60 Kids’ Activities for Fall and Winter – The List is Done!

Posted on September 30, 2013September 30, 2013 by Amy

Our Fall and Winter Fun List is done!

60 fun things we will be doing in the next six months:

Draw faces on leaves
Make an apple pie
Make fall leaves spice art
Go to local apple orchard
Make a leaf book
Play in a pile leaves
“Marble” painting using an apple
Drink hot cider
Leaf printing
Go to a pumpkin patch
Leaf rubbing
Make Thankful trees
Hay ride
Caramel apples
Melted crayon leaf sun catchers
Deer hunting (really just watching this year)
Hand print turkeys
Go trick or treating
Carve pumpkins
Roast pumpkin seeds and use them to make a pumpkin craft
Make an autumn sparkle tree
Children’s museum
Girls road trip
Donate food to the food pantry
Build a fort (in the house)
Treasure hunt
Have a pajama movie night with Super Friend and her family
Bake a cake
Go to open swim at the YMCA
Make a bucket craft to go with this book
Make muffins
Have a picnic in the living room
Go to story time at the library
Have a family slumber party
Make a pinecone garland
Write a letter to Santa
Buy Christmas gifts for needy children
Bake Christmas cookies
Drive through the park to see the Christmas lights and visit the reindeer
Set up nativity
Have a Christmas music dance party
Decorate the Christmas tree
Make salt dough ornaments
Visit Santa
Sing Christmas carols
Make hot glue and glitter snowflake ornaments
Catch snowflakes
Make snow angels
Go Skiing
Make paper snowflakes
Blow ice bubbles
Make a snow fort
Drink hot chocolate
Read books by the fire
Make a snowman
Have a snowball fight
Snowman ice cream sundaes
Make Valentine hearts with handprints (something like this, maybe even with glitter)
Make kid-friendly tiramisu
Make Valentine flower arrangements

Of course there is a lot more crafting and cooking on this list than there was on our summer list. Something about fall gets me in a super crafty mood. Leaves, apples, pumpkins, turkeys, Halloween… It’s all just so perfect making stuff. We already did marble painting with an apple (#7) and the girls loved it.

And don’t even get me started on Christmas crafts… I’m a little giddy thinking about it.

I decided to put more projects that involve glitter or other loathesome materials on the list so I will have to do them (for example see #3, #15, #21, #46 above). I really detest glitter, but the girls LOVE working with it. We made glittery firework art this summer (only because I put it on our list and we did it outside) and it was such a treat for them. So, it’s on there. Multiple times.

It will be fun.

I will meditate prior to doing crafts that involve glitter or other finely powdered substances (Spices? Sounds awesome for crafting. And a little bit horrible).

I didn’t make separate fall and winter lists because around here it’s usually hard to tell where one season ends and the other begins. Winter weather typically starts long before the solstice. Plus, plenty of the activities could be done in either the fall or winter, so I just combined them.

If you want to use some of this stuff for separate lists, the items are organized like this:

Fall #1-21
Either Fall or Winter #22-34
Winter/Christmas #35-46
Winter/General #47-57
Winter/Valentine’s Day #58-60

I can’t wait to get into the activities with my girls.

What fall and/or winter activities are you looking forward to?

7 Reasons I Love My Mother-In-Law

Posted on September 28, 2013September 29, 2013 by Amy

I don’t know much about raising a son. I know lots of people who have done or are doing an amazing job of it. My Mom did a pretty great job with my brother. My Auntie with my cousin. My sisters-in-law are raising terrific young men. I have many friends who are bringing up delightful little boys (you know who you are).

I think behind every good man there is, to some degree, a great mother.

So today, I want to talk about the woman who raised the most incredible, wonderful man I know. My Mother-in-law.

Here are 7 reasons I adore my Mother-in-law (because I know the following things about my husband came, at least in part, from her):

1. My husband knows how to do stuff around the house. When I lived by myself I thought I was pretty handy. No. He is handy.

