Archive for » June, 2009 «

Food Allergies?

27 Jun 2009 by Sharon

A friend of mine today mentioned in passing a relatively new blood test for food allergy testing called Bloodprint. Bloodprint is done by a ImmunoLabs.

ImmunoLab claims to provide a very reliable test for food allergies. Other blood tests done in labs to test food allergies tend to have very low reliability rates–even when the blood sample is split and tested twice, results are not consistent. This friend who was telling me about it has two daughters and nieces that were tested. One neice was breaking out in hives and they didn’t know why. When she had a Bloodprint test done, they discovered she was allergic to gluton and lactose. Since eliminating these from her diet, she hasn’t broken out in hives.

ImmunoLabs says that upto 95% of people are allergic to some food but most of the time it isn’t toxic. However, food allergies could cause more than just skin rashes or hay fever symptoms. Infertility, irregular cycles, IBS, ADD and ADHD, and even type II diabeties could be related to a food allergy.

So if you or someone you is suffering from a food allergy, you might want to investigate Bloodprint and ImmunoLab further.

Category: Health  Leave a Comment

My Day at the Spa

27 Jun 2009 by Sharon

Last year before Adam’s jaw surgery, Adam or I won a spa package at Barton Creek Spa from the Majella Society for hosting a table at their 2008 Benefit Gala. (Yes, last year!) Well, I finally took advantage of it today!

I’ve never done the whole spa thing before. And for the record and future note to family, you’re welcome to get me one anytime–especially the facial. It was so lovely. I had eye and lip treatment, facial, massage, pedicure and manicure. My fav was definitely the facial. Although I not a big fan of pedicure/manicure, a special blessing came from my appointment today.

I think I waited so long to do this because I see it as shear vanity. And I’m not willing to spend money on vanity! But this experience really allowed me to evangalize. I really enjoyed talking to the people who were serving me. Considering who would typically go to Barton Creek spa and resort, I’m probably one of the most chatty people they gotten in a while. Since it was my first spa visit, and I won the package, I got to tell them all about the Majella Society. They genuinely sounded interested and they all had at least heard of it or seen the ads! They of course were all surprised that this was my 4th pregnancy and one lady was nice enough to say that I didn’t look old enough to have 4 kids!

The massage therapist and I talked a lot about religion and religious books. She goes to Austin Christian Fellowship and opening the Word of God and group book studies have really allowed the Holy Spririt to work in her. I appreciate that about ACF and her conversion. The woman who did my pedicure and manicure wasn’t so chatty to begin with, but I opened her up. It turns out she’s Vietnamese and Catholic. Her uncle is a Bishop in Vietnam and she has another couple of cousins who are a nun and priest. Unfortunatley, she was married outside the Church and divorced. She was genuinely saddend that she can’t receive communion because of her divorce. I told her she could apply for an annulment and it was the first she had ever heard of annulments. She is too ashamed to tell her uncle about her situation because she anticpates his disappointment that she was married outside the Church. So I offered my help and gave her my contact information. She isn’t even attending Sunday Mass because she works on Sunday. I encouraged her to go to St. John Neumann down the street and even visit Fr. Bud to see if he can direct her in how to apply for the annulment.

I hope and pray she calls because I know Jesus would love to see her back at Mass and receiving Him in the Blessed Sacrament. Please keep Kimberly in your prayers too.

Category: Faith, Fun  Leave a Comment

The Heirarchy of Domestic Reconciliation

25 Jun 2009 by Sharon

In our home, sinners as we are, there are multiple times a day that someone is asking for forgiveness. Our “rule” is if you have wronged someone, you MUST go to them and say, “I’m sorry. Will you forgive me?” These are six very powerful words that not enough people use in this world. I certainly didn’t grow up saying the second half, “Will you forgive me?” And it was one of the most amazing aspects of my dating relationship with Adam that then made going to Sacramental Reconciliation so much easier. And it’s not just asking for forgiveness but being the person who has been hurt, giving forgiveness to another. What grace and growth there can be in any relationship by saying, “I forgive you!”

