Bringing (Olivia) Joy our local Sisters

I love visiting with the Sisters of Mary Morning Star, even though I don't manage to do so as often as I would like. I always leave with a greater sense of peace and joy which seems to be transmitted through osmosis. It was nice to hear Sister Jean Marie say as soon as she held Olivia how she felt an immediate sense of calm and peace from holding a newborn in the middle of a busy day.

With Sister ? and Sister Jean Marie

With Sister Pauline Thomas

With Sister Teresa Immaculata

Quotes of the Month

1) "Olivia! Olivia! Olivia! I like you on Tuesdays" - this was sung by Frankie as his own verse to a song Charlie was singing to the tune of I've Got the Joy, Joy, Joy, Joy. Here is one verse for you to hear. There were many more:

Other verses (by Charlie) included "I am 6, 6, 6, 6, 6 years....older than you, older than you..."
And I eventually figured out why Frankie said "Tuesdays" in his verse. The actual song goes "down in my heart to stay," and he had mistaken to stay for Tuesday.

2)"Mama, I like your hot lips" - Frankie, when I wore slightly brighter than usual lipstick

3) "So...Charlie may have baptized Olivia today." That was me, letting Seth know that while I was washing the dishes, Charlie got out the holy water to bless Olivia. I didn't think much of it until I heard him say, "I baptize you in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit," while making the sign of the cross on her head with the water. This was before her baptism, so I had to look up the requirements of a valid baptism to see if the deed was already done.
It was not valid, by the way. The water should be poured (or the person immersed) and their needs to be a proper intention to baptize, which I'm not sure a 6-year-old playing around would have.

4) "I love you, Mother!!" That was Sam, yelling to me from the field right in the middle of baseball practice.  So far he hasn't developed that pre-teen tendency to be embarrassed by public parental affection. Here he is as catcher at his last game.We are enjoying another great baseball season.

5) "Remember when we went to church and they brought out the crucifix for everyone to kiss and everyone else was kissing the cross up higher, but I couldn't reach so I kissed Jesus' feet? Well, I think I became famous because this year, everyone was kissing his feet." - Charlie, referring to the veneration of the Cross on Good Friday, which I'm guessing he misremembered from the year before. 

6) "Mom! When I smile like this, don't I look like a drunk guy because of my loose tooth?"

Double Baptism

At 2 weeks, Olivia was baptized together with her cousin, Briar. We had a beautiful ceremony for these two precious little girls. Well, "little" compared to the rest of us. As far as 2 week old babies go, the description fits Olivia a bit better than Briar. We realized today that Briar, at nearly 12 pounds, is almost 50% bigger than Olivia who is somewhere around 8 pounds. Some of their cousins/siblings/aunts (the specific relationship varies depending on the baby), were trying to come up with appropriate nicknames for the girls. They quickly settled on "Peanut" for Olivia. They couldn't decide between "Monster Baby" or "Blub" for Briar. 

Seth's sister and her husband were not only attending as grandparents for Briar, but also as godparents for Olivia. We are very pleased to have such loving godparents for her!

The girls did great during their baptisms. Both awake at the start and asleep by the end. Olivia only needed one quick snack and cried during the actual baptizing part (I guess I did the same, but I'm happy to report that it has not been a hindrance to my eternal gratitude for my baptism.)

Here are the girls in their gowns, which I am pleased to announce, were not soiled with any diaper blow-outs. Olivia wore her great-grandmother's gown from 1904 - the same gown Elena wore. It was doubly appropriate for her since she was named for her Grandma Olivia. Briar is wearing her great-great-grandmother's gown from the 1930s. Notice that Olivia's great-grandma was 30 years older than Briar's great-great-grandma. It makes a big difference being the youngest child of a youngest child of the youngest of 9....rather than the first born of a first born of a couple of other not-youngest-children (sorry Sorensens - I don't know the birth order of anyone beyond Brooke on your side).

Welcome to the Church, Briar and Olivia!!

Photo shoot

Before Olivia was born, someone had told me to make sure to take lots of pictures of her as a baby because she was the youngest of 9 and had not a single picture of herself when she was little. With digital cameras and cell phones it's a bit easier to make sure that happens, but I was wishing I could find time to take a few nice "posed" photos of her. I didn't stress too much as I never got any really good ones of the other kids either - life is usually a little hectic with a newborn in the house.

Anyway, I had Elena watch Olivia the other day so I could take a shower. When I came downstairs, she wanted to show me the pictures she had taken. Lo and behold, Elena had taken care of putting together a little photo shoot with Olivia. Just another little perk of having a big sister! Looking through the pictures, I was fairly impressed with her work given she is just 12 years old. Here are some of the shots she got:

After looking at the pictures of Olivia, I continued to look through her other pictures and I came across quite a few others she has taken over the last year. As I have gotten pretty bad about taking pictures in the past few years, it's great to have someone else in the family to pick up the slack!

