Tomorrow I am starting a novena to St. Therese, the Little Flower - it will end on her feast day, October 1. There are many to choose from, but the one below is short and sweet. You are welcome to join me if you'd like! Novena to Saint Therese of the Child Jesus
O Little Therese of the Child Jesus, please pick for me a rose from the heavenly gardens and send it to me as a message of love.
O Little Flower of Jesus, ask God today to grant the favors I now place with confidence in your hands... (mention specific request)
Saint Therese, help me to always believe as you did, in God's great love for me, so that I might imitate your "Little Way" each day.
I have to stop starting every post with, "I'm so busy!" or "I've been meaning to update sooner." Ha ha... although both of those things are usually true.
My dear friend Lori and and her sweet baby girl Monica Rose (baby #4!) came over for a visit last week. It was so great to meet her at just 8 days old. My friend never ceases to amaze me, but I guess that's what happens when you're a young mama of four.
It was so wonderful to meet two new blogger babies last night! I love these blogging ladies and am so grateful for their support and friendship. It was great to see them, although I was sad that Ethan and Tommy missed all the fun.
This morning my school had a special Mass to celebrate our newly-renovated upper school. The Archbishop of our diocese was the celebrant, which is obviously a big deal, so everyone at school worked hard to make it a nice event. I mostly helped with music and I'm happy to report it was a beautiful Mass. As the Archbishop was leaving he spotted Tommy and gave him a blessing on the forehead - it was so sweet! I continue to be so grateful for my little part-time job and for staying connected to my school.
I can't remember if I have already posted about this or not, but recently I have been working hard to grow our parish youth ministry program. We only meet twice a month on Sunday nights, so I'm trying to add more. I spoke at all the Masses this past weekend and I'm hoping to recruit more teens. We will be having more events/activities this year including a Bible Study at Panera and a Youth Mass once a month. We also need to do some fundraising and I really hope we have some success. The teens who come now are a great bunch, so hopefully we can get a few more regulars.
Well, the countdown is on for our trip to California - we leave on Saturday. I'm not too nervous about the flight, just all the gear we're going to need. We are trying to pack as lightly as possible. We'll see how that goes. :) I'm so excited for Tommy's first trip to my home state!
I think I'm the last blogger to do this! And I don't even think I got tagged. :) But I know you're dying to learn 10 new things about me, so here it goes.
1. Pope John Paul II gave me a high-five. Ok, not exactly, but something close to that happened! And I have the picture to prove it! (I need to find it, scan it and upload it.) In 1997 my high school choir traveled to Europe. We sang for the Holy Father after his Wednesday audience. Afterwards he spent about one minute with us and gave the group a blessing. When he put his hand up to bless us, I stuck out my hand (I was in the second row) as far as I could to touch him. In the picture it looks like he's about to give me a high-five! Ha ha... because I am so bold I did reach out and actually touch him. Now I can say that I have touched a saint. Little did I know at that time he would become my hero. (I studied at the Pope John Paul II Institute for grad school.)
2. I used to work at Disneyland. I grew up just 20 minutes away and it was one of my summer jobs during college. I was a conductor on the Steam Trains (the ones that circle the park.) It was so much fun! I loaded people on and off the trains and gave a spiel into the microphone between each stop. It's the only ride in the park that you get to ride while you work. The only downfall was the costume: I had to wear pants, a long-sleeve shirt, vest, tie and hat. It was pretty hot in the summer!
3. After graduating from college I volunteered for a year with JVC (Je.suit Volun.teer Corps.) This is what brought me to DC and it's how I met my husband! My plan was to volunteer for a year and then move back to California. Nine years later I'm still here... :)
4. I blog about this all the time, so you already know I'm a huge college football fan. You might not know that I actually worked for the football team during college. For two years I was a Football Recruiting Guide. This means I hosted the high school recruits before the game. We served them lunch, walked them to the field during warm-ups, escorted them to their seats for the game and brought them to the locker-room afterwards. It was really fun! After growing up a USC fan my entire life it was so fun to work that closely with the team and spend time on the field.
5. My undergradute degree is in Biology. For the first couple of years in college I was pre-med. Even after I realized this wasn't the path for me, I stuck with my major anyways. What was I thinking? I suffered through BioChem, O Chem, Physics, Calculus, tons of labwork, etc. Thankfully I minored in Musical Theater, so I had some fun classes.
6. I've never broken any bones and the only times I've been in the hospital was for my IF surgeries. Oh joy!
7. I was in a sorority during college. I still have most of our songs memorized - including the Greek alphabet song. It comes in handy once in awhile when I need to know it!
8. In addition to singing for JPII in high school, I was able to sing in the Papal Mass Choir when Pope Benedict was in DC a couple of years ago. I have now made it my goal to sing for every Pope!
9. My husband and I were on ESPN a couple of years ago. Both of our teams played each other, so we went to Nebraska for the game. If you've ever watched "College Gameday" on Saturday mornings you know that people make funny signs and try to get on TV. We got to the stadium really early and ran down so we would be close to the cameras. As you can see in this picture my dad was also with us. I can be pretty bold (just like I was with JPII) and harassed the camera people until they put us on. It was so great! This footage isn't the best, but I will post the YouTube link below. You will see our crazy faces around 16 seconds.
