Today is my beloved’s 33rd birthday. Thanks be to God for his life and his vocation as husband and father.
Today he decided he wanted to go on a brewery tour at Real Ale in Blanco, Texas. Afterwards we drove up to Marble Falls and went to the Bluebonnet Cafe for some country cookin’ and pie (and dancing M&Ms)!
Happy birthday, dear! We love you!
Our dear sweet Cecilia Rose was baptized this past Saturday. Adam’s mom and Fr. Tim flew down from Indiana for the big day when all her sins would be wiped clean and she would become a child of God and a sister in Christ! At the end of the Mass, Fr. Tim consecrated her to our Blessed Mother as he has done with all the children.
We had many friends and family join us. Brad and Misty Cey and family came from Houston to give us the honor of serving as Cecilia’s Godparents. Thank you all! You made the day such a blessing.
Here are some of the highlights (photographed by the talented Misty Gretencord (thank you!) and our neighbor, Chris).
Her God mother, Misty, made her a beautiful baptismal gown (her talents never cease to amaze me) and a friend from church, Bunny, knitted her little white booties for the day.
Pre-baptism distractions…
The kids were captivated with Grandma’s iphone!
Even though they always have been, now the Ceys are ‘officially’ part of the family!
Grandma with her 5 Texan grandchildren!
Little Grace discovering God makes babies smaller than her.
…and after the long day, Cecilia was quite pooped!
“This is really close (to perfection).”
That was the top response I received from the folks at Austin Homebrew Supply after asking them to sample my Pumpkin Ale. Honestly I was a bit surprised. I knew the beer had an imperfection or two but apparently not as noticeable as I had believed.
Photo is too dark. The beer is more red-orange in color.
They pointed out that it’s a bit light on body and has just a tinge of astringency. This is most likely due to mash temps dropping too low. Also in small batches imperfections tend to show more. They offered some advice on how to keep the temperature high (reheat and recirculate liquor during steps) and boost the body (Carapils®). I’ll definitely try these suggestion next time around.
I told Adam that I think Cecilia is hitting that age where she look less like a generic new born baby and getting more character. She’s starting to make all those cute little baby faces including her first smiles. She weighed 9 lbs 5 oz at 5 1/2 weeks.
We saw so many friends at the Texas Alliance for Life dinner this year. Thankfully we’re not short on people to ask to sit at our table. We had some new faces this year including three of the Dominican Sister of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist, Sr. Mary Jacinta, Sr. Mary Cecilia, and Sr. Mary David.
Our neighbors, Chris and Sandie.
And the newly engaged, Matthew and Lauren.
Us with Sr. Mary David.
And our God daughter, Lindsey, with Sr. Mary Jacinta.
Sr. Mary Cecilia and Sr. Mary Jacinta enjoying our sweet Cecilia.
Cecilia enjoying a little bit of time with her future God parents, Mr. and Mrs. Cey.
Here are our little saints. This year due to the newest addition to our family, mama didn’t have time to make new All Saints Day costumes, so we recycled the old ones under new names.
Fulton is St. Joseph. Muffin is St. Teresa of Avila. (She even went out to the first house without any shoes–get it? St. Teresa was a Discalced Carmilite.) And Therese wanted to be St. Cecilia in honor of her baby sister. That’s a harmonica in her other hand. And that’s Adam in the back as the side-ways happy dad.