2. He is honorable. I never worry that he will lie to me or do anything lacking integrity.

3. He is freaking smart.

4. He is no pushover. I can rest assured that he will (figuratively) beat down anyone who tries to mess with me or him or our children.

Actually, come to think of it, he’d literally beat someone down too if necessary. When we lived in Durham I was cleaning an old junky hoosier cabinet I had just purchased. I didn’t realize the top wasn’t connected to the bottom and it started to fall over. A vase feel off the top and shattered and I yelled his name for him to come help me so the top of the cabinet wouldn’t crash to the floor. With the glass shattering and my scream, he thought someone was breaking into the house. He pretty much jumped down our stairs, breaking his toe in the process, and was all set to throw down with a would-be intruder.

5. He knows the importance of family. We come first, no doubt.

6. He works hard. He can and will do anything he puts his mind to.

And last but certainly not least:

7. He never, ever pees on the toilet rim/seat.

I am a lucky, lucky girl.

There’s lots of stuff out there depicting mothers-in-law as meddling, judgmental, conniving, whatever. Movies and books always seem to portray the mother-in-law as a witch or an idiot or both.

But I think mothers-in-law often get a raw deal. I have a wonderful relationship with mine. Of course there are many reasons I love her, besides the way my husband turned out. She is extremely accepting and supportive of me. She is a terrific grandmother, always taking time to do special things with my girls (Lass sobs every time we leave the Farm… Every. Time.) She is generous and loving and thoughtful. And she loves my kids to the moon and back. What’s not to love?

So, thanks Baba. You are a treasure.

Can I Become a Morning Person?

Posted on September 26, 2013 by Amy

I’m trying something new. Waking up early in the morning, before any of my kids get up, to have a little time with my coffee, my computer, a book.

I think I’m a better mom if I don’t start the morning by waking at the same time as my kids to immediate needs of changing diapers, making breakfasts, finding lost toys, etc.

At least, this is my hope.

I am not a morning person.

Never have been. When I was in college and graduate school for example, I regularly stayed up until 3 or 4 AM and then slept until noon whenever possible.

Of course I haven’t had that kind of schedule in a long time, but the point is, morning is not my natural prime time.

Today my goal was just to get out of bed early. Period. I set an alarm and got up at 6.

My plan is that I will begin regularly exercising again during these early mornings. I had a trial run of this a few weeks ago and it was good. One morning I actually got up at 4:20 AM to make it to a 5:00 workout! I won’t make that a regular occurrence, but getting a workout in first thing in the morning is good for me.

I might need to start going to bed earlier, which is very painful for me but probably necessary.

I had to force myself out of bed this morning. But here I am. It’s 6:46 AM, my husband and my kids are still asleep. It’s peaceful at this time of day, and I like getting myself together before beginning my day for real when my family wakes.

I hear a little person stirring upstairs now.

Are you a morning person or a night owl?

More On Yoga Pants. And Kindness. And Being Judgmental.

Posted on September 25, 2013September 25, 2013 by Amy

I have had an interesting response to last week’s “Yoga-Pants-Wearing Mom” post.

The post was featured on BlogHer, and it has received quite a few comments over there and on their Facebook page. Apparently lots of people have opinions about the matter of whether or not moms should wear yoga pants and/or what it says about us if we do.

Most of the comments in response the post weren’t bothersome or even surprising to me. There were people who mentioned their beliefs that people who wear yoga pants: look like “slob[s],” don’t “have respect” for themselves, or disappoint their husbands with their clothing choices.

Meh. I’ve read it all before, which is what prompted me to write the post in the first place.

The one thing that kind of bugged me though, was the comments suggesting that, by wearing yoga pants, I (and other moms who do this) am somehow not setting a good example for my children.

Huh.

I have a hard time understanding that one.

I do lots of things to try to set a good example for my daughters. My choice of pants is not something that I see as a big example-setting opportunity.

