The First Baby Doll

Everyone was so generous with Sweet Pea on her birthday- she got lots of birthday money from her many grandparents (my kids have 10 grandparents and great-grandparents still living!  Lucky ducks!)   I went out and bought her some clothes- including the ones in the pictures from her birthday- a sun hat, and shoes.  Yesterday we took the last of her birthday money to go and buy her first baby doll.

I am a huge doll lover, so buying my first daughter her first real baby doll was a big deal for me.  So big, in fact, that I started researching dolls while I was still pregnant with her.

So I am a big nerd.  It’s okay.  I have accepted it.

For Christmas she did receive some small Kathe Kruse Waldorf dolls, but they were not real baby dolls.  They were just baby toys.  She took to one of them, this multicolored doll with knotted hands and feet whose hat is tied to a wooden teething ring- she really loved to chew on it.  The other, she never really was interested in.  Too bad, but it’s small and beautiful and will probably become more of a “pretty” than a toy.

So we set out with the last of her birthday money to buy her a good quality baby doll.  It had to meet my criteria: durable, good quality, washable, and something she could grow with.  If I have my way this might be her only baby doll, so I want something that will last her.

And we found…

Baby Stella!

She is absolutely adorable and meets all my standards for a baby doll.  She is made entirely from a very soft velour type cloth with adorable little fingers, toes, and even a tiny belly button.  She is completely washable.  How fantastic is that?  Plus she’s in our budget!

In Baby Stella’s mouth is a tiny magnet (sewn in very well) and her pacifier has a magnet as well, so Sweet Pea has figured out how to attach and detach Stella’s little pacifier.  It’s a great game for her and really keeps her occupied.  Baby Stella is recommended for ages 12 months and up, so it was the perfect first birthday present.  Sweet Pea can even say her own version of Stella: Saaayyaaaaah.  This doll is so cute and already a big hit around our house.

As Sweet Pea gets older I hope to be able to get a few of Baby Stella’s accessories and some well made wooden doll furniture.  There was a woman shopping in the store while we picked out Stella – a grandmother- who said she had purchased Baby Stella for her granddaughter’s first birthday.  Her granddaughter is now four and still completely loves Baby Stella.  As she has gotten older the grandmother has purchased the accessories that were age appropriate so her granddaughter’s play with Baby Stella could continue.  Exactly what I wanted to hear.  Hopefully it works out the same for us.

As for now, we’re all head over heels for Baby Stella.

I even saw Hockey Guy playing with Sweet Pea and Baby Stella. 

Shhh… don’t tell him I told you that.

The Birthday Princess

I can’t believe she’s already a whole year old!

She had to show off her one of her new birthday outfits, complete with stylin’ new shoes. 

I let her “choose” between this pair and a pink pair in the store by holding them up in front of her and letting her grab whichever she liked better.  She tried to grab both.  Then after we picked out the white ones she had to hold them and screamed if anyone tried to take them away from her.  She loves her shoes. I guess she’s definitely a girl.

 So we had a dinner party in her honor, with Grandma, Papa, and our parish priest Fr. J. as guests.  Lots of roasted chicken, Greek salad, peas with ham and onions…..

I can’t say she was overly impressed by the meal, but she’s still getting over a virus.  I think she mostly just threw the peas on the floor.

After dinner, Fr. J. the Chicken Priest entertained us. 

Hmm… I wonder if I need to go to confession now?  Is it sinful to post a picture online of your parish priest acting like a chicken at your dinner table?

Oh, well.  We all thought it was really funny, anyway.

The traditional strawberry birthday cake with strawberry buttercream frosting.  This is the same recipe my mom used for my birthday cake when I was a little girl.

Daddy helped her blow out the candle.  Not too many smiles from my baby girl this birthday- she was fading fast by this point in the evening.

She did, however, enjoy a few dainty bites of the cake.  I have never seen a child be dainty about putting her face into cake, but she managed it. 

