Things to look forward to in the New Year...

Today is my last day in the office for the week (so much cheering) so I'll be blogging again next Monday or Tuesday. I rarely blog at home, for whatever reason. Our Internet connection is a tad slower there, and I just never take the time away to do it. But at work, I need a break sometimes. :)

My mother-in-law is coming for a visit beginning tomorrow, so I'll be off on a four day weekend. I absolutely cannot wait. My adorable Henry has been home with Mike these past 2 days, and I'm hating that I'm not with them.

I was thinking about the blogging I'll be doing in 2011, and I thought I'd make a quick list for reference. This next year will see blogging on:

(1) the latter part of my pregnancy, childbirth preparation, a very detailed labor and delivery story (bet you can't wait :) ), and life with a newborn. Transition from one child to two.

(2) dealing with postpartum depression and the struggles of new motherhood, especially for mothers that work outside of the home.

(3) Pregnant and newly postpartum belly dancing and fitness. :)

(4) a very special Lent and Easter vigil this year (details to follow...)

(5) schooling choices. I anticipate going to at least one Catholic school open house in January, and will report in with full details. In late January, I'm going to start a 54 day rosary novena for guidance on where to send Hank to school next year.

(6) Mike finishing school and going on the job market, while I try for tenure.

It's going to be a big year. So much of it is up in the air, which normally would disconcert me greatly. I like things to be in place, with me controlling them, and worrying about them as needed, the whole time. Right now, I can't do that. So much is out of my control. Hank's school situation depends mightily on Mike's job situation, and we definitely don't have full control over that. I certainly don't have full control over labor and delivery, and how well my new baby will sleep (the source of much anxiety approximately 5 years ago...). But shockingly, I'm not too worked up about any of this. I think I realize that things are up in the air, and there's nothing I can do about it, so I'm trusting God to guide me. I feel peaceful about things, and that's a good feeling.

Shortly after the new year, I'll post about the baby sleep and childbirth books I'm reading from the library now, with reviews. I'm looking forward. :) I hope that everyone has a blessed and wonderful new year. You'll hear from me again next week!

Random Saint name generator

I found the link to this on another blog as I caught up on my Google Reader this morning. The Saint's Name Generator will select a saint for you, and provide you with a description of his/her life and causes. I used it to select a saint for my blog for the upcoming year. You say a prayer as the generator works, and then click to find your new patron.

St. Mary of Egypt originally worked as a prostitute for many years, until one day she tried to enter a church and found that she physically couldn't open the doors. She underwent a dramatic conversion and asked Our Lady for her guidance. She heard a voice tell her to cross the Jordan River, and from that point forward she lived as a hermit in the desert until her death 50 years later. She is the patron of penitent women and sexual temptation.

My new silk veil...

One of my Christmas gifts was to choose a silk veil for myself, and it arrived on Christmas Eve. Naturally, I had to share. :)

I chose this one:
The vendor is a seller named Silkdancer at etsy. She was having a December sale, so I really got a great price. This veil is absolutely beautiful. The main color is hot pink, and the edges taper to an orange, and then a bright yellow. This design is called Hot Pink Lemonade. The quality of the silk is very high, so if anybody is in the market for a silk veil, definitely check out Silkdancer's selections.

I love dancing with a silk veil, and I'm actually crafting a new solo using mine. Silk has transformed my trepidation to all veils into an eager learning fest, and I'm enjoying it very much. Veils very much intimidate me. You see them a lot in American style cabaret belly dancing. They're a popular prop. In America, it's acceptable to use them for a whole dance, or part of a dance, after which you flick it off and dance without it for the remainder of your song. In either of these cases, I did not like using them. I felt like I was wrestling with the veil to make it obey and not focusing as much on my dancing. Silk has changed that. The way it floats and trails around you is breathtaking and much more effortless than chiffon. I will say, using a veil gives your upper arms a serious workout. It's not that they're heavy, but keeping it up so that you don't trip on it and afloat the way you wants works those muscles nicely.

I've been experimenting with different things in my choreography because using a veil means that you want to highlight its movements in way that also complements your dancing. You can't just tack it on to what you would usually do without using a veil. I may treat myself to a veil moves DVD with an amazon gift card, and I'm very excited.