So then, just what kind of example do I set when I wear yoga pants?

Hmmm.

Maybe I’m letting my kids know that I’m not overly concerned with what others think of what I wear.

Maybe I’m telling them that I value being able to have fun with them more than I value wearing a certain type of clothing.

Maybe I’m showing them that I am confident in myself regardless of how I look.

Does wearing yoga pants send the message to them that I don’t value myself? That I think it’s okay to not take care of oneself?

Um, no.

My kids might get that message if I frequently criticized myself or made self-deprecating comments, and I happened to be wearing yoga pants while doing so.

It might send that message if I wore dirty yoga pants and also never showered or brushed my teeth or exercised.

But I don’t do those things. Crisis averted.

Perhaps my wearing yoga pants tells my girls that it’s more important to be active and embrace life than to dress up and then worry about getting dirty or rumpled.

Maybe it tells them that it’s okay to wear what makes them feel good instead of what everyone else says is “fashionable.”

Who knows? Honestly, at this point I doubt that my girls are taking any kind of “message” from my choice of pants.

However, I know that they do and will always get the message from me that, except for a few times in life when it is appropriate and prudent to be concerned about how your clothing is perceived by others (i.e. during a job interview), it’s okay to just be yourself. And it’s important to let others do the same.

My kids dress themselves every day. Aside from an occasional veto for seasonal inappropriateness or a stain, I let them choose what they wear, and I don’t interfere. I don’t care if they match. Except when we’re going to church or for certain special occasions, I don’t care if they’re dressed casually. I intentionally only buy them comfortable clothing, because I don’t want them to feel constrained by what they’re wearing either.

I want them to feel free to run and climb and get dirty and play.

But more than that, I don’t ever want them to get the message from me or anyone else that’s it’s cool to judge other people based on how they look or what they wear. I want them to get that it’s more important to be kind than to be wearing the latest fashion fad. That what they do is more important than what they wear, and likewise for those they encounter in life. I hope they will choose their friends and mates based primarily on how those people treat them and not on how popular those people are, what kind of car they drive, or if they wear the “right” clothes.

A random little boy helped Lass on the hay bale fort yesterday. She was so excited to tell me about this and how kind he was to her. She never once mentioned what he was wearing or what he looked like.

I like talking to them about how to be kind and helpful to others. About how good it feels when someone else treats them that way.

I don’t spend time talking to them about what others look like except when they occasionally ask, as of course young kids do.

And when they say, “Mom, why is that man so fat?” or “Why is her skin so brown?” my response is simply, “Because people come in all shapes and sizes, and that’s okay.”

So there you have it. What started out last week as a glib post about wearing yoga pants has morphed into a commentary on kindness and trying not to be so judgmental.

That said, I’ll add that I’m not a Pollyanna, and I know that it is human nature to judge. I’m certainly no saint when it comes to having judgmental thoughts about others. I try not to act on them, and I don’t discuss them with my kids.

They will have plenty of time to learn about the judgments people tend to make about each other. I’ll do my best to help them make good decisions for themselves and to treat others with respect and kindness, regardless of differences.

But for now, we’ll wear comfy clothes and just play.

Farewell to Summer

Posted on September 23, 2013September 22, 2013 by Amy

Ah, fall.

We have beautiful, cool, sunny fall weather here, to go along with the official first day of the season yesterday.

I have mixed feelings about this change of season.

I absolutely love when the weather gets crisp, the air feels fresh, the leaves start to change. Fall. is. my. favorite.

But, I’m sad to see summer go. For one thing, the start of fall means winter is one step nearer and will almost certainly arrive before December 21st when it officially begins (which here means many loooong months of freezing temps, snow, and ice = blah).

But I’m also a bit sad to see summer end because we had an amazing summer.

We did almost everything on our Summer Fun List.

There were only two things we didn’t quite do.

