What Do Miracles Look Like?

This weekend we went to Texas for my neice's baptism.  Philip took his first plane ride and did very well, although on both flights he ended up having a dirty diaper and Andy had to change him in those tiny airplane bathrooms.  Glad it wasn't me!

My parents and aunt were at my sister's house when we arrived and we had a blast passing babies and introducing the cousins to each other. 

In case you missed it, Olivia's shirt says "I'm as cute as my aunt." ;)

That evening my sister made dinner for us and my brother-in-law's family joined us.  We haven't seen his father since their wedding, so it was nice to see him again.

My sister thinks Philip has funny hair and they spiked it up that evening.  His hair stayed like that naturally - no need for any gel!

Saturday was Olivia's baptism.  There were four babies being baptized and the deacon made the service really special for everyone.  Olivia looked beautiful in her gown.

We were honored to be asked to be Olivia's godparents.

We were so happy that our aunt (my sister's godmother) came to the baptism.  I hadn't seen her in over a year and my sister hadn't seen her in several years.

Can you tell they are sisters?

After a delicious lunch, the girls and Philip went shopping in downtown Gruene. 

We had a fun dinner at the house that night. 

The girls:



The guys:

The next day we went to church and out to eat.  Then we took the babies to the pumpkin patch.

Right after we took this photo someone asked if we were twins.  I don't know why they would think that!

Olivia showed off her Halloween costume - a dietician's dream:

Afterwards we just hung out and took naps, enjoying our last night together.  Philip had a great time seeing his grandparents for the first time since he was a little bitty guy and meeting his aunt and uncle for the first time:

It was fun to see the personalities of the two babies. Olivia is such a dainty little girl and Philip is all boy!  We laughed that when Olivia was hungry, her way of letting my sister know was like, "Um, excuse me, but I am starting to feel hungry and I would like my dinner now please."  Philip's style is more like, "FEED ME - NOW!!!"

Olivia is two months older than Philip, so we got a preview of what we are in store for.  She had just found her feet during the week and was having a blast kicking them in the air and playing with them.  She also rolled over from front to back for the first time (she had already been rolling back to front). Watch out sis, she is mobile now!

I had always thought my sister and I would be pregnant and have babies at the same time, but over the past few years, it was hard to believe it would ever work that way.  It has been such a blessing to experience pregnancy and motherhood with my sister. These babies are truly miracles!

We have another exciting weekend ahead - Philip is being baptized!  Family starts rolling into town Thursday.  We can't wait to see everyone and introduce Philip to a few more family members. 

Please pray for baby Philip!



Three Months Old

Philip turned 3 months old this week!  This month he started using his hands more to touch and grab things.  We also got a couple giggles out of him.  And as a special treat for me, he started sleeping longer periods at night.  He would go anywhere from 3 to 7 hours at a time.  Last night he broke his record and slept 8.5 hours! Here is his stuffed animal size comparison:

Philip's three month birthday fell on Grandpa Jeff's birthday.  We got to chat with Grandma and Grandpa via our NEW webcam.  Mom and Dad were so kind to buy us a webcam after Philip was born so they could watch him grow.  A few weeks ago we were having a hard time getting a good connection - the picture kept cutting out.  Turned out, Herbie had almost severed the wire!  We had run out of USB ports on the back of the computer, so we would plug the webcam into the front of the computer and then just unplug it when we were done.  Herbie must have gotten to it while we were distracted.  I told Herbie he is an expensive cat.  It isn't the food or the toys, or even the vet - it is the electronics!  We've had to replace cell phone chargers, laptop chargers, and who knows what else because of that cat.  In addition to a new webcam, we bought a USB hub, so we can now connect the webcam through the back of the computer.  Hopefully this one will last more than a couple months.

