Rosie Turned 4 -- Seven Months Ago

As I was looking through old blog posts I realized that I never posted about Rosie's Birthday!
There are lots of other events that I never posted about... but Rosie's Birthday seems really important so I wanted to post it here.

Rosie, my little 6lb 13oz baby girl that changed my world forever, turned 4 years old.

I'm not even sure how that happened.

The first gift Rosie opened was a box from William's parents.  It was a box of marshmallows in all different sizes and spaghetti noodles.
It's actually and educational thing. People build all kinds of crazy structures with them and it's quite fun.

You know what else is fun? 

Eating them.

Especially when they are as big as your face.

Here's a random picture of Obi with a really large sweet potato. Rosie loves sweet potatoes so I guess we had that for dinner... but I don't even remember. I just thought this picture was super funny.

When I asked Rosie what kind of cake she wanted for her birthday she said she wanted a butterfly cake and princess Belle cupcakes.

Here are her cupcakes. 

We had them for breakfast.

Here's is the birthday table that was waiting for her when she woke up.

Rosie enjoyed reading each one of her cards. She loves cards.

She was also pretty excited about this Princess Ariel sweater I got her at Disney World.

Showing it from another angle.

Rosie's Godparents stopped by in the morning and dropped off a card that came with this blow up Minnie hat.

Both the kids enjoyed playing with it.

William got Rosie a Disney Fairy sticker book. She loves stickers.

William's parents also sent Rosie a rocket shooter with nerf rockets. 

Yup. She was pretty excited about.

I got both Rosie and Obi crowns and swords when we were at Disney World the month before.

Our little Prince.

She said she was a Pirate Princess.

Then Nana came out with this really big box that she'd been hiding. Rosie let Obi help her unwrap it while Nana held the computer with Papa on Skype/Facetime so he could watch.

We took a lunch break to have butterfly shape sandwiches.

Then we all sat on the floor with Papa on Skype/Facetime and played with the castle (that was in the big box from Nana and Papa).

I think Papa really enjoyed just watching Rosie play.

Our little Prince and Princess

Then it was time to go outside and shoot off some rockets.

Obi was very good about fetching the rockets...

...and cheering when they went extra far.

And playing with the cat.

And just being adorable.

Speaking of adorable, look at this happy Princess and her Daddy.

Silly girl.

It's hard work shooting off rockets, so it was time for a milkshake break.

And then time to play on the yard toys.

It's always an extra special day when Daddy comes out to play.

And then it was time to eat cake!

Here's the butterfly cake Rosie asked me to make.

Our happy little Princess

And her adorable smile.

Isn't she precious!?

"I want that piece, Mommy."

Naturally we had tea with our cake.

Rosie also got to pick out the party cups and plates for her party.

Naturally she picked Princess cups and pink plates.

I know these are really old pictures but I thought it was a specially enough event that I wanted it posted here.  I will do more resent events from now on.

Rosie is now much taller than she was in these pictures. She's wearing a size 6 now, she's so tall!

Mother's Day 2014

In the Catholic Church each month is dedicated to a different special "devotion". It's designed to help us focus on and pay special attention to specific aspects and gifts of our Salvation.

The month of May is dedicated to Mary and many Catholic Churches practice the ancient tradition of Crowning Mary.  It's actually quite beautiful.
In our church all the children of the parish bring flowers from home and process into church at the beginning of the service and place their flowers around Mary.

It's really adorable. I have never gotten a picture of it because I'm always in the procession with the kids making sure they don't wander off...  it is totally adorable and precious.

In our church one of the 8th grade girls then places a flower crown on Mary.

Usually the Mary Crowning takes place the first Sunday of May, but this year we did it on the second Sunday. Which, appropriately, was Mother's Day.

I think that made it a little extra special because all the kids dressed up with their flowers, being adorable, at the beginning of the service. And also because it kind of put an extra emphasis on Mary as a mother. And that was sweet.

Our Mother's day was a very sweet one this year. William made me breakfast after church and the kids gave me little gifts they'd picked out for me.