Being pregnant has actually stimulated my belly dancing, and I've been enjoying it tremendously. I think it's because you're so much more aware of your body when you're pregnant. I love the second trimester - I'm definitely in that happy, comfortable zone. I imagine that once I get into the third trimester, I may have to slow down a bit, but for the time being, my veil, iPod and I have been in residence in the kitchen most nights, swirling away.

Happy Christmas memories

I'm back. :) Not too happy to be back at work, but happy to be able to blog today. I've been off almost a full week, and it's always hard to work the kinks out when you have gotten used to being "off routine." So, the highlights.

On the 23rd, I stayed home and wrapped presents. It was WONDERFUL. Mike is home on winter break as well, so spent a beautiful day together, and I felt so excited to see little Hank's excitement on Christmas morning. To me, this is one of the most wonderful times of year to be a parent. This is when the category 10 temper tantrums in the middle of Target all even out in a in a karma guided explosion of sweet memories. Good stuff.

The 24th is our larger family celebration. We gather with my mom's family and pretty much eat and visit for hours. We also always attend the Christmas Vigil. We arrived about 20 minutes early for the 4 pm Mass this year and easily got seats, but even this large church (our parish doesn't have a 4 o'clock vigil, so we usually attend somewhere else on Christmas) couldn't accommodate everyone that came. Lots of standing people in the back. We were crunched into a shared pew, but we did ok. Hank was an excellent boy. He's been so good at Mass lately I can hardly believe it. Just for saying that, I'm sure I will be smited this coming Sunday with a consecration-timed meltdown of Biblical proportions, but it's true. I had a wonderful time.

I have to say though, I usually enjoy attending Mass on any random Sunday more than on Christmas Eve. It sounds awful, but 'tis the truth. Like this past Sunday, the feast of the Holy Family, one of my favorite of the year. It was peaceful and special. On Christmas Eve, I feel crowded and claustrophobic. It's too bad that so many people that feel inspired to attend church on Christmas are not subsequently inspired to attend the rest of the year. But Christmas and Easter really brings the crowds out of the woodwork.

At any rate, after Mass, we headed to the family gathering. Hank is at a fun age now where he plays independently. So we arrive, and off he scampers with his cousins, not to be glimpsed for an hour at a time. Every time I did catch sight of him, his cheeks, from the running around and the warmth of the wood stove, were pinker and pinker and PINKER. He looked like a freshly plucked apple by the end of the night. It was so cute.

Christmas Day we do our own family gift opening first thing in the morning, then we gather at my parents to exchange with them and my sisters and their families. We cram into our parents living room, drink mimosas, and open gifts for what seems like hours now that our family has grown so much. This year, we had dinner at my house afterwards. Mike made an awesome ham, and my mom brought her family-famous lasagna.

The day after Christmas, I always go out to lunch with my mom and my visiting sisters. The men gathered at my house to drink beer, eat pizza and watch football. Hank played with his new toys and is in total bliss that he doesn't have school all week.

Yesterday, I just stayed home, ran errands, and puttered around the house with Mike and Hank. It was wonderful. I so hated to leave them today. :( I'm trying to conserve my vacation days for when the baby comes. I am taking off more time at the end of this week for when my mother-in-law comes to visit, so I have a nice long weekend to look forward to. It's all giving me a hopeful and good feeling about my upcoming maternity leave. When I had Hank, I suffered from postpartum depression (I'll post about that extensively before the baby comes) and my time at home was not good. I was crying, upset, and out of sorts the whole time. Going back to work was actually good for me, since it helped me to feel like me again. This time, I think it'll be different, and I couldn't be happier about that. I'll have Hank with me too, once school lets out in June. I'm very excited. I miss my boys so much today.

Over the holidays, to me, the special memories are the little things. Humorous baking disasters, sitting around talking, something cute that one of the kids does. This time, one of those things was the Game of Life. Mike wanted a copy, it was a favorite of his growing up, so I picked one for him as a gift. Sunday night after Hank went to bed, we embarked. I had never played before.

"Ok, you have to decide whether to go to college or pick a career straight off."

"Oh, I guess I'll go to college."

"That's fine, but you accrue debt to do so, just like real life."

"Typical. Oh, and interest too, lovely. I'm a veteranarian! I like that. The buildings are all cute. Hey look, a church! Oh, I like this game."

"That's where you get married."

"Married! Oh yay, you and I can get married!"

"Well no, we can't marry each other, but our pawns do get married. I think everyone has to."

