In celebration of another year in the blogging books, I rounded up the top 10 posts from 2017 as determined by page view. Y'all were into babies, motherhood/parenting, NFP, and obscure liturgical things.

That's why we're such good friends!

In ascending order....

10

Ember Days - The Best Part of the Liturgical Year You Never Knew Existed

In case you missed the Advent Ember Days, fear not! These happen four times a year. Next ones will be the Lenten Ember Days on Feburary 21, 23, 24.

9

I Survived Two Weeks of Solo Parenting + A Giveaway!

Now I'm willing to bet this showed up so high on the list becuase there was a giveaway involved. But getting through two weeks of solo parenting a 4 and 2 year old, while 4 months pregnant, was an accomplishment and I'm stinkin' proud of it!

8

The Longest Night - Felicity's Birth Story

Because who doesn't like a good birth story??

Many people probably, but they are totally MY guilty pleasure read and apparently some of y'all's too.

7

7 Misconceptions I Had About Motherhood Before My First Baby

Ah, the reckoning of life experience! 

6

The Hidden Scars - Dealing with Miscarriage and Secondary Infertility

Because sometimes I need to sit the world down and give it a talkin' to.

5

That Time I Cried in Church - How Parishes Can Be More Family Friendly

"We have been attending the 8am mass at our parish for a few years now. We are, typically, the only family with young kids at that mass.

That has been far and away a positive experience. ...

But then there is an event like yesterday, and I end up crying silent tears in the pew."

Small changes make a big difference for young family just trying to make it to mass every week!

4

NFP and the Single Woman

The lack of stories about single women using NFP to track their own health bothered me and I'm not even single! Thanks to the five women who shared their personal stories with us that past NFP Awareness Week.

3

A Quick St. Nicholas Gift Guide

Lots of you wanted to do St. Nicks big this year, and I fully support that!

2

Finding a New Beautiful in Postpartum

Life with three kids - it's a turning point. 

1

And our most viewed post of the year is.....

Embracing the Beautiful Body - Claire's Story

Fun Fact - Claire was also our doula for Felicity's birth. Pretty cool Catholic woman all around!

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Honorable Mention goes to my first truly viral Facebook post.

I made this in 20 minutes while wearing and feeding the baby. 

I'm very happy you all wanted to fulfill canon law and share that joy with your friends!

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Coming up in the next year:

Big renovation project

Re-entering the local theater scene

A Lenten challenge

Another special themed NFP Awareness Week

Marriage topic series

Stay tuned!

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Go check out the link up on Revolution of Love to see more Top 10 posts!

2017 - A Year in Pictures

Another year draws to a close!

I love these year in review things, so I'm hoping to catch a few in these last days of 2017. Here's the past year in 12 pictures!

January

An epic month in which The Importance of Being Earnest opened, Matt got a new job offer (which would mean moving halfway across the country), and a positive pregnancy test - all in one weekend! Sometimes God says yes to all of your prayers all at once.

February

February saw the closing of Earnest, a house hunting trip out to Minnesota, and a friends trip to Tahoe. Adventure John hiked for 3+ miles in snowshoes, and Therese saw snow for the first time.

March

February started our slow goodbye to the Bay Area. I did the 40 Bags in 40 Days challenge as my Lenten practice to get ready for our impending move. Matt was sent out to Minnesota for training, and I survived 2 weeks of solo parenting. Therese had requested this picture post-parish St. Patrick's Day party to show off her "Sink Patrick's Day Tween".

April

We celebrated our last Easter with the Dominicans and began our 5 days between homes at the end of the month - but not before I made it to see Hamilton in San Francisco! 

Our last 767 pizza party brought an end to an era.

May

We arrived in Minnesota on May 1st .... and it snowed. Welcome to the Midwest!

The weather got it in gear by the end of the week, and Matt and the kids ran their first Minnesota race the following weekend. 

After not having driven since 2008, learning to drive our minivan (our very first car!) was an adventure.

June

Summers in Minnesota are certifiably beautiful, and we had a blast exploring our new home state. Being the Bay Area veterans we are, we had tracked down a CSA and promptly signed up. On their first visit to the farm, the kids played in the dirt, took a tractor ride, and picked strawberries and peas in the rain. John decides he wants to be "a farm kid".