We had a fun evening.  I still can’t believe that she’s one now. She is trying to walk and talk.  She has her own little words for things.  She loves to play outside and try and keep up with her brothers.  She can go down the slide all by herself and her favorite foods right now are blueberries and bananas.  She says “Woof woof da daahhhhg” a lot, which we repeat back to her.  It’s our fun little game that gets us weird looks in the grocery store.  She can make car noises and her favorite toys are a tractor (which she pushes around while saying ‘mmmmm’ like an engine) and a singing Elmo phone (which she tries to hold up to her ear, but usually ends up at her eye or on her head, and dances to the music).  She loves to dance.

The only thing I am disappointed about is that something happened to the video I took of us singing her happy birthday and her blowing out the candle.  I don’t know if I wasn’t actually recording when I took the video (I was filming with one hand and carrying the cake with the other…) or if it got deleted or what, but it wasn’t there when I uploaded all the pictures this morning.  Technology stinks sometimes.

St. Joseph the Worker

God our Father, creator and ruler of the universe, in every age you call man to develop and use his gifts for the good of others. With St. Joseph as our example and guide, help us to do the work you have asked and come to the rewards you have promised. We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

 

St. Joseph is an important saint around our house.  Several of our family members are named after him or have chosen him for their confirmation saint.  I consecrated myself through the intercession St. Joseph at eighteen and asked him to be my protector.  We always celebrate his other feast day in March, but it’s great having another chance to celebrate him again in May!  What better way to kick off the month devoted to Our Lady than a celebration of the man chosen to protect and care for her and the Divine Infant?

So why don’t you head on over to Catholic Culture and check out the activities, recipes, and traditions associated with St. Joseph?

Happy feast of St. Joseph the Worker!

Abortion is a BLESSING?!

The “Blessing” of Abortion (<– click for link to the entire story)

Ragsdale, though, says abortion is a “blessing,” and not only in harsh situations but good ones: “When a woman becomes pregnant within a loving, supportive, respectful relationship; has every option open to her; decides she does not wish to bear a child; and has access to a safe, affordable abortion—there is not a tragedy in sight—only blessing. The ability to enjoy God’s good gift of sexuality without compromising one’s education, life’s work, or ability to put to use God’s gifts and call is simply blessing.”

I don’t even know what to say.

I think I might need to throw up.

Dirt, and lots of it.

I know I promised pictures of my gardens for anyone who is interested, but right now there’s not a ton of stuff worth looking at.  The flowers are just starting to fill in.  The hostas haven’t even opened yet.  I have a lot of newly planted mums (which Monkey calls “Mommies”) but that’s about it.  I’ll take pictures in a few more weeks when the flowers are actually there, not just peeking through the ground.

The last few days, though, I have been outside working hard at putting another new flowerbed in on the east side of my house.  It will create a nice view from the deck over a large flower garden with a rock retaining wall and something tall in the middle like a large tree.  The rest of the garden extends around the back of the deck and down the side of the house.  I put in one of those plastic border thingies yesterday and I am getting all the dirt turned and the grass taken out.  Next trip to Home Depot I have to load up on a whole bunch of bags of black earth to turn into our very clay-y soil to make something that will actually support flower growth. 

I think I am going to make the tree in the middle a magnolia tree- there is apparently one variety that can survive Canadian winters, but it doesn’t look anything like the magnolias I am used to.  It is a lot smaller and not as pretty- small flowers compared the the dinner plate sized ones I have seen before- but I still like it and magnolias are one of my favorite flowers by far.  I saw some at the Home Depot on Saturday.  I might have to go back with Hockey Guy and have him take a look and see what he thinks.

So, that’s what I have been up to lately.  Getting really, really dirty.  And loving it.  Nothing compares to the feeling of warm soil in your hands and the ache of your arms and legs after working in the garden all day.

And watching the flowers come up.  That’s my favorite.

More Catechism Lessons

As those first responsible for the education of their children, parents have the right to choose a school for them which corresponds to their own convictions. This right is fundamental. As far as possible parents have the duty of choosing schools that will best help them in their task as Christian educators. Public authorities have the duty of guaranteeing this parental right and of ensuring the concrete conditions for its exercise.

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Happy Feast of St. Gianna!