"Oh, well, I guess that will have to do. Hey, what are those little blue and pink pieces?"

"Babies."

"BABIES!"

"I knew you would like those."

I ended up adopting twins, which caused much squealing and happiness. I also won. :)

At any rate, I'll be blogging today and tomorrow, before a short New Years break. I hope everyone is having a good vacation week.

Baby CL's Papparazzi...

Yesterday, I went for my "big" 18 week ultrasound. Baby CL was very mellow in there, and seemed a bit put out that we interrupted his/her morning nap. :) He or she was snoozing on their belly, and wasn't too happy about having to roll over for the ultrasound technician. But, we finally secured cooperation. He or she has an *extremely* adorable face:

Very cute overall profile:


And little feet. :)

No, we did not find out the gender, although the perinatologist wanted to know (apparently, females fare better than males in preterm labor, so they like to have the information just in case) which I wasn't altogether thrilled about, since it is now on my chart. But they put a specific warning on there that the patient does not want to know the gender; I hope that they don't slip up. :)

I will grant, when she was looking at the bladder, I saw a partial money shot. One would think this would mean that I know whether the baby is a boy or girl, right? Wrong. I Googled pictures when I got back online, and honestly, the subleties are a bit lost on me. :) It's not at all like adult genatalia. For one thing, I only saw things from kind of a "below" shot, focusing on the legs, not a frontal full-on. There is something there for both genders that protrudes a bit, the scrotum for boys and the labia for girls. So, unless you have a trained eye, or an angle that specifically shows a penis, I think it's hard for the average person to tell. Plus, the absence of a penis does not necessarily mean the baby is a girl. It just might not be developed enough to be visible yet, or you may not have the correct angle.

I will say this: I saw no penis. HOWEVER! This means nothing. :) So, we're back to pretty much the 50/50 thing.

So, that's that. :) I don't anticipate another ultrasound for the duration of the pregnancy, so we'll know the baby's gender in mid to late May.

This time, we also got to meet with the perinatologist, and I liked her quite a bit. She was real peppy, with a fun southern accent. She gave us the full run-down on the procedures that I've undergone so far, which I found quite fascinating.

Nuchal fold scan: The odds of a woman my age (35 at conception, 36 at delivery) having a baby with Trisomy 21 (Down Syndrome) are about 1:164. Based on my nuchal fold scan, my odds for Trisomy 21 dropped to 1:1,600. My odds for having a baby with Trisomy 18 are 1:8,000. This test detects these most common chromosomal abnormalities 95% of the time.

Second trimester ultrasound/anatomy scan: In all of the cases she has seen in 30 years of practice, anytime a woman had a baby with Down Syndrome, she has seen "markers" on this ultrasound. An enlarged heart, other cranial or facial clues. In my case, they saw nothing.

Of course, she had the disclaimer that she cannot tell us with 100% certainty based on these two procedures that our baby doesn't have a chromosomal abnormality. However, in her opinion, our baby looks healthy and thriving, and she would not recommend an amniocentesis. I didn't want one anyway, but it was good to hear her say that. I also loved that she put "advanced maternal age" in little air quotes. That made me want to hug her. :)

As we were finishing up, she mentioned that she does not do high intensity monitoring in late pregnancy for women under age 40, and she considers me "just any other healthy pregnant woman."Did I mention how much I like her?

As we were leaving, she said "maybe I'll see you again..." and I thought she meant for another ultrasound should something unexpected arise, but she finished "if you come back for number three. People often tell me, 'oh no, we're stopping at 2!' but I tell them, 'I don't care what you do, you never know!'" I just really, really like her. :)

I'm kind of expecting the "are you interested in having your tubes tied?" question to come up when I get closer to delivery, from my regular ob/gyn office. They already think I'm eccentric enough by my lack of artificial birth control, so I'm sure my emphatic "NO" will not surprise them. Despite not being an NFP-only practice, they're very accepting of my Catholic ways. :)

I won't be posting until next week, as I'm taking off from work tomorrow through Tuesday December 28th for my family Christmas celebrations. I'll post when I return! And, MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!!!!!!!!!

Me and my belly dancing baby, 4 and a half months...

(Photos by Armand de Kemp)

So, there you have it. :) I really love Middle Eastern dance. This pregnancy, I feel really good about my body, and I credit this dance form. I mean, under normal circumstances I like my body. It's not Victoria's Secret Catalog material, but it's what God gave me, and I appreciate it. When I'm pregnant, I tend to feel very self-conscious. This time, that's been better.

