Sick girl

Anastasia fell asleep in the car at 10:30am. My mommy radar immediately went off, and sure enough, she was burning up with fever. Poor baby! She looks so sweet and peaceful.

Piano Recital

The girls had their spring piano recital yesterday. Austin was the only one in attendance, so he videoed for us!

Mariana


Allia

Soccer!

After a week of Daddy being in Paris, we were reunited and off to soccer Saturday morning! I failed to get photos of Allia's game because it was too riveting (they won 2-1 against her coach from last year!) and I was feeding a baby half the game. But here is a shot from Gloria's game. Her team lost, but she didn't care because she had tons of fun playing!

One Month Old!

Wow, our big guy is one month old today. That really flew by! Here he is in his Easter outfit...which I bought when I was pregnant with Allia since we couldn't tell her gender in utero. I had a girl and boy outfit. Finally, 10 years later, the boy outfit is used. Stephen never used it because he was a winter baby and was too big for it by the time spring came!

I just happened to catch a smile. Even if it was just gas, it is still precious!

First trip to pool!

Since it is Easter week and our temps have been in the 80's for many days, we decided to brave the pool! Everyone was so excited, especially Anastasia. The water was chilly, but it didn't seem to bother them. Sebastian and I hung out on the side and watched...well, I watched while he napped in the Moby wrap. Allia even gave Stephen and Anastasia some swim lessons.

"Swallow" the baby

Anastasia is interested in all things baby now that Sebastian is here (she was already pretty interested before!). She decided the other day that her baby needed to be "swallowed" aka swaddled. She was walking around asking, "Can swallow my baby?" since she needed help. We couldn't help but chuckle. Cute girl!

Happy Easter!

We usually have people over for Easter, but this year it is just family (including Pawpaw and Manah) because of new baby and Daddy leaving the country tomorrow! We awoke to the living room transformed as usual, and the children checked out their baskets before mass.

After mass, we enjoyed a yummy lunch and lots of treats while the older girls stayed and sang for the second morning mass. After they returned and ate, we opened Easter gifts. Allia decided that this year we needed to draw names. So in addition to a gift from Daddy and Mommy, the children all had a gift from another family member and so did Austin and I. It was really sweet. We may just continue that tradition! After naps, we hunted eggs. What a blessing to have such beautiful weather!

We are sad that Daddy has to be gone for most of Easter week, but it is nice we have Pawpaw and Manah to celebrate with (and to help out since I am sooo not ready to run the house on my own for a week)!

Holy Saturday

We are up to our usual stuff today...cooking, baking and making the crown of jewels from our crown of thorns from lent. Anastasia was so excited to participate this year!

And Pawpaw and Manah brought eggs for them to dye. Fun stuff! Easter, here we come!

Growing boy

I had to snap a photo of my little guy here. He was so alert and calm. This was after a few days of being fussy if he was not being held...by me. What a cute growing boy!

Happy Baptism Day, Sebastian!

We had the great blessing of celebrating Sebastian's baptism today with family and friends. What a great joy! Deacon David celebrated for us, and Patrick and Sarah Williams are his Godparents.

Our newly baptized boy in his gown with his rosary Daddy made him. He sure smells good!

His cake

These two were looking forward to being relieved of their Lenten sacrifice of desserts for the day. Can you tell?

The Baptism, at St. Mary's Catholic Church (all of the children have been baptized there) with Deacon David presiding

 May he keep the light of Christ burning brightly within him!

Family

 Godparents and Reeds

 Sebastian is very blessed to have such wonderful Godparents (and us to have such amazing friends)!

 A little Lita time afterwards

2 weeks

Sebastian turned two weeks yesterday evening, and he had his checkup this morning. He weighed 8 lbs 12oz (8 oz more than birth weight) and was in the 65 percentile for height and weight and the 98th percentile for head size. Typical baby of ours...they all have big heads! It was quite a morning. Apparently he has exceptional clotting abilities because he had his heel pricked for the newborn screen, but it clotted before she could get enough blood. So we had to wait 15 minutes and do it again. Then he still had to be pricked a third time! Poor little guy was so worn out by all the poking and prodding that as soon as the last one was finished he fell right to sleep and didn't even wake up when I buckled him in the car seat! Here he is, glad to be home...

Holding Time

There is always a waiting list for holding time around here! This boy is well-loved!

Oldest and youngest

Allia certainly has a way with Sebastian. She has a knack for calming him down that only Mommy can beat. ;) Aunt Karen took this cute photo of him yawning and Allia laughing, open-mouthed, at him.

One week old!

This guy sure likes to sleep so far. It has made our first week with him very peaceful. I am trying not to get spoiled, but it sure would be nice if he keeps this up!