So it has been especially interesting to me how our children approach apologies and forgiveness. I have observed two key things. First, when they have been put in time out, and they are ready to come out, the offender will come up to me and say, “Mommy, I’m sorry. Will you forgive me?” Often times I’m not the person who was hurt directly. Yes, I dish out the discipline and they know they’ve upset me. And that’s probably why the kids apologize to me first. At one point I said to them, “I’m not the one you (insert offense here). Go apologize to your brother/sister…” Recently, I realized that even when the children hurt each other, they hurt me. It obviously upsets me that they behave as such. And I certainly hurt emotionally when one of the children is hurt physically or emotionally. You can probably see where I’m going with this. Our little domestic church is an image of the larger Church. When we sin, where should we go to ask for forgiveness–our Heavenly Father in the Sacrament of Reconciliation. Certainly when we hurt another member of the Mystical Body of Christ, we hurt Christ himself. Besides the penance we receive in confession, we should also seek the forgiveness of those we hurt to the best of our ability within the scope of our sin.

The second thing I’ve observed is that once someone has been forgiven, it’s over. There are no grudges and forgiveness is instantaneous. The kids don’t wait any amount of time to begin loving on us or each other. Play resumes as usual and all is forgotten.

Although as parents, we are supposed to mirror God to our children, it often times seems they are the ones who mirror God’s love, mercy and forgiveness to us.

Category: Faith, Family  Leave a Comment

Sacred Heart Cookies

20 Jun 2009 by Sharon

Yesterday we made Sacred Heart cookies! The kids quite enjoyed them. Thankfully we were able to share them with our Covenant of Love group and send some home with a couple of the families. Therese wanted to make Immaculate Heart cookies, but I think we’ll save that until next year.

Category: Faith, Family, Recipes  One Comment

Songs of the day

19 Jun 2009 by Sharon

The Sanctus and Immaculate Mary.

The first Latin prayer Therese has learned is the Sanctus. Adam had a great a idea that we should teach her the chant as well–especially since we hear it at Mass sometimes. So this morning at Mass, her eyes were HUGE at the recognition of the Sanctus and she was able to sing along. What a beautiful moment for her!

As I’m writing, Therese is sing Immaculate Mary as she is looking at a book about our Blessed Mother. It’s so sweet to have her around.

Category: Faith, Family  2 Comments

It Might Get Loud

19 Jun 2009 by Adam

Yes, that is usually the parental mantra around our house whenever out of the corner of our eyes we see Fulton slip and fall but that is not the intention of this post. It is rather about this interesting documentary I came across the other day. It looks to be a welcoming departure from the typical rock artist “behind the scenes” material you come to expect. I’m interested to hear the thought process behind Jack White’s music (seriously, who else would think of building an electric guitar with a 2×4, nails, and a coke bottle! see the trailer) although I expect other certain readers to be more partial to The Edge. ;)

Category: Fun  One Comment

Sacred Heart of Jesus

19 Jun 2009 by Sharon

O Sacred Heart of Jesus, filled with infinite love, broken by my ingraditude, pierced by my sins and yet loving me still. Relying on Thy promise of infinite charity when You said, “Come to me all you who labor and are burdened and I will refresh you.” I come to the Thee in the lowliness of my heart, earnestly beg thee to grant me your loving help.

Today is the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Many of you know that my religious upbringing was pretty nonexistent. Up until high school the only prayer I knew was the Our Father and I would pray that every night before I went to bed as I gazed upon a picture of the Holy Family hanging in my room which was the only religious picture in our home. But my parents always (and still do) have a religious candle burning in their home. At some point when I was in high school my brother decided he didn’t believe in God anymore and perhaps inadvertently was convincing me of that too….but I stilled prayed at night looking at that picture of a family I knew nothing about. And one day, I decided to read the back of one of those candles and learn the prayer that was there. It just happened to be the candle of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. In a few days, I was praying the Our Father AND the prayer above. It was perhaps the only saving grace that brought me home to the Church so many years later.

O Sacred Heart of Jesus, have mercy on us!

Category: Faith  Leave a Comment

Footprints of God

18 Jun 2009 by Sharon


Tonight Adam watched the kids so I could spend an evening with St. Paul as told by Catholic apologist Steve Ray. It was a fund raiser for Relevant Radio and the parish hall was packed!! As the year of St. Paul winds to a close it was quite a treat for me. I very much enjoy Mr. Ray. He’s funny, exciting, extremely knowledgeable, and still on fire with the zeal of the Church after 15 year of being a convert.

