Baby News

# 12

Francisco Donald

"Cisco"

Born today , May 14 @ 9:13am

Blog name - Kili

6# 14oz

19-1/2" long

He is soooooooooooooooooooo cute!

He was my 1st c-section due placenta previa. All went very well. I'm just very groggy from the pain meds (has taken me over an hour to type this much)... and I'm very sore... and hungry!

  

Beautiful Baby Alex

UPDATE:  Please pray for the family. Baby Alex passed away today, May 5th.  We now have a  St. Alex to adore God in a most perfect way, but how heavy our human hearts are.

 Thank you to all those who prayed for my friend's delivery of her beautiful little baby boy, Alex John who has Trisomy 18.  I was blessed to get to go up to the hospital to visit.  As you can see from the picture he is so very darling!

And has alot of hair!  He weighed in at 5 pounds 4 ounces and 18-1/2 inches long.  Please continue to pray for Baby Alex and his beautiful family, they are such a beautiful witness of what it is to be truly pro-life and faith-filled.... and joyful at the same time.

How often people make the poor choice to terminate life based on the imperfections of the human body (among other selfish reasons).  What they deny themselves is love and the intercession of God to bring Grace down to the family.  But here we have a beautiful example of the faithful love of the family, the way God intended it to be.

Baby Alex was baptized and confirmed.  Please also remember our faithful and dedicated priest who was able to be there for any number of hours!

Mass with the Bishop and Science Fair

 We were blessed to have a lovely Mass with our Bishop to end our formal homeschooling year of activities. It began with a presentation of flowers to our Lady.


We had an awesome group of altar boys that did a fantastic job.

 Following the Mass, the Bishop enrolled those who wished to be enrolled in the brown scapular.  We were down to Bilbo for his enrollment.

 Following the Mass there was a year-end science fair.  Sam did an awesome project making some 10 windmills to study... umm... something-over-my-head.  I asked why he didn't bring a scale model of his project to which both Aragorn and Sam laughed at me and said this was the scale model.  Oh.

 The children present had a great time trying to spin it fast enough to light a lightbulb.

 Frodo did a project on bees and their swarming and hiving activities.


The project by a young lady cracked me up... have been at the "old campus" in college I learned to be an expert toilet plunger.  (no that was not my degree!)

 Ok, I was so disappointed I was hasty and got a nice blurry picture as this was so precious of the teenage brother carrying his baby sister in a pack.  Don't you love that?

 This is why I hesitate to send my husband to pick up anything that involves food.  We had planned a nice shrimp newburg dinner to which he brought home, also, some baby octopus. I know some people who perhaps might salivate at the sight of cooked octopus, but I had to pass on this delicacy.  Expectant women do get some say in what they are capable of eating at any given moment!!

 We've had some very lovely spring days lately and the tulips budded... and bloomed....

 There was a sheep shearing done last night to which this is the before picture.....

 And this is the after picture.  So... if anyone knows what to do with some very thick, very heavy, very, lanolin-y sheep wool, better make a comment quickly.  Anyone know how to clean it?!

Newborn Reality

First, please pray for a dear friend of mine who is going to have her baby on May 2nd (sharing the day with my baptism day).  He has Trisimony 18 and really needs prayers that God will be merciful and let them keep their baby for a long time.

 #12 is not due pretty soon but will be arriving pretty soon... May 14th to be exact.  Also happens to be the day I was adopted, I'm delighted to share the day.  Due to placenta previa the baby needs to arrive early by c-section so this will mean a smaller baby that we are used to.  Yeah, I'm a little anxious about it as it is very different than the other 11 babies who arrived in their own time.... late!  So I learned something new.  0-3 months is not newborn size clothing.  See picture above, that is a NB outfit over the top of a 0-3m outfit. There is actually a "newborn" size which is sized 5-8 pounds vs the 0-3 months which goes to about 12 pounds.  I discovered I only had a few items in the real NB size. After a few people gave us some NB items and I bought some irresistible items (they are sooo tiny and sooo cute) this baby now has about 25 tiny little onesies, probably an equal number of tiny little outfits in NB!

Pippin came up to me this evening and asked if we were getting a (enter gender here).  I said, "Yes."  He then asked how I knew and I said I had seen a picture that is sort of like an x-ray (my x-ray guy husband did not agree with my terminology last time this topic came up, but hey, Pippin is 7, "x-ray" is good enough). Pippin then replied, "Oh eww, you saw a picture inside you? Did you see lots of guts and stuff?!"