 This one I had taken with the intention of writing about it on here. It was taken at one of Sam's basketball tournaments. I can't remember if I wrote about the fact that Sam started basketball last year or not, but he did and it was a lot of fun to watch him play a sport that I understand (a few things like fouls and such still need to be explained to me, but I grasp the general process much better than football or wrestling). This particular game we both got to enjoy in its entirety as both of the younger boys slept through the whole thing:

 Stellar photography here:

 This is one of my favorites:

Theological musings by Charlie

The kids went to Totus Tuus last week, which is sort of like Vacation Bible School. It was led by a group of energetic young adults who did a fantastic job with the kids, and they had a great time as always.

This was Charlie's first year being old enough to go. He didn't offer up too many details when I asked him what he did each day, but details have been trickling out over the past two weeks. Some are stories clearly from Totus Tuus, like a song he learned or a story he heard. Others I suspect are thoughts that have been triggered by his week there.

Here are a few examples. The last one is my favorite:

1) As we were eating supper one evening last week, Charlie said, "Mom, sometime can we get a lamb and kill it and spread the blood here and here and here (indicating the casing around our back door), and then the Angel will pass over us, and then we will eat the lamb?"

2) Charlie:  Remember that time I called someone a name and you said 'How would you feel if someone called you names?' And I said I wouldn't care, but then later Sam called me a name, and you said 'How does it feel?' and I said it didn't bother me? (This was in reference to something that happened probably 6 months ago.)
Me: Did it actually bother you?
Charlie: Yeah. I lied to you.....I sinned.
Me: Well, thanks for telling me the truth now.
Charlie: I've sinned a lot.....but Frankie has sinned more.

3) Charlie: Mom, would you rather I grow up to be really rich or poor?
Me: Well, that depends. Which way are you happier: rich or poor?
Charlie: (After thinking for a bit) Poor.
Me: Then I would rather you be poor.
Charlie: I think it's better to be poor because Jesus was poor.

4) This last one takes a bit of explanation. Each day the kids came home with a different colored string around their wrists, and each color stood for something. I asked him last week what the colors stood for and he couldn't remember all of them. He remembered that gold was because Jesus is Kng and that was about it. Today he suddenly hollered to me from another room: "Mom! I remember what the white string stands for.....Puberty!!" (Seth figured out he probably meant Purity.)

Introducing Olivia Joy!

We are thrilled to announce the arrival of Olivia Joy. She was born May 31st at 9:11 am -  6 lbs 15 oz and 20" long. At 39 weeks she made it closer to her due date than any of our other kids.  I was starting to get nervous that I wouldn't have her before summer vacation began, but she came on the very last day of school so I ended up having just 1 day of official "maternity leave" with her.

I started having regular contractions around 2:30 am. After about 5 of those, I woke up Seth and we headed to the hospital as soon as Seth's mom came over to stay with the kids - sure is nice having family close by! As soon as I stood up to get ready, the contractions sped up to every 2-3 minutes so it's a good thing I didn't wait it out any longer.

On the way to the hospital, I decided to take the easy way out and get a epidural this time. At 36 and in the middle of the night, the option of giving birth without feeling it was just too tempting. Plus, I kind of just wanted to see what it was like. I loved the experience of having the other 4 naturally and I'm would never go back and change that, but it was pretty nice to have this one easy-peezy. It was absolutely surreal how simple and frankly boring the process was. 

Seth had nothing to do once I couldn't feel the contractions so he took a nap. I dozed off and on for a couple of hours. Around 9:00, Seth grabbed some breakfast and was just starting to eat when the nurse came in and said I was ready to push (news to me!) So he scarfed his breakfast down, I gave it 3 good pushes and she was out. Just like that. A walk in the park. More like a rest on a park bench because I'm pretty sure I have had walks through the park that were like a CrossFit workout compared with this birth. 

And then we had our little girl!!! Healthy, alert and with lots of black hair

 

There has been no shortage of arms to hold this little one. Elena especially has been a super big help holding the baby. Sam is out of the house more often, but when he is home I have double the help! It sure is fun having a new baby with two extras in the house old enough to watch her. The only problem has been the issue of whose turn it is to hold the baby - no one wants to give her up (yet).  Frankie got a turn to hold her once we got home, and when visitors came he was very protective and did not want to give her up. Once we finally got her into Grandma's arms, he was sure to let her know that "she couldn't bring Olivia home with her."

