Seven Quick Takes Friday (12)

Thanks to Jen at Conversion Diary for hosting.  As usual, I should be doing other things, but here I am with my 7 for the week.

-1-
Our baby turned one on Wednesday.  Cannot believe it.  We had a few people over for cake and she had a pretty good time, although I think her older sister may have had a better time.  She was hysterical over the mess Hannah was making.  Her laugh is contagious so we were all in stitches.  Below are a few pictures of that spectacle:



-2-

Thursday night we had a REALLY good time, right before bed, playing with bells, maracas, a xylophone and drums.  Loud and crazy, but a lot of fun.  Note to self:  we must do this fun music madness more often, but maybe next time not so close to bedtime. 

-3-

Early on Thursday we DID NOT have a really good time taking pictures, but they came out quite well, surprisingly.  First of all, the one year and one day old cried every time the flash went off.  She had a late night the night before and a shot at her doctor appointment the day before, but I still found it so weird that she got so freaked out.  It finally took me leaving the room because she is so attached to me she wanted to do nothing but cling to me and cry.  She's always fine when I leave the room and she improved greatly, but still had some occasional freak outs.  Then, our three year old once again was flat out refusing to go in to take pictures.  A sudden shy streak, I suppose.  But it is frustrating when you make an appointment, gather up some cute outfits and she just refuses to cooperate.  I stayed patient all things considered.  I've put a bunch of the funniest/best pictures here:

Mama!  I'm not having a good time!

Cheese!

Ok, enough already!

You think you're so funny!

How does my hair look?

Yeah, I know it, lookin' good!

Seriously, more pictures?

Maybe I can sneak out of here?

Hmph!

Feelin' somewhat shy!

Ok, if you insist!

Whew! I think we're done!

Can we go yet?

-4-

One thing that I always forget is that babies and young children like bags and boxes more than the present itself.  This will come in handy if we do have more children.  One can only get so many toys.  Pretty soon I will have to work on rotating toys out so that some of them seem new even though they are not.  Just put another thing on my "to do" list.

-5-
Someone who has been following my blog has written some beautiful letters to her children on their birthdays and other occasions.  I only wish I had done this starting with Alicia's first birthday.  I plan on putting this into practice and may try to do a few hindsight letters for our oldest.  I have yet to compost Hannah's first birthday letter, but I will be working on it soon.  In the meantime, check out one of these such really sweet letters here.

-6-
Been aggravated about the whole party planning thing, but I did finally get my act together, which is good since the party is on Saturday.  Because everything was so last minute with decisions on decorations and if I would do a theme, I paid more than I wanted.  I couldn't deal with trying to find the best price while running around with little children needing naps and trips to the potty.  I usually am much more organized but our life since our move has been so chaotic.  Anyway, I'm hoping we don't have too much food left over, but if we do there are food pantries and such in the area.

-7-

Our pastor left for his new assignment at the Seacoast on Tuesday.  Going to miss him and hope that our new pastor will be as inspirational.  We have teased our old pastor that we will follow him if hubby can just find a job out that way, since we don't have a home we can go where ever we want.  Probably not going to happen, but we have always wanted to live by the seacoast.  Maybe, but not likely.  But from what I've heard our new pastor will be really great too.  I'm excited to see what he brings to the community at St. K's.  This weekend we will not be at our regular mass time as we have a baptism for my cousin's daughter, but it will be great to meet him and get to see his style.  But I am sad to see Fr. G leave. There was a really nice article written by one of our parishioners.  He will definitely be missed and I'm sure he will get lots of visitors with beaches and Water Country nearby.

Wondrous Wednesdays (5)



In the spirit of gratitude, I’m going to be listing wondrous things happening in my world every week on Wednesday.  I chose to list three things because Wednesday is the third day of the week.  If you are a blogger and want to list what you are grateful for, feel free to do the same on your own blog every week and please be sure to link back to my blog.   If you are not a blogger, feel free to comment here on my blog with your own three wondrous things you are grateful for on Wednesday. 

(1)
First and foremost, today is Hannah's first birthday.  I can't believe that a year has flown by so quickly.  She is sure to be a lot of fun and get into a lot of trouble.  Very independent, feisty with a devilish look that has you smiling before you can even get mad at her.  She has been scrunching up her nose every time she smiles and her latest word is: "Dine-tor!"  Such a blessing in my life.  Happy Birthday honey bee!

(2)
Eucharistic adoration does a world of good for your relationship with Jesus.  Praise God for the true presence of Jesus, right there for us to be able to really spend time with him.  The funny thing is, as wondrous as Eucharistic adoration is, all I could think about while I was sitting there on Friday night was "Boy, I suck!"  I don't spend NEARLY enough time with Jesus, and I don't just mean at Eucharistic adoration.  How else do you get to know someone other than spending time?  I mean, if this were a marriage, Jesus would have every right to ask for a divorce, although we all know he wouldn't.  Loud and clear Jesus was telling me that I need to work on my relationship with him.  For right now, I'm going to work on "spending time" with him in the early morning before my day begins and the late night hours before going to sleep doing an examination of conscience, asking what I did that would be what Jesus would have done and where I would have fallen short.  Praise God for His mercy!  I know I don't deserve it!  I'm more mindful of this as time goes on.

(3)
Having two days off in the middle of the week is probably the best thing ever.  It's like having a second weekend!!  So glad that after a three day weekend I get another breather before going back to work on Friday.  And hubby has Wednesday off to spend time with us for Hannah's birthday!  SO glad he was able to get the day off.  I love it when we all get to spend time celebrating our loved ones joining the world.