Years ago, Steve Ray started filming the video series called the Footprints of God. He takes you to the real places that Jesus, Mary, or the apostles walked and ministered. And explains the bible in the context of where it happened and in light of our Catholic faith. Last month I took out our video on Mary and decided to watch it one afternoon while the kids were around. Therese just LOVED it. She would ask to watch it almost everyday for a couple of weeks until of course she realized we had more of these videos and then she wanted to watch the video on St. Peter. This week I told her we also had one on Moses and not expecting her to have much interest in Moses, she surprised me again and has asked for it every day this week! Today she says, “Mommy, can I watch Moses?” Who am I to say no?! Really of all the things she could watch, I’m ecstatic she wants to watch these videos. She absolutely love seeing the real places that all these stories in the bible occurred. And that’s just it, it makes these bible “stories” REAL.

So when I told her that I was going to see Steve Ray speak, she wanted to go. Not thinking she would really have the attention span for it, I went solo. But not forgetting my little Footprints of God lover, I bought her the video on St. Paul and asked Mr. Ray to sign it to her. He graciously did and was quite delighted to know our little 5 year old loves watching his videos. He said (and I agree) that if we can entice and capture our children at an early age they will be less likely to leave the faith and instead fall in love with it!

Category: Faith  Leave a Comment

Closed on Sundays

17 Jun 2009 by Sharon

This is cool! CatholicVote.org is closed on Sundays! Here is part of the email they sent announcing this initiative.

In our hectic world, we at CatholicVote.org want to tell the world that Sunday is not simply just another day. As the Bible states: “The seventh day is a sabbath of solemn rest, holy to the Lord,” (Exodus 31:15).

A recent headline confirms the need for us to do something. The Annenberg Center for the Digital Future just announced that 28 percent of Americans interviewed last year said that they have been spending less time with members of their households. Only 11 percent said this in 2006.  While the researchers in that study didn’t assign a culprit, they did note that the trend correlates with the rise in Internet usage and a boom in social networking websites.

That’s why we’re encouraging people on Sunday to log off the Internet, Facebook and other sites. Of course, our Lord didn’t say ‘Thou Shalt Not Tweet on Sunday.’ But he did say, ‘Keep Holy the Sabbath.’ With this small step, we want to help reclaim the Lord’s Day as a day of worship and rest.

Our decision may surprise some. But in many ways we believe this effort will be our most important initiative. By encouraging our visitors to avoid our site on Sunday, we hope to spark a movement across many sites on the Internet. Even a small movement to respect Sunday could have a profound impact on our culture. If you think about it, every effort to reform our country, our politics, and our culture begins with what we do on Sunday.

The launch date of this new campaign is not coincidental. This new Sunday campaign is our way of honoring our Heavenly Father this Father’s Day.

Put Him first and He will take care of the rest.

Brian Burch

President

Sunday is a sacred day in our family. It’s a day to worship and honor God by doing what He said…resting. Since Adam and I were married this has been one of the more important weekly observations that we make. We don’t shop. We don’t eat out. We don’t do anything that would cause anyone else to work. Major house work and yard work is put on hold on this day. We make sure that all the errands and work is done on Saturday or the rest of the week. This may one day be the thing that keeps our kids from organized sports. But we firmly believe and live that it’s a day to go to Sunday Mass and enjoy the family that our Heavenly Father has blessed us with.

We don’t abstain from using the interent, but maybe we should.  I think it’s a neat idea!

Category: Faith  Leave a Comment

VBS

12 Jun 2009 by Sharon

Today was the last day of Vacation Bible School for the kids. We didn’t have it at our parish, but we went to St. Alberts. The kids loved it. The kids learned about a different saint each day, did arts & crafts, and learned songs. Today the kids did a little presentation of the songs they learned and everyone had lunch together.

Unfortunately, my camera batteries died (ughh) before I could get Therese’s group. (I have a request in for a video camera that will probably have to wait until Christmas since the opportunity for Mother’s Day and my birthday has past.)

Here’s her group on stage. This was a nice growing opportunity for her. A opportunity to make new friends and learn in an environment without mom and dad.

Here’s Fulton’s group. Try not to laugh as hard as I did at our son.

On the way to watch and pick up the kids, I was thinking about one of the things I love most about them. You know my kids LOVE you, if when you walk in our house (or other location) and they run up to you, jump on you and/or give you the tightest hug ever while screaming your name. Perhaps there are more civilized ways for kids to great adult friends, but none more loving than this. So when I walked in with Muffin and sat front row center, (and later Adam joined us) Fulton was a little upset that he couldn’t come greet us. Hence the behavior in the video. Ahh…to love so to be rendered mute and know not what to do with yourself! I told him afterwards we should have asked for Fulton Sheen’s prayers for a better performance today!

Category: Events, Faith, Family  11 Comments
« Previous Entries