We didn’t get ice cream from an ice cream truck. I didn’t see one all summer. I even tried to find a local ice cream truck company online to see if I could call and get their routes. Not one. So, I improvised and just bought a few different ice-cream-truck-ish ice creams for my girls to eat at home. One was chocolate-covered vanilla ice cream on a stick. The other was a classic orange push-pop. I’m saying “close enough.”

The other thing we didn’t totally mange to complete was to catch fireflies. We tried. Three times. The first time was on the 4th of July. It was too windy. The second time was when our friends came over for a cookout and movie night. It was too cold. The third time was when we were at the Farm in early August. Apparently all the fireflies were dead by then. Who knew they didn’t last all summer? I didn’t. Anyway, we got out there with our nets (the first time). We saw some fireflies (the first time). We just didn’t actually catch any. Next year I’ll know better to make sure we get that one done earlier in the summer.

This past month has been really full of fun end-of-summer activities. I had a lot of stuff to cross off the list by Saturday.

When my parents were here we did a lot. You may remember our camping adventure, which was one thing we checked off.

Since the butterfly garden wasn’t at the Iowa State Fair this year, we took the girls to an amazing children’s garden that has lots of different areas based on picture books.

They even had all the books laminated and available for reading! Heaven.

They hardly had any butterflies in their actual butterfly garden area, but on our way back to the car, we saw this one:

He kindly stayed still long enough for both of the girls to touch him.

We joined forces with Super Friend and her three girls for a trip to a local farm.

The very last thing we completed, just under the wire on Friday morning, was bubble painting.

Naturally, the bubbles were the actual attraction of this activity. But we did make a few “paintings” too.

“Cheese!” I just love how Lass says it.

We are in the progress of developing a “Fall/Winter Fun List.”

After this summer, I am a total believer in having one of these lists with my kids from now on. We did so much stuff this summer that I might not have done without it. The girls really loved checking everything off, and got extra excited about our activities when I told them something was on our list.

I don’t know what it says about me that I need a list to prompt and remind me to do new and exciting stuff with my kids. I guess I don’t really care. The list was awesome.

And now that we’ve done it once, the girls are really into helping me think of fall and winter ideas. I love their fun suggestions.

A sneak preview with some of the things they have come up with so far:

Miss – “Drawing faces on leaves” and “Jumping in a pile of leaves.”

Lass – “Catching snowflakes” and “Making snowballs.”

Stay tuned for the rest of the list soon.

I Am a Yoga-Pants-Wearing-Mom

Posted on September 18, 2013 by Amy

In the past few months, I’ve seen several things online dissing yoga pants. Sometimes indirectly, sometimes not.

I’ve read articles in which moms are chastised for wearing yoga pants to the grocery store or playground. “Yoga pants are for wearing to yoga!,” they say. These tend to be written with a pretty transparent suggestion that the author is trying to “help” the poor, misled mothers who dare to go out of their homes in yoga pants and *gasp!* no makeup. As in, “Moms! Wake up! You are ruining yourself and your children! You would feel so much better if you put on some high heels and mascara! And by the way, you are a sloth! Love, Your online BFF who hates you.”

I’m here to stick up for the yoga pant.

And for the moms who wear them.

Hello. My name is Amy, and I’m Yoga-Pants-Wearing-Mom.

There, I said it. Is that so wrong?

No it’s not. Here’s why:

First of all, yoga pants are comfy! Duh. With three kids under five I spend lots of time squatting, kneeling, bending, sitting on the floor, and otherwise contorting myself to get on my kids’ level. When I am at home, I wear yoga pants 99.9% of the time. Jeans are not my friend.

Lots of people might say, “Sure, you wear yoga pants at home, but there’s no need to wear them out of the house!”

Well. I disagree. When it comes time to go to, say, the grocery store, and I’m corralling three kids to go to the bathroom, get dressed, brush their teeth, do their hair, get their shoes on, and so forth, the last thing I’m thinking of is, “Gosh, I’m wearing yoga pants and about to put on flip flops! That’s not acceptable. I better go change into some jeans and a cute pair of shoes!” Nope. I don’t do that. I usually do manage to brush my teeth, put on deodorant, brush my hair, and put on a little bit of makeup. But beyond that? Forget it. The yoga pants stay on.

