Elise's Big Day

This past weekend, Elise had a big day--she was baptized! The baptism went very well and Elise did great. She fell asleep at the beginning of Mass and slept soundly through most of it. She even slept when the holy water was poured on her head. Guess she thought it was a soothing bath! She did wake up at one point, but then it was back to dream land. It wasn't until church was over and well wishers came to congratulate us that she decided to fully wake up and squawk a little. After church, we enjoyed a delicious lunch at our favorite restaurant with our family and friends in attendance. In all, it was a wonderful day.


The big moment

Happy girl!

Elise's extended family (minus Grandpa, who was playing photographer)

With Grandpa and Grandma (or as Sloane called them all weekend, "Gampa" which is Grandpa and "Gampa Gampa" which is Grandma)

Her Godparents, Will and Danielle

Blair was crying about some injury she just received. Why am I not surprised?? She averages an injury every 10 minutes. She's definitely our "fragile" girl.

I just liked this picture. (That's the slip that goes under the gown. I decided to use it because you never know when a diaper blowout will occur. And it seems like every poopy diaper lately is a blowout.)

Did somebody say lunch!?!

Her gown was beautiful, but you wouldn't have known that to look at it at the beginning. For the other kids' baptisms, I've never had a problem finding a gown. I always go a couple days before the big event and am able to find a nice dress that's not too outrageous in price. So I went to 2 different department stores to look for a gown and I found a total of 7 dresses. Six of them were one ugly style and the other one was another ugly style. I disliked both of them equally, so we just picked one and brought it home. The good thing about it was that it was on clearance, so the $80 dress ended up only costing $15, including tax. I was at least comforted by the fact that I didn't have to pay a lot for a hideous dress. So I brought it home and said, "Mom, you have some work to do." She agreed and went right to work on it, and the resulting gown was astounding! I even had someone ask if it was a family heirloom! Ha! So here are the before and after...(and I mean no offense to anyone who may have this dress or one like it...I just prefer things really really simple)

Before - flapping fabric with scallop edge on top, way-too-puffy sleeves, top portion and sleeves adorned with ribbon flowers with irridescent sequins, extra layer of fabric around the skirt, open in back like a hospital gown...seriously, way too much going on.



















After - sewed in the scallop edge, tucked in the sleeves, removed the ribbon flowers and sequins, removed the extra layer of fabric around skirt, and closed up the back. Ahh, much simpler...

Now isn't that better! Yea grandma! (And I must give credit where credit is due...Jeremy actually picked this dress. The other dress option would not have been able to be altered so nicely, so yea for Jeremy for picking this dress!)

So proud of Reid!

I am so proud of Reid and I wanted everyone to know why...

First, he recently received his midterm grades and as you can see, he is doing amazingly well! He's always been a smart kid, but his tendency to be ornery sometimes overshadows (and I fear also gets in the way of) his academics. So you can imagine how excited we were to see his grades when he brought them home. (And we have received much fewer notes about his behavior this year so here's hoping it really IS a new year.)

And secondly, we had Elise's baptism this weekend, and surprise surprise, we were running late for church. Jeremy dropped the kids and me off at the front so we could run in while he parked the car. Well, church begins at 10:00am and we came running in at about 9:58. I was in such a hurry to get in that I jumped out of the car, made sure Sloane crossed the street safely, and then left her trailing behind me as I ran into the foyer to let them know we were here. (I even managed an Indiana Jones barely-slipping-through-the-closing-door-while-carrying-a-carseat-in-one-hand-and-diaper-bag-in-the-other maneuver to which some impressed random bystander commented, "Nice!" It must be that superhuman capability moms get when the need arises.) Anyway, when I looked back, I saw Sloane still outside, trying to make her way in, so I asked Reid to go get her and bring her in. Without messing around or getting distracted, he went right away and grabbed her hand and walked her over to me. He didn't run, he didn't knock her down, he didn't drag her by one arm across the floor (yes, we've had that one before); he just calmly took her hand and the next time I looked up, they were standing in front of me! Yea! Then, I realized I had my diaper bag, a blanket, and all this stuff (not to mention still had two kids with me) that I needed to get to our church seat, but I didn't have time to walk it all down to our seat and get back to my postition in the back of the church. So I put my super heavy diaper bag on Reid's shoulder, and quickly instructed him to take Sloane and the bag to our seat. Now you have to understand, asking my 7-year-old and 2-year-old (who is basically just a miniature version of her ornery big brother) to walk unsupervised down the center aisle of church is like asking someone to steal your clothes and make you walk through the mall naked. I'm talking embarrassement city here! Those two would undoubtedly result in an impromptu circus clown act, much to everyone else's amusement, but my horror. However to my relief and surprise, he didn't complain, look distracted, or anything. He just took the bag, grabbed Sloane's hand, and off they went, straight to their seats. I didn't have to run down the aisle to get them, I didn't have to pull him away from giggling with friends...they went right where they were supposed to go. Yea Reid! And then, as if it couldn't get any better, Reid sat in the row behind Jeremy and me in church, and shockingly, he actually SAT in church. Sat still and sat quietly. He didn't fidget. He didn't talk. He didn't fight with his sisters. He just SAT there! I couldn't believe it! He was so well behaved! (He told me later that he was tired so that's why he was acting like he was being good...he wasn't really being good, just acting like it because he was tired.) Oh well, whatever the cause, we'll take it. I was, and still am, so proud of his "responsible big boy" day yesterday. Yea for Reid!!