Calfornia: Sacramento+IKEA+backyard

On Sunday we went to Mass at the Cathedral in Sacramento. The Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament, fittingly. It was the most beautiful church I have been inside in the United States. Papa asked, "What about that one in New York?" (St. Patrick's Cathedral). That was pretty too, but not nearly as elaborate.

 The singing was so beautiful. For some reason I had the thought, "I wonder if those people who wrote those more 'folksy' songs actually thought the songs would be sung be people with voices like this." The singers could have made almost any song sound beautiful and uplifting and reverent. Again, it was all very beautiful. The sermon didn't make much sense to me though, but maybe I was distracted by the beauty of the church...

A little family photo on the front steps. Apparently I need to clean my camera lens!

 Isaac with his dolly, who is now known as "Corinne". Sometimes "Lulu", sometimes "Coco". 

 Papa with his baby girl

 My handsome Isaac

 Now the next picture might just make your heart melt. It's okay if it inspires a little extra Papa love. I made it extra big so you can get a good look at that face I love. Well, two faces I love.

 A little forced animal petting never hurt anyone, right? Pet the horsie, Sonia.

 Isaac with another palm tree. Man, this is going to be a tough decision as to which type of palm tree to put around that house in Burkina. 

 Alright, little hammy ham.

 Some more pictures from our walk around the Capitol building.

 Then we went to IKEA. We ate the food, we bought a salad spinner. We had the IKEA experience. Now I will probably have to go to the one in Portland sometime.

 Finally we came back to Uncle Chris's place for a little cooling off. Uncle Chris was going to turn on the sprinklers so Isaac could run in them, but then Isaac fell asleep. I think he caught the tail end of the sprinkler time, but by then the nice evening breeze had cooled things off a little too much for Isaac.

 Mmm, champagne! Err, sparkling cider.

 Fish, fish, fish, fish! (accompanied by happy panting and bouncing). 

Evening came, and morning followed...

Divine Mercy Novena

About the Divine Mercy Novena

This is a deviation from my usual subject matter, but I wanted to quickly remind everyone that if you want to do the Divine Mercy Novena this year, you had better start tomorrow, on Good Friday. I want to do this every year and I always forget to start on time. Also, my confirmation name is Faustina, after St. Faustina, who started this Novena. So, I have two reasons to participate! And now you have one too. We can do it together.

Merry Christmas!

We had a wonderful Christmas eve with Nana, Boompa, Grandma, Grandpa, Uncle Chris, Uncle Mikey, Uncle Greggy, Papa, Mama and Isaac all together! Here are Papa and Isaac spending some time together two days ago.

Papa and Isaac dressed up similarly for Christmas Vigil Mass, but we couldn't get a picture with both of them looking. You can see that they have similar sweater vests, and they both had white collared shirts and suits! At Mass, well... let's just say it wasn't the ideal time of the day for Isaac to go to church. He spent a lot of the time out in the vestibule with Mama or Papa.
Isaac was interested in the tree, but very gentle with the ornaments.
He was also a big fan of all the tools that people received for Christmas!

Isaac did not go and rip open the presents. Contrarily, we found out that he is a very careful present opener! He waited patiently for presents to be given to him, and only helped other people open them when they asked.

We love you Isaac! Merry Christmas everyone, and happy birthday to Jesus!

let us go and make our visit

Here are some more Christmas pictures from my new camera! I really like the picture quality! It's like taking film pictures again. I'm sure that as I get more familiar with it there will be more pictures in focus. Still, I picked out the good ones for you now.
Isaac played with the photo album.

We went for a walk to the beach.

We saw a man with a wind car and had Isaac pose for a picture.

Isaac had a picnic lunch.

And here is a cute smile - although this picture isn't in focus. I know, I look ridiculous with a Santa hat on - who doesn't? But, it fit nicely over my bun.

Here we are at dinner at Great-Grandma's house on Christmas. Isaac is sitting in the high chair that was originally used by Great-Grandpa Wally.

Isaac serenaded everyone after dinner.

He modeled his new outfit that the Greats got him.

In case you were wondering what I wanted for Christmas - All I wanted for Christmas was a pair of nice fat baby legs - and I got them! On the 23rd we took Isaac to a checkup to make sure that dip in the percentiles was just him finding his eventual growth trajectory. His weight is at 18 lbs 8 oz putting him still right on the 50th percentile, and he measured almost 29 inches, meaning he is still at the 90th percentile for height! I guess the other measurement was either erroneous or he just had a growth spurt soon after that. I was glad that he was still gaining weight consistently instead of continuing to drop in the percentiles.

And finally, here are my handsome boys outside of church this morning. I don't know why Isaac was so serious... maybe he wanted to stay to hang out more with his friends. Next time we will.