July

In July we were hardly home!

We started in Texas for my family reunion on the lake. Flew to Denver for a wedding and visited family in Golden and Rocky Mountain National Park while we were at it. Drove from Denver to Idaho Falls, ID to meet up with friends and visit Yellowstone and Grand Tetons National Parks. Flew to Atlanta for the last wedding where John and Therese made their debut as ring bearer and flower girl.

At the end of all of that I learned:

1. Kids will  lose it in the last 20 minutes of a trip, no matter if it's 2 hours long or 12 hours long.

2. Our kids are still fabulously portable people.

3. It is absolutely possible to pack for everything from a black tie wedding to back country tundra in a single bag.

August

We started school in early August to pad in extra time off around baby's birth. Therese doing PK3 using 26 Letters to Heaven and John in Kindergarten using Mother of Divine Grace.

John and Matt had a Father/Son road trip down to Wisconsin to see an Eagles/Packers pre-season game. I think it made John's year.

September

Ah the due window month, but no baby arrived this month! She took her sweet time.

We still kept busy (if you haven't caught on, busy is the MO around here) with the parish fall festival, John beginning in the boys program at Minnesota Dance Theater, welcoming some Bay Area friends, and going to our first state fair (aka. The Great Minnesota Get Together.)

October

Felicity Anne finally arrived on the 5th!

Most of October was spent recovering and getting to know this new little person. The kids loved having Daddy in charge of homeschool. Grandma came for a visit at the end of the month and was here for our first ever Trick or Treating Halloween!

Matt was a football player (no surprise on the team), Kirby was Cinderella's Fairy Godmother, John a Knight, Therese was Cinderella, and Felicity was our little pumpkin.

November

We began to start seriously looking for forever home, which (obviously) includes trying out the local parks. #priorities 

We made an offer on one house, and got accepted, but the inspection turned up issue upon issue so we had to walk away.

I started to get back into auditioning and discovered the Twin Cities theater scene is very different from the SF Bay Area. It is bizarre to show up to absolutely packed green rooms filled with women who could be my twin. After a few unsuccessful auditions, I decided to redirect and up my game. More of that to come in the New Year!

December

For the first time ever we did not travel for the holidays. I did miss seeing family and friends over Christmas very much, but it was special to start some of our own ways of celebrating. 

We cut down our first full sized Christmas tree farm (in the snow!) and John was in his first Christmas pageant as a shepherd. 

We did end up seeing family over the holidays. My sister surprised us with a last minute visit from Texas. Never was there a more thrilled niece and nephew!

We found another house, that fits us even better than the first, and are currently in the inspection period. Fingers crossed!

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Linking up with Bobbi at Revolution of Love!

Getting Past Prayer Paralysis

"Would you like to lead us in prayer?"

That sentence will send most cradle Catholics into an anxious mental dizzy.
"What do I say? Am I getting too personal? We did not cover this in CCD. Oh my gosh THEY'RE LOOKING AT ME!"

Extemporaneous prayer, meditative prayer, Lectio Divina are all well beyond my comfort zone.
But they shouldn't be! Prayer is a skill and it needs to be practiced and developed.

Parents are to be the first, and primary, catechists to their children (CCC 2226). That means if I'm lacking knowledge or practice in prayer skills, it's my God-given job to get it together.

Thankfully, Catholicism is not a solo practice. Tools abound! I have been very impressed with The Catholic Family Book of Prayers: A Treasury of Prayers and Meditations for Families to Pray Together. It's a skinny book (fits easily in my purse) and successfully covers the essentials of prayer, with beautiful pieces of art throughout.

My personal favorite thing is the section on meditation and contemplation. It has step-by-step guides, with SCRIPTS, for leading your family in Christian meditation, Lectio Divina, praying with Sacred Art, and examination of conscience. If I can teach reading with a script, I can certainly handle a family meditation!