This is exactly why we have never used to tell our children about babies-enroute. Unfortunately the topic can't seem to be avoided these days. I believe that there are some things that are sacred, the whole world seems to think anything is public knowledge.  But the children are all very excited.

 It was 87 degrees out today.  But cooler temps are coming. Welcome to our neck of the woods it can be 4 seasons in 1 week.

Who me?!  What? What'd I do now?!

Detachment for True Attachment

I received a book I had ordered from TAN publishers called:  Consoling Thoughts on Sickness and Death compiled by Pere Huguet from the writings of St. Francis de Sales (one of my absolutely favorite saint-writers)  I have read a number of pages and it is very beautiful and can be applied in many ways to those things that make our soul sorrowful, the circumstances and difficulties and sufferings we find ourselves in.  One quote that I found quite inspiring is this:

Let us advance, then, dear souls, let us not be stayed by the enticements of the age.  There is above us a solid, a permanent good, which inebriates souls with so sweet an ambrosia, that they can scarcely know their joys, so many contentments do they possess.

Let us advance.  Something to ponder... what is holding us back from growing in deeper holiness?  Our holiness is not found expressly in how often we are able to show up for daily Mass or in our little prayerful routines... those are very good and very important, of course, but what happens when we find ourselves in circumstances that take away these little spiritually ideal practices?  What should happen is that we should find our holiness right where it should be, in the heart, where things really count.  God is going to try those who desire to live a life of holiness and His Way often is one of detachment. Will you still love Me if I ask you to detach yourself from even this?  There is no greater way to show our true love for God than through detachment of the things... and people.... of this world for there is only one True Attachment that we must desire.  So... let us advance and accept what God asks of us so that one day we may taste that sweet ambrosia.

Catching Up

Just catching up with a pile 'o pictures completely out of order.....

 My dad was out for while. I don't know why we didn't get more pictures.  But we really enjoyed the time!

 Marigold wandering off...

 Can we get a little more "cheese" in that smile?  All set for Easter.

 We had a wild ice storm last week. I really only knew how icy it really was because I was up in the night... as usual.  I think for the first century in Heaven I will be sleeping.  So, please... don't wake me up.

 But the ice was definitely beautiful.

 We are trying to figure out which flamingo the chicks look like....!

 If I recall correctly this was the Sunday that Marigold and I stayed home from Mass because I was sick.

 The daffodils are out!!! LOVE those!

 Marigold seems to have a crop of curls that grows on her left side and the right side is rather straight.  Interesting.

 She also seems to be able to find some rather uncanny places to fall asleep... but we do let sleeping babies lie!

 We dyed eggs on Easter since I had a couple sick kids which made us home-bound for Easter Sunday.  It seems to me the only reason they got sick was so that we wouldn't be able to go anywhere for Easter.  As they seemed fine as the day wore on.

 Sometimes they share... sometimes they don't.

 Um... a little more attire for Mass is required.

 Easter Egg hunt.... in the snow... of course.

 A couple deer in the back 40.  Is that a saying?

 Marigold would like you all to believe she is an angelic child while singing the Rosary.  Actually, every evening she wails all through Rosary until it is over.

 Siamese raspberries?

 However, if Marigold has a temper tantrum (not that my kids have temper tantrums...!...) you will notice that curls come out on both sides of her head. We'll see what happens when the humidity hits this summer.

 This could only be one certain child...

 One grubby boy running away one not-so-grubby boy genuflecting.  I cannot possibly imagine... can you?

 Well, as I said these are vastly out of order.  The night after the ice storm we were rudely awakened at 1:15 with a terrific bang which had me peeling myself off the ceiling.  Aragorn figured the windmill crashed down (we were having a terrific wind storm).  He looked out and saw the windmill still standing but this giant thing outside the window. My first thought (remember it was 1:15am) was that an airplane was crashing through the house.  Yes, that makes alot of sense but the 1:15am imagination isn't exactly realistic.  Well, it was the trampoline up on it's side which had been blown around the side of the house and one of the poles was crashing through the window.. some 4 feet from my head.  No joke.    Oddly it didn't damage the screen and only smashed the outside piece of glass but not the second layer.

I don't know, I guess my kids thought this was art.