was the last of the children to have the cold, and her fever still lingered on Thursday. Friday we all went to the Mass of the Presanctified (meaning the host was presanctified) and then we went to the Easter Vigil on Saturday night. It started at 8pm, which some would say was too early, but any later and we probably could not have managed. As it was, we did okay. The kids are still feeling it from the late bedtime last night, and again yesterday as we got home late from our Easter gathering with family.

We had a lovely time at M’s uncle and aunt’s farm yesterday, and the weather was beautiful and warm. It was a happy Easter. I hope yours was as well, and hope you will enjoy Easter week. 🙂

Seven Quick Takes, April 11

1. We have a walking one year old! F at 17 months has been our latest walker so far. She is a bit of a perfectionist, I think, and did not want to commit to walking until she was sure she could do it completely. She is now walking about 95% of the time, a huge difference from about 2% of the time. It is pretty cute to see her stand up, get set to waddle, and walk with her elbows at her side and her hands sticking out to each side with her fingers spread wide. It does make life a little more complicated since she wants to spend every second she is awake “‘side” in the backyard waddling around after her sisters. When she is not out with them, she stands on the kitchen nook bench and watches longingly. Occassionally, while watching she will get down and go to the door demanding, “Socks! Shoes! ‘Side!” And becomes angry when she is refused.

2. Last night F woke up around 1:30am with an awful cough, wheezy breath, and a hot little body.  I nursed her and put her back to bed only for her to wake up again 30 minutes later. The poor girl was so sad and could not even say words without talking. We decided to give her some pain relief and I finally got her comfortable after nursing again. She slept until 8am, but was still coughing ans wheezing, so we skipped gym co-op and went up to the doctor instead. I am maybe a little over cautious when it comes to breathing issues, but we do have a family history of asthma on both sides, and L has already had episodes. By the time we saw the doctor she was acting a lot better and did not cough for him once. He said it would be okay to nebulize her until the wheezing goes away even though her lungs sounded clear. I do wonder if maybe she is developing seasonal allergies, and they were triggered by the crunchy leaf bath she received from L in the backyard yesterday.

3. To encourage the big girls in our outing to the doctor this morning, I promised them fried cheese curds from Culvers, if they were good. There is a Culvers just past the highway we take home from the doctor, and since we realized that they have this delectable wonder of a food, it has always been in the back of my mind. We might have to make it a tradition. First of all, they are meatless, so they are okay on Friday. Second, they are cheese not potato, so healthier because of protein. I can’t believe I never stopped there while pregnant with F. I just always went to Burger King across the way for fries and a milkshake. Now it is Culvers all the way. Thirdly, a large is just the right size for the girls and I to split, and once they cool a little bit they squeak! I am going to try using my HSA card next time, because I am pretty sure the necessary stop at Culvers is a medical expense that counts towards our deductible. Just saying…

4. The best fried cheese curds we have ever had are not from Culvers or the State Fair, but from a family restaurant in Albert Lea, MN called The Trumbles. They have typical family restaurant fair and quality, but when we saw the cheese curds on the menu, we knew that they would be done to perfection. And they were. We have stopped there twice on our way home from St. Louis, but usually we just stop at a Culvers 30 minutes from Minnesota, because it makes a perfect second and only stop in the 8 1/2 hour drive. If we waited for Albert Lea, we would have to make three stops.

5. Today at lunch, L (3) told me her understanding of Hell and Purgatory:

L: “If you are just a little bit bad and a little bit good, when you die, you go to Purgatory for a time out, and then you go to Heaven. If you are really bad, when you die, you go to Hell and stay there forever!”
Me: “That’s right. Where did you learn that?”
L: “G told me!”
G (5 and in a matter of fact tone): “Daddy told me all about Heaven, Hell, and Purgatory last summer.”

 6. For those of you not in Minnesota, I just want to let you know that, while we have snow on the ground in some places still, Wednesday was sunny with a high of 75! It was glorious. Next week does not promise to be as warm, but anything about 30 is okay with me! Above 40 is even better, and I dare not hope too much for 50s, since this is April in Minnesota after all. M is going to build a garden box this weekend, and we might get some things in the ground next week. And since F is finally walking and loves to run around the yard, I can spend a good amount of time gardening.

St. Gemma in her final resting place in the Sanctuary of St. Gemma in Lucca, Italy. M took this photo when we stopped in Lucca for a couple of hours.

7. Finally, I want to wish you all a happy Feast of St. Gemma Galgani. She is my Confirmation saint, and had a really intense life in sickness and in prayer. Here is an account of her last months of life during which she experienced the Passion on Good Friday with Jesus and passed away on Holy Saturday. To celebrate I made some hot cross buns, using this delicious recipe:

   
Leftover after breakfast.