I actually watched a dancer on YouTube the other day dance in a costume very similar to mine (meaning, belly baring) at 7 and a half months. She looked gorgeous. There is nothing more feminine than the pregnant form.

Anyway, the hafla went very well. We had a couple of things pop up, namely the Case of the Missing Veil, and the Great Nosebleed Crisis, but all were handled deftly and swiftly.

I had a performance group number, and then a wait until my solo. It was kind of comical in that we all *volunteered* to do solos, and then the time comes, and the lineup looks like a group waiting for their turn at the guillotine. It's nerve wracking, to be sure, but it truly is the only way to improve. I see performing very much like public speaking; nobody loves doing it, but the only way to excel is to do it again and again and again.

So, the time for my solo came, and as I glided out with what I hoped approximated grace, arms held at hip level, thumbs tucked in, fingers arranged just so, I realized that Claire had accidentally forgotten about me, so it's a good thing I just barreled on out. My music started, and once again I hated myself in that moment for deciding to torture myself in this manner, but all went well. I could tell that I was a little stiff, that can't be helped, but overall it was good. And short! Just the way I like it. Keep 'em wantin' more.

After that, I immediately had 2 group numbers, so it was quite the little marathon, but all went well. As usual, I was so glad that I did it. And I'm already planning my next solo. :) I loved dancing with the silk veil so much, that I asked Mike for one for my upcoming birthday, and he agreed. I'm in the color selection process right now, and super excited. I plan to dance up through delivery, so lots of dancing to come. :)

Precious Baby CL, my belly dancing partner

I have a long post on my hafla planned, but I don't yet have the pictures uploaded, so I'll wait until tomorrow for the full run down. :) But I was at the doctor today, and I thought I'd post on that. Baby CL is thriving with a great heart rate, and I feel him/her moving around pretty frequently now. It's just such a wonderful thing.

Despite my "advanced age" my pregnancy so far has been textbook. We have our big ultrasound tomorrow, so I'll try to scan some of those pictures as well. After that, I have a regular ob. appointment in January, and then one in February scheduled with the glucose tolerance screening. After that, I begin appointments every 2 weeks. I can hardly believe it! So far, this pregnancy has flown by, and for that, in many ways, I'm grateful. :)

So, full belly dance post tomorrow, but I'll say this: Baby CL looked awesome in my costume. :) For 4 and a half months, I didn't feel portly at all. I felt great, and I felt confident. I can tell that my dancing soothes him or her, because they never make a peep when I'm dancing. When I stop, I suddenly feel all this movement. It's adorable.

Speaking of clothes, I'm still in regular clothes, and the level of my thrilledness (is that a word?) with this is overwhelming. For this miraculous feat, I can partially thank my Bella Band. Have you heard of these things? They're a stretchy tube that you can wear around your waist, and it'll smooth away any bulkiness, i.e. your unbuttoned pants. It looks like a cute tee shirt or cami that you're wearing underneath your top. There are still many pants I can just wear on their own, but for some of my tighter pants and jeans, this thing has saved my bacon.

With Hank, I barely used this Bella Band. I just happily moved right on to maternity clothes. Not this time, no sir. I'm actually contemplating purchasing *another* Bella Band. Besides being handy right now, I'm thinking it will be good for post partum use. Because, as I'm sure you could already ascertain, once the baby is out of my belly, nary a maternity clothe will come near my body. I absolutely *refuse* to wear maternity clothes when I'm not pregnant, even right after Hank was born. Now, I will grant, even Barbie couldn't fit into her regular clothes right after delivering a baby. It takes a full 6 weeks to even begin looking at your old clothes again. In preparation for delivery, even your *bones* move to provide more space in your pelvis. So, it goes without saying that you won't be able to get your old pants buttoned up. However, this is where the Bella Band may prove very useful. :) I'm willing to give it a shot. Plus, I just need another one for when my current band is in the wash. I have a white one right now. Maybe brown this time? Could be cute...

Yoga pants are also a girl's best friend following delivery. I'll be wearing these a lot, they're what I packed to come home from the hospital with Hank. At least this time, I know what to expect. That always helps.

A hip droppy weekend

Tomorrow is my next big belly dance show, and oddly, I haven't been that nervous. I'm sure I will be tomorrow, but so far, I've been ok.

