Declan's Baptism!

My little Declan was baptized into the Church yesterday! Although we wanted to have him baptized right away, he was born during the holidays which made it impossible to fit a baptism in. We thought having the baptism at the end of January would give our families plenty of time to recover from the end of the year festivities. However, we weren't planning on the weather being SOOOO terrible. Seriously terrible. My in-laws came in the night before and were able to avoid most of the snow and sleet, but driving to church the next day was downright treacherous. We slid out several times but somehow managed to get there - if not a few minutes late.

I love to be crafty and creative with parties. This was the first one I was hosting at our house for both of our families so I was feeling the pressure. I had planned on doing many other crafty things for his party but had to scale back my endeavors when I realized I can't get much done with a newborn.

The first thing I did was make a banner to be a focal point for picture taking. I got three different kinds of scrapbook paper with similar colors to tie all the decorations together. I chose a blue, brown, and white scrapbook paper as the background to my banner. I then just printed out the letters in Microsoft word and cut out the paper in the form of a triangle to make the banner.

Next I am pretty obsessed with the saints. I have the entire four volume edition of Butler's Lives of the Saints. I had a lot of fun going through these books to find a good saint name that I wanted to use. Because many people have never heard of Saint Declan, I decided to type up a quick synopsis of his life(which is pretty cool by the way). My Declan's middle name is Charles so we chose Saint Charles Borromeo as his other patron saint. I typed up his bio as well. I glued the bios to scrapbook paper, made a header, and put up pictures of Declan on the wall to flank my main table. 

I think they turned out pretty well! 

For my main table, I made a tissue paper flower to hang over the table. Then draped the table in a blue tablecloth. I arranged the beverages, cake, and little sweet treats on the table. For one of the sweet treats, I got blue vanilla candies from Michael's, arranged them on pretzels and then put them in the oven at 200 degrees for 5 minutes. I wanted to make sure they were melted enough to add a white chocolate chip on top. (This is all to go with the blue Baptism theme ;)). I am kicking myself for not getting a picture of the finished product before they were all gobbled up. Oh well. Next time....

Finally, you can't have a party without party favors right? I wanted to somehow incorporate a prayer into the favors so I decided to make Hershey bar covers. I went onto Hershey's website, printed out their covers to use as a template. Then I went on Microsoft word and measured my covers to the size of the official Hershey ones. I created a border, added a Baptism clipart, and a little prayer for our guests to say for Declan on his baptism day. I am super thrilled by the way these turned out. They were a big hit at the party!

The party was a success and I felt a little foolish for stressing out about it the way I did. But the first party is over an done with so i feel like I will be more relaxed for the next one. One final picture of the whole thing put together. 

WIWS: 38 weeks

 

WIWS: 38 Weeks

 

Don't worry, the end is nearing, I think baby has dropped, and hopefully you won't have to endure maternity WIWS much longer ;) Last night I actually didn't even know if I would make it to mass since I felt terrible from a cold and cough. After lots of praying it would subside, a long night in bed, and a nice hot shower this morning, I was definitely feeling well enough to venture out. But, I consciously sat in the back and abstained from the sign of peace, in the hopes of not passing along any germs. Please ignore my tired look and overall lack of make up due to feeling under the weather.

 

Here is what I wore:

 

 

 

Top: Motherhood

Scarf: Target

Cardigan: New York and Company

Pants: Apt 9 (Kohls)

Shoes: Vera Wang (Kohls)

Bracelet: Gift from my mom

 

And, of course, another belly shot. I remembered to take off the scarf this week.

 

During the homily today, the priest spoke about "why we are here". I'm sure most people remember from the catechism that we exist to know, love and serve God, yet so many people still wander this earth wondering what their purpose is. One thing Father reminded us was that we need to remember we aren't here to necessarily marry, have a family, get degrees, work amazing jobs, or make money. Of course, we can still know, love and serve God through all of those things, but we need to remember that we have a family out of love for God, to raise children to serve him and know him, we work for love of God for others, and all this is done with the ultimate goal that we end up in heaven.

 

None of that is anything new or profound, but it was great for a reminder because with baby coming, it's so easy to get bogged down under all the items we "need" and worrying about all the extras.

 

Of course... I'm still having a little bit of anxiety whether she is definitely a girl or not... but it's all in God's hands :)

 

Happy Sunday and please join others for more WIWS at Fine Linen and Purple.