Plus, I just can’t justify the extra laundry that would result from my wearing two different outfits every day. I wear clean (okay, mostly clean, sometimes I don’t notice the peanut butter smear/toothpaste drip/other unknown stain until I get home) yoga pants and a tee shirt, and have no interest in changing into a different outfit for an outing, which I would just end up changing back out of upon arriving home again. Double the laundry, and why bother? No need, I say.

Contrary to what some people seem to think, I don’t wear yoga pants because I don’t care about my appearance. I don’t wear them because I’m depressed and can’t manage to dress myself. I don’t feel unattractive because I’m wearing them. It doesn’t make me feel better to get dressed up when I go the the grocery store. It makes me feel uncomfortable. And clumsy.

I wear them because they’re comfy, and I’m lazy about changing into different pants and doing extra laundry. And that’s it.

Yes, of course I do wear jeans or other nicer pants sometimes, but with each child this effort seems to have gotten less frequent.

I wear yoga pants to the grocery store. To the library. To the park. To Target. To play dates.

To be clear, I do have a few rules about my yoga pants.

I don’t wear them if they have stripes down the side. That just seems to scream “I’m exercising!” in my opinion, and I don’t feel the need to make that statement. “I’m comfy” is fine with me.

I don’t wear yoga pants to restaurants. Except occasionally when we take the kids to a super casual place for a family date night and I forget to change before we leave. Okay, I confess, that’s what usually happens for family date night. So, let me rephrase that to say that I don’t wear yoga pants for evenings out with adults. I actually love to get dressed up for date night with my hubby.

I don’t wear them to organized outings. For example, I wear them to the library, but probably not to story time. I wear them to a play date at Super Friend’s house, but not to a play group outing to the nature center. Well, most likely not.

And I don’t wear yoga pants (or jeans) to church.

Aside from those few things, I’m all about my yoga pants.

I’m in a coffee shop typing this and wearing them now. Comfy.

What are you wearing?

First Day of School

Posted on September 16, 2013September 16, 2013 by Amy

I know I’m kind of behind the times and that everyone else has been doing school for at least a couple of weeks already, but I don’t care.

Today was our first day of school.

We’ve actually been doing school to some degree all summer and didn’t wrap up what I had planned to cover until right before Labor Day. So I decided to take the past two weeks off so we could celebrate an actual “back to school” day today.

When I was a kid I always liked the Back to School season. I loved shopping for new school clothes and supplies, getting assigned classes and teachers and lockers, and the actual first day of setting foot back in the building.

(No, that isn’t an error. They both said they wanted to be farmers when they grow up.)

I want my girls to have some of those same experiences even though they are home schooled. So we went “Back-to-school shopping” last week, and today they got to pick from their new “school” clothes what they wanted to wear for their special first day.

What they wore:

Bare feet are a bonus of the home school.

I also got them school ID cards with the name of our school and their names and photos on them. We have absolutely no need for these, but they were free to print and laminate and I thought the girls would get a kick out of them.

They did.

I love going back to school.

The Labor Day Party – Part 3 and Final

Posted on September 13, 2013August 29, 2014 by Amy

It’s Friday! Linking up with Conversion Diary.

Here is Part 3 and Final in my series on the Labor Day Party. Sorry it’s a bit belated, but I got distracted by the girls’ baptisms over the weekend and my parents’ visit this week.

Here are some random observations about the weekend, the Farm, the family, and The Party.

A perfect illustration of The Party in a Walmart shopping cart:

I can’t think of any problem that could come up during the Labor Day Party Weekend that couldn’t be fixed with hand wipes, coffee, toilet paper, and/or a fire extinguisher. Probably should have some beer in there to truly complete the picture, but someone else was in charge of buying that.

