Caterina's Confirmation

This past Tuesday, May 24th, Caterina received the Sacrament of Confirmation!








Here she is with her sponsor and Godmother, Pamela, before the liturgy.











Here she is with Bishop Lawrence Brandt.

Pamela, Cati, and our pastor, Fr. Tom Federline...

Some family pictures...

Cati, her Good Shepherd catechist, and her friend who was also Confirmed...

At home opening presents...

Here is a video that I put together of the 3 major parts of the Sacrament.

Happy Mother's Day

I had a good Mother's Day!

After Mass, we went to Steak 'n Shake for lunch (the kids' FAVORITE place to eat) and then we went to Lowe's and picked out some flowers to plant. After coming home and putting the 2 little ones down for naps, we planted the flowers. It was a wonderful day to be outside! The weather has been so wet and cool for the past 2 months that it was an extra-special treat for it to be warm and sunny!

This isn't a great picture of the kids, but it lets you see the 3 new plants: a rose bush and 2 daisies (one white and one purple). We made the fenced-in area last Spring. I chose this area because I can see it from my kitchen window.

Cati's mulching the flowers she chose, the purple daisies.

Let the watering begin!

I also cleaned out our fenced-in flower garden. You can see that our lillies are doing well.

The roses...

Matteo picked out some annuals that we planted in a pot on our front porch...

Now, let's hope all the flowers live :) :) :)

Happy Mother's Day to all my mom friends and family, especially to my own mother!

Caterina prepares for Confirmation

Cati is preparing to receive the Sacrament of Confirmation in a little more than 2 weeks.

This morning and early afternoon Cati and I attended a Confirmation Retreat at our parish.

The Catechist did a wonderful job facilitating the retreat.

Cati has been working on this Confirmation lapbook as part of her preparation at home.

She has chosen Blessed Theresa of Calcutta as her Confirmation saint.

She will be Confirmed in her name, as the Bishop says,

"Theresa, be sealed with the gift of the Holy Spirit."

Here is an essay that Cati wrote about Blessed Theresa of Calcutta.

(Click on the images to see a larger one if you are having trouble reading these.)

Cati's Godmother, Pamela, will be her Confirmation Sponsor.

Please keep Caterina in your prayers as she continues to prepare for this great Sacrament!

She will be Confirmed:

Tuesday, May 24th, 2011

7:00 pm

at Our Lady of Grace Parish

Greensburg, PA

by Bishop Lawrence Brandt

All are invited!

(As fair warning I must add that we were told that more than 70 children will be Confirmed that evening, so it will probably be a long evening!)

Easter Octave

Here's a look at some of the fun things we did during the Easter Octave last week...


We made Easter cards...

The kids celebrated at their Good Shepherd "classes" (religious ed). Chiara was very proud of the Easter candle that she got...

Playtime outside on a rare afternoon without rain!

Yeah, that's a light saber dual...

Cookie making...

Elena made a wonderful mess :)

Matteo was more into cookie eating than cookie decorating :)

Easter egg dyeing and painting...

Elena got to paint with water colors after her nap. You saw what happened with the flour during cookie making, right?! There's no way we were going to include her in egg dyeing and painting :)

The eggs make a nice addition to our table for the Easter season!

Happy Easter!

Happy 2nd Birthday, Elena!

Yesterday was Elena's 2nd birthday!


Here she was one year ago on her first birthday.

She's grown so much over the past year... she now has a mouthful of teeth and headful of hair and a commanding use of the word "No!" :) She loves climbing on things, going outside, reading books, and she is obsessed with babies! She's putting 2 words together now in her speech and she has starting "singing" over the past few weeks. AND, she draws with her LEFT hand :)

We also celebrated Dany's birthday yesterday. His birthday was last week, during Holy Week, but he wanted to wait until Easter to celebrate.



Elena got a slice of our Easter Sour Cream Pound Cake with strawberries for her birthday cake. I was surprised that she was able to blow out the candles herself!

And she got a bit of homemade whipped cream, which she greatly enjoyed :)

Presents...

Happy Birthday, little girl! I can't believe that our tiny little peanut has grown so much!