The book is a fantastic cheat sheet for all of those surprise additional prayers at the end of rosaries. When 2 or 3 are gathered...Catholics add prayers! The simplicity of the book means it only takes seconds to find prayers you might have learned once upon a time, but could use a refresher on the fly (*cough* Anima Christi).

I'm not good at extemporaneous prayer, but it no longer feels impossibly difficult to get started.

You can find The Catholic Family Book of Prayers in digital and hard copy directly from Gracewatch Media, or hard copy on Amazon.

I was provided with a free copy to review by Gracewatch Media, but all impressions and claims are my own.

#EmberDaysObservance and Time Marches On

It has been a very busy season in the Hoberg household! Here's some of the things that have been up this week.

1

Negative degrees are coming this week. Our area gearing up for the coldest Christmas in 20 years, and for sure the coldest cold anyone in our family has experienced. The time for creative ways to get physical activity into our day has arrived, so send me all of your ideas for getting out some high energy when it's too cold to leave the house with the baby!

2

We are midway through the Advent season Ember Days today. This is the only one of the Ember Days in which no one in the family has any events or appointments, so today will be our biggest cleaning day! Catch me over on Instagram (@underthyroof) to follow along. Tag your photos with #EmberDaysObservance and lets encourage each other through today and tomorrow's Ember Saturday.

3

Never heard of the Ember Days? Here's an overview.

4

You know Christmas is around the corner when you do your LAST DAY OF SCHOOL!

We wrapped up yesterday morning.

I had started our year early in August, thinking I needed to build in some flex time for postpartum. Matt proved to be a very competent substitute homeschool teacher, and now we are ahead of our year by 2 weeks!

However, it is high time to re-organize the school supplies and clean out the endlessly multiplying art projects. I'm 90% sure almost all of the pencils have had their erasers chewed off, and most all of the markers are used up or dried up. Time to regroup!

5

This baby is almost 3 months old!

I feel like each baby seems easier than the last. This one is just huge! She was 9lb 10oz at birth, and I had to size her up to the Ergo at 2 months because her weight was stretching out the Moby too much.

She has had her first visits to the child watch at the YMCA, and did fabulously. Big brother and sisters were very proud to show baby sister around "Y for Y". Her favorite things are quietly looking around and staring at people until they look at her (which she rewards with a big, toothless, smile.)

6

I like to do a "learning show" as kids are waking up from nap, and the favorite right now are the various historical farm series from the BBC. We've done Victorian Farm and we're now on Wartime Farm. John in particular is SUPER into it.

BBC narrator: "While some things are moving along nicely on the farm, there is concern about the weather. It has been raining steadily for weeks."

John: "BUT WHAT ABOUT THE HAY CROP?!"

Farm shows are the soap operas of the elementary school crowd.

7

I have been thinking I want to try some other forms of prayer with the kids, and teach them some more memorized prayers, in the coming year. This lovely book arrived today and I love it so far. Review coming soon!

7 Lists for Your 12 Days of Christmas and Beyond

So you want to celebrate the 12 Days of Christmas this year, but what do you DO that whole time? Here's my lists of 12 cookies/sweets, Christmas movies and songs, beverages for the grown ups, outings, my winter reading list, and my top 12 one-pot or crockpot dishes from the past year.

12 Cookies/Sweet Treats

Chocolate Chip Cookies
Snickerdoodles
Sugar Cookies
Peanut Butter Blossoms
Gingerbread
Chocolate Crinkles
Mock Peanut Brittle
Rice Crispy Treats
Christmas Fudge
German Chocolate Cheesecake
Mug Cakes
Kings Cake Coffee Cake

12 Christmas Movies

Rudolph the Rednosed Reindeer - the 1964 one
White Christmas
It’s a Wonderful Life
Charlie Brown Christmas
Frosty the Snowman - 1969 version. Go nostalgic or go home.
The Santa Clause
The Polar Express
Meet Me in St. Louis - It has a classic Christmas song in it sung by Judy Garland! It counts!
Mickey’s Christmas Carol
Miracle on 34th Street
Holiday Inn
A Christmas Story - This is my husband's favorite Christmas movie. It's far from mine, but I love my husband so it gets to live on my list.