Philip had many photo shoots this month.  Here are some of his best pics:

Li'l Pumpkin

Last weekend Andy turned in Chapter 5 (out of 7) of his dissertation.  Yippy!  It was his longest chapter yet, weighing in at 137 pages, including over 500 footnotes.  When Andy first told me he hit 500 footnotes I asked, "In your whole dissertation?" to which he just laughed.  No, it was 500 footnotes for the chapter.  And to think that when he was first discussing writing on this topic, his director wondered if there would be enough to write about!

Sunday was a celebration day.  After mass and making calls home, we headed out to a garden center that was having a fall festival.  We mainly went to get pictures of Philip with the pumpkins, but they had all the typical fall festival things to do.  We ran into some folks from church - the husband runs a popcorn stand at special events as a side business.  Free popcorn for us - yeah!  This was our first time to the gardens and what we saw of it was really impressive.  We may go back at Christmastime when they do a festival of lights.  That evening we ordered pizza and rented a movie - so Andy went a full day without doing any dissertation work.  We had so much fun hanging out together as a family and we are so looking forward to the day Andy deposits his dissertation so we can enjoy more carefree weekends like this.

Lunches

Last Thursday was Andy's last day of paternity leave so I decided he should take me out to lunch!  We went to a local restaurant that is a replica of a Colonial Williamsburg's Raleigh Tavern.  It seems random, but it totally fits in our little community's Village Green and they serve great food!  We've been there for dinner before, but never for lunch.  Normally we could walk there, but we were having downpours that day, so we drove.  It was our first time at a sit-down restaurant with the little guy and he did great.  For dessert we had an Irish Foggy - brownie sundae with Baileys poured on top - nothing wrong with a little Bailey's mid-afternoon, right?

On Saturday we met our friend Dany from college down in DC for lunch.  He was in town for the day bringing students to a museum.  We were planning to meet at Fuddruckers in China Town. Yes, you read that right, Fuddruckers in China Town. DC's interpretation of China Town is a bit different then New York or San Francisco.  It consists of putting up a really cool Chinese Friendship arch:

then opening up a bunch of American restaurants and shops and writing their names in both English and Chinese:

To be fair, there are some Chinese restaurants tucked away in China Town, but we've never been to any of them!

Due to a rally in DC on Saturday, Fuddruckers was packed (apparently "progressives" like burgers and fries), so we went to Potbelly for sandwiches.  We only had about an hour with Dany, but it was great to catch up with him after not seeing each other for over a year.  We didn't get any pics with Dany, but I did get one of Andy with the baby after lunch:

Here a pic especially for GREAT Aunt Theresa:

Thanks for the Bumbo - we pulled it out for the first time last week. 

Have a great weekend!

St. John Bosco

A couple weeks ago I saw that the Basilica would be hosting the relics of St. John Bosco this Tuesday.   The relic is journeying to 130 nations in preparation for the 2015 celebration of the 200th Anniversary of Don Bosco’s birth near Turin, Italy on August 16, 1815.  I have always been a fan of Don Bosco, so I was hoping to make a trip.  Since we hadn't brought Philip to Andy's office for a visit yet, I decided we should go on Tuesday (Andy's second to last day of paternity leave).  So this past Tuesday, we visited the office and then went over to the basilica for veneration of St. John Bosco's relics.

While there, we said some special prayers for our little boy and also for ourselves that we may live well our vocation as his parents.  We also prayed for our godchildren, our parents (with a special intention for Grandma Susan who has a special devotion to St. John Bosco), and several other personal intentions.

Here is Andy venerating the relic while holding Philip:

Salesian Code of Arms and a Don Bosco quote:

 

Before going to the Basilica, we spent a couple hours visiting Andy's office.  Philip was a huge hit with everyone from the senior staff to the lunch ladies!  We had a 50/50 split on opinions about whether he looked like me or Andy.  Even after spending a couple hours there, we still didn't visit everyone we had hoped to, so I guess we'll have to go back again some other time.  Here are Philip and Andy in his office (they matched that day):

 A sign Andy's supervisor had made after Philip was born.  Apparently this was hanging in the hallway outside of his office while Andy was home with me and then they moved it into his office before he returned to work.

Have a great weekend everyone!