For more Quick Takes head on over to Jen’s Conversion Diary!

Seven Quick Takes: Friday, March 7

1. Today is a great Feast Day in the Ancient calendar; it is that of St. Thomas Aquinas, M’s patron saint. If St. Thomas Aquinas had an octave day, then it would be on M’s birthday. In fact, since M is the head of our home, he has declared that there is an octave day, and it is in fact his birthday. So, there you go. Eight days for St. Thomas Aquinas start now. That also means that I have to bake a chocolate cake before dinner… Happy Feast day to my dear husband!

2. In case you did not notice, I have updated the blogs look. I hope that C is not too disappointed in the slightly different header. Let me know what you think. I have the old template downloaded, so if you all hate this one I might be willing to change it back. I think I really like it. I just need someone to help me add a few “gadgets.”

3. This week has been pretty penitential for me. The poor baby/toddler, F, has been soooo cranky, and it has been really difficult to keep her happy. She had an ear infection about three weeks ago, which we treated with antibiotics. Then on Sunday she had a low fever that lasted through Thursday morning, plus major crankiness. We went to the doctor and got more meds for her ear, but they have not kicked in yet. She has been screaming half of the time and generally unhappy. She also has a huge bump in her mouth indicating a very large tooth about to break through. I have been used to a very happy and contented baby, and now she is so sad and so unhappy. In your charity, please pray for her that gets her tooth in soon and that she stops feeling uncomfortable, and pray for me that I get more patience with the kids despite my stress…

Good ol’ Jane.

4. Five years ago, today, was my due date for G. She was born eight days after her due date, on the Ides of March. Kind of crazy. Maybe I should put everything aside this next week and reread all of Jane Austen like I did five years ago. That would be lots of fun. Before M and I were engaged he bought this used volume of her complete works; being in possession of that copy may have been one of the reasons that I consented to marrying him.

5. Thank you for all your prayers for my father. I found out from my mom, that he played piano for Ash Wednesday Mass at the church where he is employed. He said he felt like he was at 90% of normal. I guess I need to call him and see how he really is doing! Life just goes by so quickly, I forget to call! Dad, if you are reading this, we need to SKYPE! Maybe you can make F happy! Are you allowed to lift 21 squirmy pounds yet?

6. My next T&C post is due for next week, and I think I have an idea now. I have the hardest time coming up with topics, unless I am at Mass. Then I usually think of lots of things to say about Mass. How many Mass articles makes too many? Can there be too many things written about the Mass? I bet there cannot. So, do you think people would keep reading my posts if I just kept on writing about the Mass? I would be happy to keep on writing them. But if there are any things you really want me to write about, especially from the depths of the MA I once earned six years ago, let me know!

7. And this is for M, my philosopher:

 And this is for his students, who sometimes read my blog:

And neither is your professor… (meme from here)

Linking up once again with Jen at Conversion Diary.

Award Winning Mint Brownies: A Recipe

Once upon a time my fiance made a batch of brownies. These were not just everyday brownies; they were a family recipe, from his future mother-in-law. He made them in his carpeted kitchen in a house he shared with two roommates in Steubenville, OH. He then submitted them to a baking contest judged by university professors. He won the prize in his category, and took me out for dinner with his gift card prize. The baking contest may have been a fundraiser for my household…

Last Friday was not planned for by a certain wife and mother. The kids had made their Valentine cards the previous week, and the house had since then been plagued by and purged of a stomach bug. I was scrambling Friday afternoon to celebrate my love for my family with something in addition to the pizza delivery. 
I whipped together the family favorite mint brownies, only to discover that I had no confectioner’s sugar. Thankfully, I was saved by a generous neighbor, and M arrived home to almost finished heart shaped brownies.

Pink mint is pretty weird to look at. I suppose I could have left it just white, since green is not really appropriate for St. Valentine’s Day, but with three little girls in the house I had to use pink.
 

I am not sure where my mom got the recipe, but she has been making them my whole life.

She sent a copy of this card to me after I asked her to send me the recipe, when M wanted to make them for the baking contest. I then took it and made it into an easy to follow set of charts. And here it is the recipe:

Award Winning Mint Brownies or Chocolate Mint Layer Cookies:

·Grease 8×8 or 9×13 pan and set oven to 350° F. Set out icing butter to soften.