It was a race to the finish with our niece, Brooke whose due date was just one week before ours.  Here we are with our matching bellies:

We both had the name James picked out as our first choice if we had a boy so we weren't sure how that was going to turn out. In the end, it wasn't an issue because we both had girls. Briar was born 3 days before Olivia and was almost 2 pounds heavier. It's amazing to see how different in size two babies almost the exact same age can be. We are so happy for them both that they will have a playmate in the family of the same gender. 

Here are Seth's parents with what could possibly be their last grandchild (you never know) and their first great-grandchild:

Hanging in there

I have found the secret to having a baby early (not preterm early but pleasantly early): don't care whether you go early or not.

All 4 of our kids so far have come before I was quite ready for them to come out. The end of pregnancy stage has never bothered me too much compared with the morning sickness at the beginning so I've always been content to let our babies hang out inside of me as long as they want. I always say they are easier to take care of inside than outside of me. And they all arrived 2 weeks early.

Well now we are at pregnancy number 5, and I finally have a reason for wanting to get the baby out as soon as possible. This will be my first time going back to teaching in the fall (summer, actually - teacher workshops start Aug. 13th). So the sooner I have the baby, the more time I will get at home with our newborn before returning to work. I never dreamed I would make it much past 38 weeks this time. I've hit 38 1/2 weeks with absolutely no sign of progress and now I'm starting to worry I'll go past my due date, which could cut my planned 12 weeks off down to around 9.

In the meantime, I am getting all sorts of tips on how to induce labor (most of which I have tried, none of which have worked):

Deep foot/calf rubs
Various essential oils
Eating pineapple
Eating a Taco John's Quesadilla
Climbing stairs
Long walks
Gardening (I pulled a bunch of weeds today, but no luck - my back is killing me, though)

Anyway, we'll keep you posted, of course. It's looking like this baby was possibly sent to teach us patience....

Here I am today still teaching. It was pinata day. The string broke on this one so they ended up just stepping on it- not before they broke my new pinata stick trying to smash the pinata on the ground while blindfolded,of course.

Babymoon in Bermuda

We recently got back from our trip with the Knights of Columbus to Bermuda. I ended up being 35 weeks pregnant when we left and a day shy of 36 weeks on the return flight, which worked out perfectly since my dr. said I could fly up to 36 weeks if all was well.

I know lots of people thought I was crazy to go, but I figured it would be more crazy not to! It was fantastic having a whole week to relax on the beach. We took it pretty easy the whole time and were able to meet lots of new friends and catch up with old ones.

We thought we wouldn't be able to really appreciate the warm weather in May, but turns out we were able to miss the last snowfall here in MN on May 8th!

Between the packing, making sub plans for the trip and for my potential maternity leave, and getting ready for the baby, I haven't been able to do much else. I'll be sure to update this once baby comes, though. We are at the any-day-now point and the kids are getting very impatient to meet their new sibling.

We barely took any pictures, but I will share what we have. All I have is one good belly shot and a terrible selfie that we attempted. That is a trick I don't think I will ever master.  How the heck do you push the button to take a picture without shifting the picture or dropping the phone??

Literally

There are a few words that really annoy Seth when they are overused. "Like" is one of them. "Literally" is another (especially when it is used incorrectly).

Today Charlie asked me if I wanted to play the "Literally Game."
"What's that?" I asked.
"It's when you have to use the word 'literally' in every sentence you say."
"Ummmm...."
And then he started playing, literally using the word literally in every sentence he said.

After a little while, I said, "You know, Daddy hates that word. You probably shouldn't play this game when he is around."
"You mean he literally hates the word literally?"

Which begs the question: is the word "hate" too strong to be used literally in reference to one's feelings toward an annoying word.

April news

We started April as usual, celebrating Elena's 12th birthday! Just one more year until we have a teenager in the house. By the end of the day, she was sick with a fever. Both schools in town got hit hard by several different viruses all at once, including influenza , whooping cough and strep. We managed to escape with just 2 family members getting sick. Frankie was the other one, and he had a fever that lasted 7 days. It didn't show him down too much, though. Here is video of him with a temp of just under 102. (Apologies in advance for the close up of his snotty nose. And yes, those are Christmas decorations up on the wall in April. They are down now)

                                          

The weekend after Elena's birthday, my college roommate and Sam's godmother came to visit. We haven't seen her in 7 years so our visit was very much anticipated and enjoyed! We celebrated Rachana and Elena's birthdays together as they are both in April. Towards the end of our visit, she introduced the kids to the Boomerang app on her phone. It's a good thing she waited for the end or she would have been stuck making boomerang videos the whole time. I'll include an example below.

And we amazingly we all managed to fit into one selfie. Rachana is clearly better at that than I am because I struggle even to fit just myself with my big belly into a selfie.