I'm dancing a lot more this time, and I haven't yet decided if I'm happy about this or not. I enjoy having moved up to the performance group, which does more dances. On the other hand, I enjoyed only doing one number and then getting to watch everybody else. :)

This time, I'm doing a short solo to Very Short Belly Dance Drum Solo, by Raquy and the Cavemen. I do like the choreography that I came up with, and at only a minute and sixteen seconds, I barely have time to get nervous, before BAM! My final flourish. :)

I'm also doing 3 group numbers, one of which involves a silk veil. I've never danced with a silk veil before, and I found out that using a silk veil is infinitely different than using a chiffon one. Silk is SUPER floaty, and you really have to keep track of it so that it doesn't wander off on its own. The one good thing about this is that if it gets stuck somewhere you don't want it to (in your lipstick, on your hair, or somewhere in your beading) it will come off immediately the next time you breathe or move. Chiffon tends to want to stay put until you physically remove it, which can create an awkward moment.

I honestly don't love using either one. Using any kind of prop in belly dancing makes me feel as if the quality of my dancing goes down. I'm just not that skilled at using any of them enough such that my movements don't suffer. And to be frank, this applies to more people than just me. You will see many belly dancers skilled at playing the zils (finger cymbals), and I long to be one of them someday. But dancers that dance while balancing a sword, cane, or giant candle display on their heads? This is much tougher to master. You can't just be good, or even really good at doing this. You have to be SUPERLATIVE. Otherwise, you just look like you're making small dance moves while simultaneously trying to balance lit candles on your head. It's a tough balance.

At any rate, even a simple veil makes me feel a bit like I'm doing a duet with Hank. The other member of my team may at any moment do something unexpected, totally uncontrolled by me, and meltdown. It makes me twitch.

But I'm stuck with the veil, so I've been practicing with a borrowed one. I'd like to acquire a silk veil of my own, but not in the budget right now. Maybe next year.

When practicing my solo, I've been trying to repeat the smiling mantra in my head. It's so tough to smile when you're performing and nervous, because, well, you feel dumb. But the thing is this: How do you want people to feel while watching you dance? You want them to enjoy watching you. When you're done? You hope that they remember your routine because they enjoyed it so much.

Will you always be the best dancer out there? Most likely not. But that doesn't really matter. If you're performing, you're obviously pretty good, and that's good enough. The audience wants to see a dance in which the person does a good job, and LOOKS LIKE THEY'RE HAVING FUN. If you look like you're having a great time, smiling away, the audience relaxes and enjoys you. If you look like you may pee your pants at any second, they will feel nervous for you. And this inhibits their ability to enjoy your performance. I of the definite pee face have been working REALLY hard at this, because it is in fact an acquired skill. I doubt that there are many (if any) people out there that are "natural" performers. Everyone gets better with experience and practice.

So, we'll see what happens. I've been monitoring my belly carefully, since it will out there right in the open when I have my costume on. It has gotten a tad bigger, but overall I'm still pretty small. Maybe I just have a giant torso or something, because everyone told me I carried Hank small too. I don't feel small toward the end, but I'll worry about that later. For now, the baby will be shimmying right along with me. I think dancing puts him or her to sleep, because they're always real quiet in there when I dance. :)

My family's faith story

I've been meaning to post on this for some time. I absolutely love reading about others' faith stories, and how they came to hold their faith. I'm a big fan of "conversion stories." I own a solid handful of books of such stories, and I reread them often. I have blogged about how I came back to the adult practice of my faith when I attended law school, but I never really went into how I originally inherited my faith. So I thought I'd share. :)

My mom is of Italian descent (she's only in the second or third generation born in America, depending on the side of the family) and her immediate and extended family were all Catholic. This area, in fact, is full of the descendants of Italian and Polish immigrants. And we have many beautiful, old churches to show for it.

On my dad's side, my grandmother was of German descent. My grandfather's family is of indigenous descent, specifically, Six Nations Mohawk. Growing up, my dad was raised nominally Protestant. He was baptized in a Lutheran church, but the family never regularly attended. Through the years, he recalls belonging to a slew of different churches, Church of the Nazarene, Methodist, etc., usually based on baseball team membership. :)

When I was growing up, my dad did not attend Mass with us. Now, here is the thing. My mom received all her sacraments, and my parents were married in the Church. However, even though we were dutifully signed up for CCD (religious education classes) each year, and were receiving our sacraments of initiation, my mom, sisters and I rarely attended Mass ourselves. We were the penultimate Christmas and Easter Catholics. Consequently, I disliked CCD, and could not see the relevance it had to anything in my life. I always believed in God, but CCD seemed far removed from the way I thought about God.