* Can use 2 oz. or 3 oz. of unsweetened chocolate
depending on pan size instead of shortening and cocoa.
·Melt butter and shortening and add cocoa.
·Beat in eggs and sugar until light and fluffy.
·Stir in other ingredients.
·Bake for 25-30 minutes depending on pan size.
·After cools a bit out of oven, cool in the freezer or refrigerator to ready the brownies for the frosting.
·Using an electric mixer, whip together sugar and softened butter.
·Add milk little by little until a nice fluffy consistancy. 
·Add the mint extract and whatever coloring or lack of coloring you desire.
· Here I used a greased heart cookie cutter to make heart shaped brownies. Usually we just frost the brownies in the pan and cut them into squares. 
·Spread frosting onto cool brownies, and then chill the brownies again until ready to add chocolate drizzle. 
 
·Melt the butter and chocolate together, and add vanilla. (My sister and I discovered over Christmas that substituting chocolate chips for the baking chocolate can work for the drizzle.)
·Drizzle the mixture over the frosted brownies.
·Let cool, and cut, and serve! 


Candlemas Day! and other things…

Even on Candlemas Day, the professor is spending time with Lady Philosophy (and our blessed candles).

Happy Candlemas Day (Presentation of Our Lord) and Feast of the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary! We managed to wake up for the 7:30 am Traditional Latin Mass (Extraordinary Form), and got there just in time for the Blessing of the Candles. I have never been to a Candlemas blessing before, and it was long an quiet at the EF. I actually managed to unbundle myself and the baby (it was -10 when we left for Church) by the time the blessing was over. After Mass we got to take a pair of candles home to use throughout the year for family prayer. How cool is that?

Some of the beautiful prayers from the blessings:

  • That, by worthily offering them to Thee our Lord God, we may be inflamed with the holy fire of Thy most sweet charity, and deserve to be presented in the holy temple of Thy Glory…
  • Mercifully grant, that as these lights, enkindled with visible fire, dispel the darkness of night, so our hearts illumined by invisible fire, that is, by the splendor of the Holy Ghost, may be free from every blindness due to vice…
  • By Thy gift the light of Thy Spirit may never be wanting inwardly to our minds…
  • That the grace of the same Holy Spirit may enlighen and teach us to recognize Thee truly and faithfully love Thee…

I know that I surely need more of the grace asked for in the prayers.

To celebrate today, the last day of the Christmas cycle of the Litrugy, we turned on our favorite Christmas music and took down the tree and put away the nativity scene. I miss them already, but it is nice to have our living room back.

We are going to try out  Papa Murphy’s for dinner since the dentist gave the big girls each a coupon for a personal pizza when we saw him back in December. I hope it is good. And, is there some big game going on tonight? I guess with the lack of TV and all, we will be watching another episode of Foyle’s War instead…

Seven Quick Takes: Friday, January 17

1. I had to put down a novel, The Nether World by George Gissing, to write these today. It is either a sign that it is a good book or I have lost the habit of writing since we traveled for three weeks. Or maybe both. I have had several topics bouncing around my head this week and all I have to show for it is that I am 82 pages into a new novel, which is better I suppose than perusing the internet for all of naptimes. Being married to M means that he thinks it is a productive naptime when I sit and read for an hour or so, which is not a problem in my book. I will try to get back into writing in the next week. Another reason I put off writing these is that we did not really do much interesting this week, besides playdate, our church moms’ group, and the library. It was a pretty laid back week. Oh, and I reorganized the kids preschool things moving them from the front closet back to their permanent home in the basement. See, these are the kind of quick takes I am writing for you all this week. Not very interesting.

2. Have you heard of the new Spencer Trappist Ale? While they claim it is named for the town the monks live in, I am sure they also had our family in mind. I hope to try the genuine trappist beer someday; maybe someone will ship it to Minnesota.

3. L (3) has a fever today and I am really hoping that it is not the flu. It would be pretty annoying to have us all get sick, but then I could have reasons to stay inside and at home and not feel guilty not seeing anybody. Please pray for our health, because it would be much more fun to be able to go places. 🙂

4. Sunday it was 39°F out and I took the big girls outside and we reconstructed the old snowman and made him a snowwoman. I am pretty sure that he is a few inches shorter than he was originally. They also took advantage of the warmer temperatures to go sledding with M. They loved it. I think next time we will all have to go.