Today is the feast day of one of my favorite saints, St. Gianna Molla.  She was an Italian mother and pediatrician who, while pregnant with her fourth child, was told she had a benign growth on her uterus.  She was given three options- abort and then operate, a complete hysterectomy, or just attempt a removal of the growth while leaving the pregnancy intact.  The third option carried the risk of encouraging further potential complications, but she chose option three and died one week after giving birth to her daughter, Gianna Emmanuel.   She is the patron saint of mothers and physicians.

As much as I love St. Gianna, I am not so sure about this painting of her.  Does anyone else get a little freaked out by the expressions on the babies’ faces that are flying around St. Gianna’s head?  Particularly the one hovering over her right ear.  Creepy. 

There, one of my favorite pictures of her with her baby.  What a loving wife and wonderful mother she was.  If you are interested in knowing more about St. Gianna Molla, I highly recommend this compilation of her letters to her husband.

O Jesus, I promise You to submit myself to all that You permit to befall me, make me only know Your Will.  – St. Gianna Molla

Ah, Spring.

Spring is in the air here in the Great White North.  Finally. 

With the weather deciding to be so beautiful the last few days I have been spending lots of time outside with the kids and shopping for my gardens.  Therefore, I have completely been neglecting writing anything here.  Sorry about that.

Today we’ll get back outside and I will take some pictures of the beginnings of my gardens.

I definitely have a lot of mums.  Monkey calls them “Mommies”.

The gift that keeps on giving.

One of the things we gave Bud for his fifth birthday was a trip to the nearest big city museum.   The kids and I had never been before, and Hockey Guy hadn’t been for over twenty years.  We took Hockey Guy’s parents along for the fun and made a big day out of it.

This guy was the biggest reason we went.  Bud and Monkey were both really looking forward to seeing the cast T-Rex skeleton.  They have both been into dinosaurs for awhile now and talked all the time of going to see the dinosaur skeletons at the museum.  They were both in awe of this guy.  I found it hilarious that a T Rex’s arms were about the same size as a child’s arms, but a child could have easily fit into that rib cage.  Or that mouth.  Yikes.

  

One of the things I noticed about the museum, on top of all the amazing galleries they have and the fact that their mummy still has all his toes, was that there were tons of little things kids would find fascinating.  Bud quickly discovered all the drawers in the bird section and spent a good twenty minutes going through each one to see the different eggs, nests, and types of food birds make and eat, plus about a million other things.  There were drawers, doors, tunnels, caves, and other interactive displays throughout the entire museum.  That is a definite plus for any family with young kids they are trying to keep interested.

Even Sweet Pea got in on the action.  Here she is admiring a stuffed bird in that glass case.  She toddled around (holding on to something at all times) and looked in the cases, drawers, and doors she could reach.  She enjoyed crawling through the tunnels and seeing the fish in the big fish tank.  We brought a big double jogging stroller and she spent most of her time just admiring all the sights and sounds from the comfort of her own little seat.

The best part of the trip, though- at least according to the boys- was the Children’s Discovery Center.  There they did a bunch of really fun things, like made rubbings of insects…..

… read books inside a life-sized tee-pee (please ignore the rooster tails on both my boys, we obviously haven’t cut their hair recently)…

… dress up in fun outfits like kimonos and suits of armor (complete with chain mail hood and metal helmet, but that picture didn’t turn out)…

 

… and digging for dinosaur fossils in the sand- the favorite by far.   We spent a great deal of time in the Discovery Center.  Other big favorites with the kids were the bat cave, the mummy, the canoes in the First Peoples’ Gallery, looking for all the (fake) animals in the Biodiversity Gallery, laying on a giant map of Egypt, seeing the hundreds of different rocks and minerals, and looking through a giant magnifying glass.

So the trip was a major success.  The kids had a good time, the in-laws had a good time, and the mommy and daddy had a good time.  Can’t beat that. 

We loved it so much, we got a family pass for a year (which was less than the cost of two normal trips), so we can go again and again!  

Monday’s Catechism Lesson

“The fecundity of conjugal love cannot be reduced solely to the procreation of children, but must extend to their moral education and their spiritual formation. ‘The role of parents in education is of such importance that it is almost impossible to provide an adequate substitute.’ The right and the duty of parents to educate their children are primordial and inalienable.” – CCC 2221