Families need to eat together.

My husband’s family is huge. And they love to eat.

My Mother- and Father-in-law are the absolute masters of feeding very large groups of people with maximum efficiency.

There are lots of good ways to do it. Weenie roast and lots of wings/fries are two that are employed every year during The Weekend.

My favorite though, is the shrimp boil.

I don’t know exactly how it works, but it involves boiling lots of corn on the cob, potatoes, hot dogs, sausages, onions, garlic, and shrimp with spice packets in huge pots.

Sometimes it includes lobster. Yum.

The tables get covered with plastic and paper and when the food is done, well, it goes on the table. Literally.

Food. On table.

What could be more fun than grabbing food off the table, eating it with your hands, squirting ketchup and ranch directly onto the paper…? No plates, no utensils, easy clean up. I love it.

Talk about family togetherness.

I love how much stuff there is to do at the Farm. The bigger kids and grown ups do lots of boating, knee-boarding, and playing volleyball. There’s tons of fun for the littles too.

When a family reunion lasts a whole weekend, there has to be plenty to do.

Or not.

Costumes make a party more fun.

The theme of The Party this year was “Jobs.”

After much deliberation, my older girls both decided to be marine biologists. Lass was going to be a zookeeper, but when she saw the wetsuit outfit I was going to order for her sister, she had to have the same one.

A cousin was also a marine biologist.

Baby Sis was a mommy.

The Band (L-R): Fast food worker, rogue accountant, blacksmith, Steve Jobs, Steve Jobs, trucker, and me, a tattoo artist.

Some of my other favorites:

The clown, complete with balloon animals for the kids

“Mechanic Man”

And, yes, The Lunchlady (complete with the full Chris Farley dance performed during the party)

One of my favorite lines of the night was overheard from my sister-in-law regarding a comment my niece had made about her dad (The Lunchlady), “This is my Daddy’s fake butt that he wears under his dress.” Nice.

Families that rock together, stay together.

Father and son:

Sisters:

Mother and son:

Brothers:

Cousins:

A special tribute sing-a-long for their Grandmother,

Her favorite song, “Lord of the Dance.”

One of my favorite parts of the night was watching my girls have fun on the dance floor.

And the dancing. Oh, the dancing.

Blister in the Sun:

The dance off:

“I ripped my pants!!”

And one of my favorite dance-floor traditions, the “Wipe Out” dance:

An incredible weekend. An incredible party. An incredible family.

So, We Tried a Little Camping Last Night

Posted on September 10, 2013September 10, 2013 by Amy

My hubby and I have been meaning to put up our tent and let the girls “sleep” out in it all summer. It’s one of the few things on our Summer Fun List we still need to do.

We had the tent up and ready when we went to the Farm back in June, but my husband got sick with a bad sinus infection, so we (he) didn’t do it then.

When we went to the Farm in August we forgot the tent. And at other times my Hubby has been working nights or working weekends or we’ve been traveling. We haven’t had many free weekends at home, so the tent has not been up, and we (they) have not “camped.”

This week my Dad happened to bring a very small and I think kind of old Army tent with him. He thought the girls would enjoy playing in it, so he put it up for them yesterday morning. He had no intention of anyone actually sleeping in it. It didn’t even have a floor.

But I saw an opportunity and decided to take it.

Unfortunately, I didn’t really plan the whole adventure out very well. I had my first RCIA class last night and didn’t get home until after dark. I did pick up flashlights and cookies on the way home, but that was the extent of my preparation.

Fortunately, my Dad had grabbed a tarp at the hardware store yesterday afternoon, so I threw that down, flung a couple of quilts on top of it, had the girls grab their blankies and pillows and books, and out we went.

They thought it was pretty great.

We had a “Special Secret Camping Cookie Treat.” I called my Mom to ask her to bring out our water bottles (like I said, zero preparation).

We read some stories by flashlight.

We made two trips into the house to go to the bathroom.