5. I am really thankful that we invested in a treadmill back in October. I have been using it a lot, and because it is way to cold to exercise outside. I might actually get back to my pre-baby weight. I have managed to after each baby and was giving up on this time since it has been over a year. I guess it just gets harder as one gets older? I mean I am closer to thirty than twenty…

6. M and I spent most of an evening the other night sitting and talking like we used to do back in college. When we lived on campus we would meet up in the courtyard between our dormitories in the evening and pray Night Prayer and then talk for awhile. When we were both off campus, we would eat dinner at one of our houses, do homework, and then sit and talk for awhile until M drove me home or he left for his house. Since we’ve had kids, we usually plan on doing things like reading or watching shows or movies, rarely do we sit and just talk when the kids are in bed. (We talk a lot throughout a day, but evenings are usually for relaxing.) What inspired it was the talk our pastor Fr. M gave at the moms’ group, when he asked about the first dates each woman had had with her husband. Later M and I reminisced about our “first dates” which consisted of walking together all over the campus of Franciscan University of Steubenville, and then the second time we dated all over the little town of Gaming, Austria. Even now walks alone together, especially in the snow, remind us of our early relationship.

7. My friend C gave the girls this Advent calendar published by Magnificat. The kids really like it, and what is so great about it that it has a little window to open on Candlemas Day (The Presentation of Our Lord) February 2, which is the Traditional end of the Christmas season. So, our tree is still up as well as the lights I put up in our nook. If you need a little bit more of Christmas or the Season after Epiphany, come on over. 🙂

Linking on up with the lovely host of Seven Quick Takes Jen the Executive Vice President of Blogging at ConversionDiary.com.

Seven Quick Takes, Friday Dec. 6

1. We had that cold front the rest of the country had this week. And while Jen’s (linking up with her quick takes here) chart on how cold is so much colder for her in Texas is nice, the reverse chart for Northern people and hot weather is not entirely fair. She gives 10 degrees for “every time you were snowed in”, but the thing is being “snowed in” is not something that happens in the North. That only happens in places where people don’t get very much snow. Here in Minnesota snow is just part of life and you just deal. We even have a massive snow blower that our kind Minnesotan neighbors gave us since they had a spare! But as it is, I don’t mind the heat, it is much more bearable than the cold.

How it feels to live in Minnesota.

2. Speaking of warm weather, I took the kids outside on Wednesday morning since it was a wopping 33°F out and there was fresh layer of snow on the ground. We I built a snowman in about five minutes. The snow was perfect for packing. I could have made the balls a lot bigger, but packed snow is heavy and I was afraid I would not be able to lift it.

He is an artist, which is why he a wearing a beret. I almost gave him a pipe, but thought M might not appreciate his pipe left out in the snow.
 Every time I see this figure right outside our picture window, I do a double take thinking it might be a person standing in the window. 

3. I do confess that I am wimpy about 2°F weather with a -20°F windchill, so much so that we were pretty worried when our furnace stopped working last night. I posted for prayers in a Catholic mom’s Facebook group and right after people started praying the furnace started keeping the house at our set temperature. I am convinced that their intercession played a large part in our furnace running all night. We only got down to 67°F in the house by the time our repairman came and figured out the problem. We now have reliable heat! Praise the Lord!

4. Happy St. Nicholas day! We prepped the kids all week for it and this morning they were thrilled to find the goodies in their shoes. G (4.5) has us figured out and asked, “Why did you put candy in our shoes?”I will not get into it right now, but we are very forward with the kids about pretend things adults do for kids.

St. Nick had Aldi stock up on Sea Salted Dark Chocolate Cover Caramels.
M will be lucky if there are any left when he gets home from work today.

It is pretty amazing how new flavored lipsmackers and hair clips and can keep two little girls happy for hours. It is so funny to see them with the bottom half of their faces smeared with it. My favorite part about St. Nicholas day though, is buying the chocolate Santas and eating them all well before Christmas…

5. Happy birthday to my dear sister S! I am the only sister left in my 20s. I will try not to rub it in. S is a beautiful, wonderful, intelligent, and holy woman! I am so happy that I have her as a sister. We had a great conversation yesterday on the phone and it sounds like she is having a fun gathering tonight. If only I were in St. Louis…

6. I finally finished Crime and Punishment on Wednesday, two days before my goal. It is an impressive book, but I suppose everyone already knows that. I am not sure if I am entirely convinced by the events in the epilogue, but maybe I just need to digest it longer. I will say no more, if you want to know more about it, read the book! This is a great translation. I have now started Baseball and Memory by Lee Congdon. M gave it to me for my birthday two years ago. It is about history, baseball and why they are important to remember.

7. Two weeks ago I asked for prayers for a friend’s baby born by emergency C-section, and since then the family has started a blog with daily updates. Please continue to pray for her, and if you would like to know more you can read the blog. Thank you for your prayers!