Frank's First Communion

 

Frank made his first reconciliation and first communion this month. He had a beautiful retreat with his class leading up to the big day, and it made a big impact on him. He was so moved to be receiving these gifts.

You may notice one family member is missing from this picture. Charlie ran home to change out of his nice clothes before we could catch him and grab a picture, so we did the best we could.

The weekend before, we all went to Easter Vigil together for the first time since Elena was a newborn. Sam and 3 of his cousins were able to serve for Mass. Charlie is hoping he'll get to serve with them as well next year! We thought Livi and Frank would fall asleep, but no such luck. It was a late night, but a beautiful one.

Quotes!

I've learned that having a 4-year-old in a house full of older kids results in a 4-year-old who often says things one wouldn't expect from someone her age. Here are a few of the latest phrases she has been trying out:

"Just follow my lead."

"Now if you will excuse me, I've got to do something."

"That's more like it!"

"My pleasure!"

"You can say that again!" (This one she said to herself after making another comment)

She still mixes in things that would be typical for a 4-year-old, too:

"This is inside out. It needs to be unside out."

Seth: Liv, do you want to wear your rain boots?

Livi: Yeah, it's wetty out.

Livi: (with a big smile) I want to be a doctor when I grow up.

Mom: I think you would make a great doctor.

Livi: (suddenly switching to a worried face) But....what if I don't know what to do?

Mom: Well, you would go to school first to learn how to be a doctor.

Livi: Oh, good.

And then we have a recent quote from Charlie:

Charlie: How do moms make milk for their babies?

Mom: I don't know exactly how it works, but the human body is pretty amazing, isn't it? A mom's body makes the perfect food for her baby. Even the fact that you can grow one human being inside the body of another human is amazing, don't you think?

Charlie: Yeah!..... And the body can take a 5-star meal and turn it into a lump of poop!

17!

How has it been 17 years since Elena was born? It really feels impossible that our baby is almost an adult! 

We celebrated in the usual way (meaning nothing extravagant), but she git to pick supper and we had cake. Much to the delight of her brothers, she picked Wild Rice Soup - a popular choice in our house. Also to everyone's delight, I doubled the recipe, not realizing I had already doubled it when I wrote it down for my recipe box. So we ended up with a quadruple batch, having to move the soup to our largest pot halfway through. I guess Olivia wasn't thrilled (she won't touch the stuff), but she did enjoy dessert!

It has been such a joy to watch her grow and become a genuinely likeable, caring and productive human being - I realize that's not a guarantee when raising kids!! The only drawback is how close she is to graduating and flying the nest....but I'll leave that post for next year. For now, we'll try to enjoy every minute of having all our kids still at home together. 

Mary got this picture.  It's perfect - especially because Elena's name means "light"!