It's Official

June 2012:

We are moving to Cal-i-forn-I-A!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! You wouldn't think we'd be happy about yet another move, and yet it comes with much relief and excitement. We can finally settle in for awhile. Matthew will teach within this great books program. The fit couldn't be more perfect. So here's our moving schedule as we know it:

song Pack It Up

recent picture dump

Easter then and now

Throwback to the Easter when Benjamin had just been born (note bruised Emily to show for it):

Claimed for Jesus

"The Christian community welcomes you with great joy. In its' name, I claim you for Christ our Savior. . ."

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Is there anything greater? I felt like I couldn't say "YES" with enough of myself. Make them faithful witnesses to your gospel, make their parents and godparents worthy examples of the faith, lead them by a holy life into your kingdom of joy.

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We recite the creed and hear "This is the faith of the Church. We are proud to profess it." And we are charged to keep our children walking in the light of faith.

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And then a prayer for parents---the mother now thanks God for these children, born into new life, and "may she be one with them in thanking God forever in heaven". May the father and mother "be the best of teachers, bearing witness to the faith in all they say and do in Christ Jesus our Lord."

A great big charge--to lead God's little children to know and to love Him--but it's given with grace from Him and through his body.

Father David said that what came to him when praying about this particular baptism was the joy of the mother being complete. It fit beautifully with a poem David had found days prior (Baptism by John Keble)


"But happiest ye, who sealed and blest,
back to your arms your treasure take,
with Jesus' mark impressed,
to nurse for Jesus' sake"
. . .

"Sweet one, make haste and know him too,
Thine own adopting Father love,
that like thine earliest dew
thy dying sweets may prove"

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We were surrounded by grandparents and friends. And Grace and Sheldon's godparents sent the most beautiful baptism gift. You can see it here, in a very sweet post.

We are so blessed.

Third Birthday Party

We left off here:




And then he made another one. It was a lovely lion and was a hit with the parents as well as the kids.













The kids decorated masks when they arrived, and then we paraded to the "circus ring" (rope on the round) and played duck-duck goose.



Then the ring became a high wire, and the kids walked across it.






Then we used the rope to section off the bean bag toss area. It took the kids a while to figure out how to knock down the tower, but they did get the hang of it. Thanks, Mom, for making 14 lovely, durable bean bags! They will be great too in future games!



We had lunch and then the carousel opened. This was a big hit.















Gracie started the "Happy Birthday" song for us. She had been practicing for weeks leading up to the event.


When telling her Aunt Kerri about the day, she said she had a "lollipop party". The lollipop centerpiece was my one takeaway from Pinterest.


Happy Birthday, sweetest girl. You are a delight and we love you.

Not a tame lion

We are throwing a birthday party for Gracie. I sent out invites on Paperless Post, in the shape of a carousel, because the party will be at Schenley Plaza and all the kids will get to ride on the PNC Carousel. Since we're having it at the Plaza, and not at a playground, I need to come up with activities for the kids to do. (The Plaza has a good square of grass, but it's boxed in by streets; the kids are safe but the parents will have to be watchful. It's not a place that permits mindless wandering.)

One of the games we thought of is a bean bag toss (non-competitive). We were going to make a game of "feeding the lion" and throwing them into a box with the cut out of a "mouth". Then we decided it would be more fun to knock things down, so we're going to have the kids throw the bean bags at stacks of empty boxes. Tower-toppling is still cool when you're three, right? And then David thought we could still use the lion idea by making it into a photo opp---where kids put their head in the lion's mouth for a picture.

Turns out, we had different ideas of how that would look. I was imagining one of those flat boards in an amusement park--the kind that make you look like you're wearing clothes of a different era--where you pop your head through and smile.

David was going for something more realistic.

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This was what he made, after looking at photos of real lions. The mouth actually moves. He said it was designed after Aslan.

Not a tame lion.

He realized immediately that asking our girl to put her head through this lion's mouth was going to result in protests and possibly tears--and that her younger friends would have the same reaction. Knowing our girl, she would come to associate birthdays with lion's heads, and we would have to rehash the parental blunder every time she thought of it, "Why da lion Dadda? Why Gayce not want to take a picture?"

After he stopped laughing, my sweet husband started over. He found a picture of a stuffed lion--I will post the results when he's done. :)

Love this man--he will spend a quiet Sunday evening tearing up boxes for our little girl and her mama.

L