I am grateful though that my mom's early attempts to raise us in the faith did instill in me a strong sense of God. I never doubted Him, and that He was there, I just wished that I didn't have to sit through those boring classes every week. They were on Tuesday afternoons, too. Sundays were no different than any other day to me, and we didn't practice any Catholic traditions in our home. I didn't really understand that being Catholic was any different from being any other kind of Christian. I didn't even know what a Protestant was. The Catholic faith didn't seem profound or meaningful in any way to me. I figured all belief in God was similar, and that it didn't matter.

As a very little girl, maybe 3 or 4, I remember being in bed one night, and I had a "vision" (or something) of Jesus coming to comfort me. I don't remember why, but I was upset or worried about something, and He sat on the corner of my bed and stroked my hair and told me it would be ok. Was it a dream? Maybe. But it is a memory that is extremely vivid, and I've always wondered. In any case, it gave me comfort and solidified my belief that God was real.

Anyway, where was I? CCD = Disaster, right. This continued until nearly my confirmation in early high school. Then, something changed. One of my aunts joined a prayer group devoted to our Blessed Mother and invited us to come. For whatever reason, this struck my mom's fancy, and we went. From that point forward, the fellowship, the prayers, and the support system moved my mom back to her Catholic faith. We started going to Mass every Sunday and praying the rosary. Even I enjoyed the prayer group. The ladies were fun! And my cousins were often there too.

Interestingly, by this point, my mom's immediate family had all left the Catholic Church. They all remain devoted Christians (mostly Assemblies of God), but none remained Catholic. The temptation for us to fall away was right there, very strong, but I'm so, so grateful that we remained.

With our renewed Mass and prayer group attendance, my dad started to see how important this had become to us. One day, something extremely fortuitous happened: while reading the newspaper, he saw an article about a brand new parish. One completely unique in our state, in that it is housed on a Native American reservation. He showed the article to my mom, and they agreed to go to Mass there.

This church is so adorable and quaint. Very intimate, and decorated in indigenous art, it is a beacon of the faith amongst people who may not have otherwise set foot in a Catholic Church. Based on my impression and experience, this is a very sensitive issue amongst indigenous people, and understandably so. The past is rife with heavy handed (and worse) tactics to mold Native Americans into what the larger society would rather have them do (including their religious beliefs), and as you can imagine, this type of persuasion is not very effective. Generally speaking, Native people have a strong sense of God, but Christianity of any kind is not usually their chosen path.

So this parish is just a wonder, and especially meaningful in an area with such a large (relatively speaking) contingent of Native Americans. My dad is a very quiet guy, a man of few words. I get my introverted personality from him. :) He didn't say much, but he wanted to keep going, and this spoke volumes. So we did.

In the mean time, his parents found out about this parish, and they started attending too. A year or two later, my dad confided that he'd like to take classes to become a Catholic. So, after nearly 25 years of marriage, my dad entered the Church at the Easter Vigil. :) His confirmation saint is Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha, known as the Lily of the Mohawks. I've been to her shrine, which is within driving distance of where I live. She was a young Mohawk woman living in the late seventeenth century who took a lot of heat from family and friends for becoming a devoted Catholic. She had a particular devotion to the Mass, and the Eucharist. Her mother died of smallpox, which she also contracted, and it disfigured her face. When she died at age 24, her face was miraculously healed and serene. She was beatified by Pope John Paul II in the 1980's, and is revered at the little Native American parish that my dad converted at.

My grandparents converted as well. When they each passed away, both received a full Mass of Christian Burial.

So there you have it. I love my heritage, and my faith. I inherited that as well, but I made it my own as an adult, and I wouldn't change it for the world.

Another beautiful giveaway at A Woman's Place...

This week, Cam is giving away an adorable pearl Holy Communion Chaplet. I'm entering, and you should too. :) This is a short chaplet that you can use to prepare to receive the Eucharist. You can read all about how to pray it by clicking on the link, as well as how to enter. Enjoy!