12 Adult Beverages

Something important to know about me, if you want to bond over Vodka, fruity drinks, or anything alcoholic that does not taste alcoholic....it ain't happening. Sorry.
All of the recommendations to follow involve Bourbon, Whiskey, Ale, Coffee, and other hallmarks of a, slightly hipster, old Irish man.

Christmas Old Fashioned - or just a regular Old Fashioned, but it's fun to be festive.
Irish Coffee
Hot Buttered Bourbon
Mulled Wine - I'll probably make this recipe, plus the article includes lots of other warm drinks (not necessarily alcoholic) to make in your slow cooker.
Maple Manhattan
Revolver - my twist on this is to use regular bitters and slightly burn the orange peel before putting it in the drink. Gives it a nice, smokey, orange flavor.
Hot Toddy
Negroni
Bourbon Sidecar
Salted Caramel Eggnog 
Kahlua Hot Chocolate
Christmas Ale- my ideal plan would be to get a growler of Christmas ale, or stout, from a local brewery, but I'll likely end up buying a pack of Anchor Steam's Christmas Ale. It's consistently delicious!

12 Out and About Adventures

Winter hike
Art Museum
Winter or Christmas Festival
History Museum
Historical Home
Drive to look at Christmas lights
Try a new resturant
Ice Fishing
New Library or Bookstore
Zoo or Aquarium
Snowshoeing
Sports Game or Theater show

12 Christmas Songs

Music is a big part of our day. (If you're singing, you're not fighting! Generally!) Here are some of the Christmas songs and carols I'll be doing with the kids during the 12 days of Christmas. Some are musically simple and some are a little more challenging.

O Come, O Come Emmanuel (Yes, I know it's an Advent song, but it's pretty and the kids have spent the past month learning it in English and Latin, so it's an achievable option!)
Jingle Bells
We Wish You a Merry Christmas
Silent Night
O Christmas Tree
Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer
Hark the Harold
Away in a Manger
O Little Town of Bethlehem
Here We Come A-wassailing
12 Days of Christmas
The First Noel

12 Books on My Winter Reading List

I'm an eclectic reader, but you can generally bet I'll have a good amount of non-fiction, an autobiography, and a smattering of fiction on my list. It's a mix of heavy and light, heady and quick.

Super Girls and Halos by Maria Morera Johnson
Keeping Christmas: Yuletide Traditions in Norway and the New Land by Kathleen Stokker
Lessons in Hope: My Unexpected Life with St. John Paul II by George Wigel
Being There: Why Prioritizing Motherhood in the First Three Years Matters by Erica Komisar
On Pilgrimage by Dorthy Day
Strangers and Sojourners by Michael D. O'Brian
The Power and the Glory by Graham Greene
Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman
Vibrant Paradoxes: The Both/And of Catholicism by Robert Barron
Getting Past Perfect: How to Find Grace and Joy in the Messiness of Motherhood by Kate Wicker
Haystack Full of Needles: A Catholic Home Educator's Guide to Socialization by Alice Gunther
The Book of Margery Kempe by Margery Kempe

12 Warming Dishes

I collected my top 12 one pot/pan/skillet or crockpot dishes that I tested out this year. No cold recommendations here!

One Pot Creamy Parmesan Garlic Risotto with Lemon Pepper Chicken
One-Pan Maple-Dijon Chicken with Winter Veggies
Slow Cooker Pasta E Fagioli Soup
Crock Pot Loaded Baked Potato Soup
Skillet Shepard's Pie
One-Pan Chicken Thighs with Cilantro-Lime Black Bean Rice
Slow Cooker Chicken Tikka Marsala
One Skillet Thai Chicken Thighs + Noodles
Slow Cooker Guinness Beef Stew
Crock Pot Chicken Pho
Slow Cooker Chicken Tortilla Soup
Slow Cooker "Rotisserie" Chicken - (This is what I use before I make chicken stock. It's delicious! And cheap! Instructions for that in this post.)



It should be noted that I am only planning on completing the first 3 lists during the 12 Days of Christmas. The rest are take-as-you-will ideas for the 12 Days. This is supposed to be fun, not stressful!

For details on how we make 12 days of celebration possible, see this post

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