10. As if that weren't enough excitement, we were also on the evening news the night of that game. I didn't mention that both of our families were also there. My parents and I went to a USC luncheon at a restaurant, while my hubby ate upstairs with his parents. (They didn't want to be with all the USC fans!) The local news crew came in to film some footage about the big game - so I shamelessly told them our story (husband and wife cheering for opposite teams) because I knew it would make a great story on the news!
If you are really bored you can follow this link to the news clip. They begin interviewing us at 1:00 minute. :)
Why do I always feel like I'm catching up? I feel like I have been such a bad blogger lately! I haven't been reading, writing or commenting as much as I'd like. I get so overwhelmed when I look at my blogroll and realized how behind I am! Ha ha - is that silly or what? And when I haven't updated in awhile I feel like I have so much to say that I don't know where to begin.
Tommy turned four months yesterday! Our little guy is changing so much. Every day he gets cuter and cuter. :) It's so fun to watch him grow into his own little personality. He's getting much better with his hands, so he actually enjoys "playing" with toys now. (Grabbing and holding them.) He is making more sounds - especially if he is by himself - and lately he has been "talking" to himself in the mirror on his playmat. So adorable.
Yesterday he rolled over for the first time!
This morning I will take him to his four month check-up - which means shots! Hopefully they won't bother him too much. For the first time I have a long list of questions for the pediatrician. This past month he has really been keeping us on our toes. Just when we think we have him figured out he changes! (I know that this will probably continue for the rest of our lives.)
All of his eating and sleeping habits seem to have changed. I think that he has started teething - he wants to put everything in his mouth and he seems to get a lot of relief when he bites down on our fingers. He has also had a couple of really fussy days which are unusual for him.
The big topic in our house has been sleep-training. Until recently we have been really relaxed and didn't put him on any kind of schedule. He had been sleeping through the night (9pm - 5am) and took a lot of catnaps during the day. We started wondering when/if we should put him to bed earlier and when/if he should be napping longer in his crib, instead of wherever he fell asleep. Also I had been rocking him to sleep at night and I know that in the long run I'd like him to be able to fall asleep on his own.
I purchased a couple of the popular sleep-training books and have started going through them. I know that there is a TON of advice on this subject, so I'm just trying to find what makes sense for us. We started putting him down to nap in his crib and he likes it. It seems to help extend his catnaps into real naps. Also, we have anticipated when he will be sleepy and put him down while he is still awake (with a pacifier.) I couldn't believe that he didn't make a peep and was soon asleep.
We also started putting him to bed earlier. Last night he went down around 7:00pm, woke up to eat at 3:30am and then slept again until 6:00am. He was up for a bit and fell asleep again at 7:00am. I need to keep going through the book and we will see what works for him.
I am concerned about his afternoon nap since three days a week I am teaching my class from 2:00 - 3:00. Last week I took him to the sitters house, but today she is meeting me at school and is just going to take him for a walk while I teach. I will have to figure out what works best for him to get a good nap in the afternoon.
We will be traveling to California in just two weeks - Tommy's first time on a plane. Any advice for traveling with a baby??? We have started making our long list of things to pack. Thankfully my mom is collecting a lot of stuff to have at her house.
I will have to write more later... we're off to the doctor now.
This Sunday Tommy will be four months old! It's hard to believe. So every day this week I have thought to myself, "I really need to update my blog!" and it just hasn't happened. :( Hopefully tomorrow I will have a little time. We are going to a Baptism in the morning, but then we'll be home watching football for the rest of the day!
Where does the time go? The days continue to fly by... I can't believe it's September already! Even though it's still VERY hot here, it means that fall is close and cooler weather is on its way. I absolutely love the fall!
I'm excited that college football starts tomorrow. As I've blogged about in the past, my husband and I are huge fans. Especially since it's been a rough off-season for my team (ugh - scandal, coaching changes, NCAA sanctions, etc), I'm ready to move forward and start the new season. USC plays at Hawaii tomorrow night and I'm so jealous that my parents are there! Because of the time difference it doesn't start until 11pm EST. Eek! I'm seriously considering taking a nap as soon as my hubby gets home so that I can stay up for it. I haven't seen 11pm in a long time.
Here is a picture of Tommy in his first USC jersey (thanks Grandpa!) We are heading to California in late September - Tommy's first airplane trip! There is a home game while we're there, so I hope it works out for me to go. I've been lucky to see a lot of USC games over the past couple of years, but they have all been away games. I haven't been to the Coliseum (the USC stadium) since before we were married. Believe it or not, I've been to the real Coliseum in Rome twice since I've been to the USC stadium. Crazy!
In other news, we had our second post-placement social worker visit yesterday. It feels good to move closer to finalization. We have one more visit left in addition to a class on adoption law. Once we hit 6 months (November 12) the paperwork can be filed and we will be assigned a court date soon after that. Then everything will be officially finalized... hooray!
Tommy continues to grow and change so much every day. He has really enjoyed this toy lately. He's getting pretty good at grabing it (and putting it in his mouth, of course!) He also loves "reading" (aka chewing) his soft book.
Tommy received the cutest gift in the mail today from his Godmother (my sister-in-law.) Even though he's a little young to go trick-or-treating this year, I'm still excited to find a cute costume. Any ideas??