Then after a wonderful nap we went back over to the church to take pictures of the flowers and Mary because I'd forgotten to do it earlier.

Rosie really wanted her picture taken with this orange rose that she said looked like a flame of fire.

Obi feel asleep on the way to church, even though we only live seven minutes from church, so that's why he's asleep in these pictures.

That's ok though. I just wanted a picture with my babies.



Aren't they adorable!?

It really was a perfect and peaceful Mother's Day.

If you're interested, the other Monthly Devotions are below:

January is the month of the Holy Name of Jesus And/Or The Childhood of Jesus
February is the month dedicated to the Holy Family
March is the month of devotion to St. Joseph
April is dedicated both to devotion to the Eucharist and devotion to the Holy Spirit
May is the month of Mary
June is the month of the Sacred Heart
July is the month dedicated to the Precious Blood of Our Lord
August is dedicated to the Blessed Sacrament, also the Immaculate Heart of Mary
September is traditionally dedicated to the Seven Sorrows (or Dolours) of Mary
October is the month of the Rosary
November is dedicated to the poor souls in purgatory
December is dedicated to Advent and the coming of Christ And/Or The Immaculate Conception.

Easter 2014

The day we took down our Christmas tree (which is rather later than most people) Rosie started talking about Easter and the Easter Egg Hunt at Church.

She was sad that Christmas was over but she knew that we had to make room and get ready for Easter (even if it was 2 months away).

All during Lent we talked about getting ready for Easter, what we would eat, planned our menu and what we would wear.

Rosie wanted donuts for Easter and she had her dress picked out for a month before. She also found a lovely pink hat she wanted to wear.

We also talked about what Easter was all about and did Stations of the Cross with her Sunday School class.

So when the big day finally came we were very ready.

All the kids did a good job sitting through the slightly longer than usual church service, and then it was off the to the big hunt.

I'm always amazed how rude and greedy parents can be at these things. Do they not realize they are teaching their kids really bad behavior when they act like that.

Anyway, my kids were perfect and perfectly adorable of course. And really most of the other kids were great too.

Obi did a great job hunting on his own. He was a little slower than Rosie since this was his first year that he could really participate on his own. But he had a wonderful time and he was so stinking cute.

Rosie was a lot harder to keep up with because she was so fast and all over the place. I'll think twice about wearing heals next year.

It was such a beautiful day. Just exactly what you want Easter to be. Sunny but not too hot, but still warm enough to wear Springy Easter dresses. 

It was just perfect.

William and I actually got a picture together this year, thanks to my friend Britney.

 Family Picture!

 This year we had an extra special treat. The Easter Bunny showed up at the Hunt!!

All the kids thought this was great fun... well most of the kids. There might have been one kid who was afraid of him.

Rosie and Obi and little Macy were pretty excited though and loved getting their picture taken with the bunny.

 Obi couldn't get enough of the Bunny. He kept posing for pictures.

 Rosie and Macy are special friends. 

They are the same age and in Sunday School together. 

They are so sweet.

 In the Catholic Church Easter lasts 8 days and Easter Season lasts 50 days (till Pentecost).

A few days after Easter Sunday, Rosie asked if we could have another Easter Egg Hunt.

I figured since it was still technically Easter that we could have another Hunt. (OK. So I would have said yes anyway.... but it was a good excuse.)

So we gathered up all our empty plastic eggs and I found some chocolate chips to put in them and hit them around the back yard.

Here are my lovely children waiting patiently in the laundry room while I hide the eggs.

So we had a second Easter Egg Hunt (except Mommy made the eggs a lot harder to find than the nice girls at church).

After a long day of playing outside and hunting for eggs, both my babies were completely warn out. 

Obi feel asleep on the floor while playing with his fishing pole...

 and Rosie passed out in my rocking chair while watching a show.

So that was our beautiful Easter with my Beautiful babies.

Obviously it was a lot of excitement and work and we were all tired afterwards, but it was totally worth it and completely wonderful.