The most frequently uttered phrase of the evening was, “No tooting in the tent!!”

Each time we went inside I thought for sure they were going to decide to stay in and go to bed.

See, part of the reason I wasn’t very prepared was that I didn’t really believe they would want to stay out more than about an hour or so. I figured we’d eat our special cookies, read a few books, snuggle and be silly for a bit, and then they’d be ready to go inside and go to sleep in their comfy beds.

Lass actually was ready to come inside after our stories were read, but each time she’d say she wanted to come in Miss would say, “I want to stay out!” and then Lass would say, “Yeah, me too.”

I was getting nervous that we might actually stay out there all night! That ground was hard. And I kept thinking that critters could crawl under the sides or in through the big gap in the front of the tent where I couldn’t get it snapped (yes, snapped, not zipped!!) all the way to the ground. And it was hot and stinky in there (from all the tooting).

Happily, a little after 10:00 Lass said, “I think sleeping inside would be better.” I asked her if she wanted to go in, and she said she did. I quickly and cheerfully said, “Okay! I’ll take you inside.”

To my surprise, Miss said she wanted to go in too. So I scooped them both up and hustled them into their beds before they could change their minds.

I thought I was going to be in for a looong night (though I would have stayed out there!). Instead, we had a lot of fun, rolling around and laughing and pretending. And I still got to sleep in my own bed.

Miss did ask if we could “camp” again tonight though…

Baptisms

Posted on September 9, 2013September 9, 2013 by Amy

Until a few days ago, I had never attended a baptism, Catholic or otherwise.

On Saturday, all three of my sweet girls were baptized.

I was pretty nervous beforehand.

Of course, I knew it wasn’t about me at all, but I still worried I might say or do the wrong thing. I tend to feel nervous when I’m in church that I’m going to do something stupid that completely breaks the rules and has everyone staring at me, slack-jawed with shock at my unintentional inappropriate behavior.

But it was just perfect.

It was beautiful.

When we went to our class about baptism on Thursday night, they told us that toddlers and older children could either stand or sit in the font, or kneel next to it and lean their head over the edge. The deacon said that at Sis’s age we could choose to have her in the font like her sisters or we could try to hold her and do hers like an infant baptism. I was uncertain which way to go.

I was afraid if I tried to let her stand in the font that she would sit down and her diaper would disintegrate and all that weird gel stuff inside a disposable diaper would come out into the Holy Water (this concern was complete with full-colored mental imagery of the above-mentioned open-mouthed horror from the church peeps). Yes, I know I probably would have had time after Mass to change her into a swim diaper, but I was going for simple and not rushed.

So, I planned to hold her and have her baptized like a smaller baby. We even did a practice at home in the sink to see if she would let me hold her that way and have water poured over her head. She didn’t mind it at all at home.

She was a little less enthusiastic about it at the church with the deacon standing over her.

But she did just fine.

I had taken the girls to the church on Friday morning to explain to them what would happen on Saturday. I talked with them about Holy Water and what it is (as best I understand it). I gave them little bottles to fill with Holy Water from the font, which we brought home and decorated afterward (I got the idea here). I let them choose how they wanted to do their baptism. They both got really excited when they heard they could stand in the water and decided they wanted to do it that way.

After that both of the older girls were so excited for their baptisms. My parents came to town Friday night and Miss ran right to her room to show them her little bottle of Holy Water saying, “Look Grandma! You’re going to love this!”

(Yes, that is a toilet-paper-roll Jesus. Gotta love DLTK)

They couldn’t wait to get their chance to stand in the font.

They were precious.

The whole experience with all three of them was just so special.

I think Lass’s favorite was the part with the candle. Since bringing it home, she has repeatedly asked to get hers out of the box and light it, or failing that to just carry it around.

Special Godparents:

I will never forget the looks on the faces of my girls as the water was poured on their heads. Their shy smiles and looks of wonder throughout the ceremony were priceless.

It was an amazing day.