Monday, May 5, 2008

Anthony's Dedication

A weekend in pictures...


My parents came into town for the weekend so that we could have Tony dedicated* to Jesus. We had several family members (33 to be exact) over Saturday evening for the occasion and had a wonderful spaghetti dinner before the dedication. Todd's dad made the sauce which was a big hit with everyone. A couple of my relatives asked me for a spoon so they could just eat the sauce by itself it was so good. He made a marinara sauce with eggplant for the vegetarians and marinara sauce with meatballs for everyone else. It was my first big thing at my house and surprisingly we managed to find space for all 33 people inside. Our original plan was to eat outside, but the weather didn't cooperate so we brought the tables and chairs inside and rearranged furniture a bit to make it all fit. My step dad Bob is a pastor, and therefore gets the privilege to do all the spiritual ceremonies for the family. My mom's cousin Mickey and my niece Kristen brought their guitars and we sang some songs too. It was all very nice and very sweet, Todd and I were very happy with how the evening went.
Since my mom and Bob were planning on leaving Sunday morning for the trip back home to NY, I decided to let Rachael's 3 oldest kids spend the night so they could spend more time with their grandma and grandpa. I had them all get their jammies on and get situated on the couches for the night and then put 101 Dalmations on for them to watch. The movie was just getting started at 10pm, so I figured they'd all fall asleep before it was over, but to my surprise Kristen and Katya stayed up for the whole thing. Everyone else in the house went to bed.
When I got up in the morning, Katya informed me that she had gotten sick during the night and threw up twice. But no worries, she and Kristen cleaned it up and she was feeling much better. She even asked me not to tell anyone because she didn't want to have to stay home in case they did anything fun later that day. Well I'm glad she wasn't worried, but I was. I just had 33 people over yesterday and now one of them is sick. Jack had been sick earlier in the week, but he had to stay home away from everyone until he was feeling 100% better and showed no more signs of sickness. Apparently he had already given it to Katya. Then a little bit later in the morning Kristen starting feeling bad and wanted to go home. I called Rachael to come and get her sick kids, but she was at the hospital finishing up rounds, and Derrick was home with Ben, who also got sick during the night. So all 3 of her other kids got the bug from Jack. Then we started to wonder who else may have gotten sick. So far I've only heard that Francie's boyfriend got it. If anyone else gets sick please let me know, were keeping track of the casualties. I promise we had no idea they were sick when we let them come over to the house Saturday evening. If you didn't have close contact with the kids your probably fine, and just in case your wondering, we didn't let them help fix the food.
Sunday morning while Bob was digging up trees down by the river behind the house to take home and one for me which he even planted in my front yard (thanks Bob) and loading the car; Mom, Francie, Natalie and I painted a little pottery. It is so great that Natalie has her own pottery kiln, we all look forward to the weekends when she comes to visit because she always brings new pottery pieces for us to paint. Then she takes them home and fires them and brings them back the next time she's in town. I painted a really cute cereal bowl for Tony, I can't wait to get it back. Oh by the way he started cereal for the first time. He really seems to like it. I think more of it goes on the bib, towel and his face than in his tummy, but he tries, he opens his mouth and grabs at my hand to help me feed him. I'll be glad when he gets a little better at it. Right now it is just a big messy learning experience for him.
Mom and Bob finally got the car all loaded up and on the road by about noon Sunday.
After everyone was gone, I put Tony down for a nap and then started to work on this blog post when Francie called and said that she would come and help me put my house back in order, so I put the blogging on hold and got my house all cleaned and back to normal.

*A dedication service is to thank God for the child and to bless and dedicate them to God, and for the parents and family to commit themselves to raise the child to love Jesus. Then when the child is old enough to make his own decision he can choose to be baptized.

4 comments:

Rachael said...

So you outed me for having the sick kids, huh?

I wasn't goint to post about it until the casualty count came in, but hopefully we're okay.

I'm still not sick (thank goodness). Guess I'll go ahead and post about it too then.

Shannon said...

I can't believe you had 33 people in your house. Thank goodness Francie was willing to come over and help clean up. The most overwhelming part of having house guests is after they leave and the only thing left is the disaster.

I think it is sweet that you had the dedication at your house. Who's idea was that?

Natalie said...

I took a risk...since the whole tile thing was sort of a trial anyways...I painted and fired the tile without firing it the first time around. It should be ok I think, worst case scenario it gets an air bubble...best case scenario - you don't have to wait for me to have enough stuff to fill the kiln a second time, that could be several weeks at best. It's firing now, I wont know if it turns out until tomorrow after work. Keep your fingers crossed.

Paula said...

Yea! for you guys.
We are having Hannah dedicated this month too!