St. Gerard, pray for Kaitlin! **UPDATED**

My friend, Kaitlin is at the hospital right now, about to give birth to her very first sweet little baby. Please keep her in your prayers. She's been laboring for over 18 hours now and is 6.5cm dilated with long contractions about 2 minutes apart. (Kaitlin is also planning for a non-medicated natural birth, so we know she could use the extra prayers and encouragement right around now - and especially during transition...)

You can read about her long journey through infertility and eventual conception of this baby (she didn't find out the gender), all while honoring the teachings of the Church at her blog right here.


Prayer for a Safe Delivery

O great Saint Gerard, beloved servant of Jesus Christ, perfect imitator of your meek and humble Savior, and devoted child of Mother of God, enkindle within our hearts one spark of that heavenly fire of charity which glowed in your heart and made you an angel of love.


O glorious Saint Gerard, because when falsely accused of crime, you did bear, like your Divine Master, without murmur or complaint, the calumnies of wicked men, you have been raised up by God as the patron and protector of expectant mothers.


Preserve Kaitlin from danger and from the excessive pains accompanying childbirth, and shield the child which she now carries, that it may see the light of day and receive the purifying and life-giving waters of baptism through Jesus Christ our Lord.


Amen.


**Thank you St. Gerard for your prayers and everyone else, too! And thank you Jesus for keeping Kaitlin and precious little Hannah Rose (born 2/7/2011 at 3:02 am, 7.3lbs, 20 in.) safe during labor and delivery. I can't wait to meet her and check out that dark curly hair I've been hearing about!

Double Aw.

The best part of this video is knowing that he does this kind of stuff with the girls everyday.

Aw.

I recently learned that when Jude puts away the folded towels, he places the newly washed ones at the bottom of the stack to preserve the life of our towels. He's been doing this the whole 4.5 years we've been married.

Aw.

Charlotte's 6 month portraits

Grandparents, aunts, and uncles, let us know which photos you want, what size, and how many, and we'll print them to order!

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**No babies were harmed in the taping of this video. The camera didn't record mother's concussion-preventing cat-like reflexes.**


Take Two

Verbatim

"Momma, something's mattering me."


"Ok, Joan, let's get your pull-up on for nap."
Whimper, whimper, "But I don't want to rest my body."


"Momma, Uncle Mark is silly."
"Yeah, but he loves you."
"No. He's loves Sara. He loves her in his heart."
(Sara is Mark's sister/Joan's aunt)


"I'm the Immaculate Maception."


Jude: "Joan, do you need to go to the bathroom?"
"No ma'am, my father."


"Thank you for sharing your bacon, my Momma."
"Oh, you're welcome. That was polite. Who taught you to be so polite? Me?"
"No. Aladdin."


Pouring oil over the chicken in my skillet,
"What's that, Momma? Snot?"

Prayer Request

By now I'm sure you've all seen the chaos going on in Egypt. Sometimes those problems seem so far away and it's easy to be detached. But I went to high school and college with someone who's in Cairo right now. She just moved there at the beginning of the year with her brand new husband.

They have limited communication with her family here in the states, but seem to be safe at his relative's home right now. Please pray for the safety of Ashley, Shady, and his family and that peace will soon be restored.

(I hope she doesn't mind me stealing this off of Facebook... it's so beautiful.)

We have fun.

And here's how we do it.
Swinging. Eating cake at birthday parties. Going to dog shows. Visiting with the Guilbeauxs. Bowling. Wearing ducky pjs. Playing instruments at Kindermusic. Jumping on inflatables.

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Pictures not enough?