7QT: Too Long with Too Many Photos

1) 

DK's Baptism.

On May 17th, Declan joined the Catholic Church!!  

Andrew served both the Mass and Baptism.  Always the philosopher, he asked on the day preceding the Baptism; "If Declan becomes a Child of God tomorrow, then what does that make him today?"

Phil's Dad, a Deacon, came up from Maryland to baptize his newest grandson.  It was awesome.

Deacon Gramps

Andrew kept slowly dropping the book lower and lower as poor Gramps was trying to read.  It's hard to be short, have tired arms, and be easily distracted by all your cousins and friends in the pews, dontchaknow?

Grandpa (my Dad) and Gramps

Gammy (my mom)

Unfortunately, Declan's godparents could not make it up from MD for the Baptism (totally St. Therese's fault, I'll explain later) so we had our "daughter" Haley and John-Paul stand in as godparent proxies, or as I liked to call them, Fairy Godparents.

2)

As soon as Declan was baptized, Phil and I consecrated him to Mary with this prayer.

We've done this consecration with all our babies, but with the middle name Kolbe, this one was a little extra special :)

DK with his parents and both sets of grandparents.

And one with the siblings as well!

3)

So, you may have noticed Declan's Baptism gown.  It's veeeeeeery long and beautiful, and has been worn by almost all of my parent's 21 grandchildren.  The gown was made from my mother's wedding dress, and the lady who made it designed it royal-style, so it's very long and we always feel like the baby is going to get lost in it.  The sentiment behind the gown is so special, and we love to put our babies (even the boys) in it.

4)

We were lucky enough to get permission from our pastor to have the Baptism party at the parish school.  So all 70ish (!!) of us went over for some yummy Italian food, a HUGE cake, music, and fun.

What would a party be without fake mustaches for all the kids to wear while dancing to YMCA?

Marijanna's little boy girl ;)

5)

So I alluded to the fact that Declan's godparents couldn't make it to the Baptism, and it was all St. Therese's fault.  

Watch out, her intercession is powerful!!

It all started back when I was pregnant with Declan and we were trying to plan his Baptism.  We thought it would be really nice to have him baptized at Easter, on April 20th, exactly 11 years to the day John-Paul was baptized (also on Easter).  We knew we wanted Phil's Dad to do the Baptism, and since both he and the godparents lived in MD, and Easter is a busy time for deacons, we decided to go down to MD to have the baby baptized.  After all, naive past Colleen thought, Declan was due 3/23, would obviously be born early, and we could travel down to Maryland with a one month old (or older) baby.  

The only hiccup in our plan was that going down to MD for Easter would mean Phil wouldn't be able to stand up as the confirmation sponsor for one of his students who had asked him.   So he told this student of our plans and she was a little disappointed, but said she would get a proxy for the Confirmation.  I ordered her a rosary bracelet with a medal of St. Therese on it, as her Confirmation name was Therese and thought nothing more of it.

As the due date came and went, and Declan was growing increasingly late, we decided to change our baptism plans and stay home so thy we wouldn't have to travel 8 hours with a what-should-have-been-one-month-old-but-would-now-be-a-stubborn-two-week-old.  So we changed the plans and made new ones, and Phil told his sponsee (is that a word?) that he was now able to be at her Confirmation.  You know what she told him?  She said since the moment she had found out Phil wasn't able to come, she had been praying to St. Therese to find a way to allow him to be there!

St. Therese is so amazing, I have my own rose story with her, but did she really have to make me go TEN DAYS LATE?  Therese, if I ever make it through the golden gates, you got some 'splainin to do :)

6)

OK, enough Baptism talk, even though it was an amazing day!  So I went back to work yesterday.  Boo.  But it was better than I expected and 7 week old Declan did great at the nanny's house with Xander.  He slept 5 hours of the 8 I was away from him!!  What a "good little fella", as Xander always says.

7) 

Last weekend, we went to a track meet for the five Catholic elementary schools in our area, and Andrew came in 1st place in the Half Mile race with a time of 3:01.  THREE OH ONE!

Andrew with his track coaches: my sister, her hubby, and Phil.

He's so stinkin' fast and paces himself so well, I am in awe.  He definitely doesn't get that from me, but he is my favorite exercise buddy.

Have a great looooong weekend everyone!!