Hattie's Highlight

A highlight in Hattie's day is when Dada comes home. She is SO EXCITED to see him and gets so silly when he comes home. Sean never believes me when I say I had a rough day because Hattie is always happy when he comes home. Even if 5 minutes before she was throwing a glorious fit, her frustration melts away when Dada walks in the door.
Waiting for Dada to come home...


Then just some others for your viewing pleasure. I am trying to get a good picture for her bday invitation, but it didn't happen today. Some still turned out pretty good, though.



She wasn't very smiley for the camera this afternoon.....probably because she was so tired. For the past two weeks she has been trying to drop her morning nap, I think. I'm still trying to get her to take it, and she does take it most days, but man, she puts up a fight! Today was the first day she just played the whole hour, so I just got her up and got out of the house. Then I put her down at 11:30. She went right down but was up at 1:30.....it's gonna be a LONG afternoon, but all will be well when Dada comes home!

Sean's New Blog

Sean has started a new blog. The driving force behind the creation of the blog is to simply explain our reasons for joining the Catholic Church. It's no secret, of course, that we recently joined the Church (too be more specific, Sean was confirmed on Easter and Stephanie returned to the church of her childhood.)

The purpose of the blog is not for us to get on our soapbox and proclaim, "we're right and you're wrong." The purpose is simply to provide our reasons in a non-threatening way. The bottom line is that much of our family and most of our friends aren't Catholic. And it is also true that many are mystified by our decision and some may even think that we've ventured into apostasy.

Five Hundred Years ago the Church underwent a great divorce. Ever since Christians have found themselves divided. We want to focus on what we have in common. At the same time we wanted a forum to which we could at least provide a glimpse into our journey. This way we can address the giant "elephant in the room" without being confrontational.

It is not the goal to win more converts to the Catholic Church. The goal is for our friends and family to learn something about us and our Church. Our only hope is that our readers (who number in the millions...yeah right) will walk away with a more charitable view of the Catholic Church.

The blog is called, "You Are Cephas." This is a hodge podge of English and Greek and means, “You are the rock." It is taken from the gospel of Matthew Chapter 16. Sean writes under the pen name "Oso Famoso" which means “famous bear” in Spanish. Don’t ask why. We don’t know why.

The blog is first going to give a narrative of the issues that led to our journey towards Rome. When completed it will address the "issues" that most Protestants have with the Catholic Church in a very basic and surface level. We'll talk about Mary, the Pope, confession to a priest, statues...basically all the issues that we used to think were wrong with the Catholic Church.

You can find a link to the blog in our links on the right of this page.

Our story starts on the bottom of the page and each successive post is above it's predecessor.

Again...one last time. This is not meant to be an affront to our friends and family who aren't Catholic. This isn't even going to be a "hooray Catholic" blog...but rather just a simple and straightforward re-telling of our story.

God Bless

"cOOOk...."

That's what Hattie says for "cookie." It's so amazing how language develops. Babies hear words all day long and then eventually try to say them. In the beginning I guess they don't come out exactly right, but our little Hattie sure is trying. Right now she has quite a list of words that Mama and Daddy know the meaning of.

"Juuus" - Juice
"Buuuhb" - Bubbles
"cOOOOk" - cookie (the "O" is very exaggerated when she says it)
"mamamamama" - This nap is not gonna happen. & Mama
"dadadadadada" - cell phone & Daddy

Seriously, every time my cell phone rings, Hattie says, "dada". It usually is dada on the phone during the day, so maybe she's making that connection?!?!

If she's in her crib and starts babbling, "mama," then I know she ain't gonna fall asleep. I never thought I would dread hearing "mama," but it's just not that cute at naptime, ya know?!?!

Another weird thing about Hattie's speech is that when she says a word, she usually whispers it. She will babble loudly all day long, but when she actually says a word that I recognize and understand, it's always in a whisper. It's weird because Sean and I never whisper to her when we talk except maybe at bedtime.

Finally, here is her newest face - MEAN FACE - as we call it. She makes it when she wants something or isn't happy with something that we just did like if Mama tells her "No!" So to get the picture, I took her cookie away from her. She didn't cry or scream or whine. She just gave me this look (sorry it's a little blurry).

Can you believe our sweet baby is capable of giving this look?!?! And with the look, she loudly breathes in and out of her nose. It reminds me of a bull snorting. MEAN.

Mother's Day Weekend

I had such a great weekend despite the fact that Sean and I weren't able come to Houston and celebrate Mother's Day with our own mothers. Saturday, I got to sleep in until almost 8:00, which is RARE - thank you, honey! Then we went shopping, and I got to actually spend some money on clothes for ME. That night we got a babysitter and went to a really nice dinner with some friends. Sunday, we got up, went to church, came home so Hattie could nap; when she woke up, we went to the pool. Hattie is such a fish - she loves the water! Then Sean was going to make me dinner, but we were so tired from too much sun, so he took me out, which is such a treat! AND he promises to make me that dinner tonight, so I get out of cookin' three nights in a row - WOOHOO!

Here are some pictures of our day:
Before church:



At the pool:




I hope all of you mommies who read our blog had a happy Mother's Day as well!

The flirt

Hattie is 10 months old today! One of her new tricks is to tilt her head and smile when we talk to her. It looks so flirty. Her daddy is a little nervous about it!

Big Girl

I bought Hattie's first set of barrettes today. She is getting to be such a big girl!!!!