Happy Easter!

Once again, I fail at everything. If by everything, you mean "Taking a family Easter photo," anyway. I hosted visitors in my shoebox of a home, hefted my 18-lb three-month-old through an entire Easter vigil Mass, and kept everyone alive. So I guess I fail at one thing, although in ten years it will seem like a big thing. I got four total snaps of my kidlets:

No lie: this child consumed nothing but butter and chocolate cake for Easter lunch.

Drool bunny!

My happiest little boy.

The Easter Bunny brought an Our Lady of Guadalupe Shining Light doll (in her hand) and Tangled!

And one of myself with two of my five sisters:

Two of my little sisters, only one of whom is little.

...But with all the kiddie wrangling (at a restaurant, for reasons that I will get into shortly), I never managed to get a snap with my husband and both kids at once. Oh well -- onward!

The Amazon in coral up there is my youngest sister, Michaela. She's only 19, which is why she's so disgustingly fresh-faced. ;) Her boyfriend, Dan, was initiated into the Church during the Easter vigil. My parents, my sister Briana, my sister Bridget (and her husband, Chalie, and her 1.5 year old son, Logan), and the aforementioned Michaela came down from Pennsylvania. Then they and we went back up partway to the University of Maryland, where Dan is at school and where he completed RCIA. Dan's parents had a small reception for him before the 8pm Easter vigil, and then Michael and Chalie brought the toddlers back to our house to go to bed. I kept Declan with me, with the intention of passing him around during the vigil so no one had to hold the Heaviest Baby in the World for hours.

{Well. That part didn't work out. I spent the procession and the first several readings nursing a fussy baby in the hall (thankfully I was able to move close enough to hear!), and then he finally passed out. Declan is like his sister in that he refuses to sleep on my shoulder, but insists on being cradled against my body to sleep, and in general prefers his own space for sleeping. By the end of the vigil, I could barely feel my left arm! Lucky he's so cute!}

The best part of the story is that Dan's grandfather got to co-celebrate the Mass! And he's not a deacon.

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Wait, what?

Dan is English. He was born in England but moved to the States when he was a year old with his parents. Around the time that Dan's parents emigrated, Dan's grandfather, who was an Anglican minister, converted to Roman Catholicism. He went through two years of seminary, and then sought and received a dispensation from St. Pope John Paul II to become a priest even though he's married with children.

It was a very emotional moment when Dan's grandfather administered the Blood of Christ to his grandson for the first time. I'm sure he's been praying for decades that his grandson would come to know the fullness of the love of Christ and his Holy Church here on Earth. It was an honor and privilege to be present for this blessed event. Congratulations -- and welcome! -- to Daniel Dominic!

Sorry for the poor quality! Dan is in the back row, third from the left. His grandfather is in the front row, second from the right.

On Easter Sunday my parents threw a lunch for us and for Dan's family (his parents, grandparents and two brothers) at a restaurant because although I was willing to host at my house my mom just didn't want everyone to have to cram in. And they would have had to cram, because this place is just so tiny. So we had a lovely lunch out -- if you ignore my daughter's less-than-ideal behavior, which I could not -- and then almost everyone hit the road. My sister, brother-in-law and nephew stayed the night and the kids had a ball together until they left this morning.

iPad Miles from Tomorrowland party in Keira's crib. At 6:30am.

And that's my Easter! Hope yours was lovely and blessed.