Nicole's 1st Communion

Diane, Bill, Sarah and Nicole are in front. I am holding Mary, next to Nancy and Ned.
Our parish is St. Bernard church which has very recently been renovated.




















Nicole was a bit nervous for her first communion. Nicole looks as if she is facing her martyrdom. I remember my first communion. I was probably just as nervous. Sarah shows her loving support. I told you Sarah is a saint.

It was very nice to have Nicole have her first Communion today on Easter. One boy from her class was there today as well. The rest of their class will have their first Communion on Divine Mercy Sunday. It's a big class.

The Mystery of Holy Saturday

The mystery of Holy Saturday is one if the most compelling "lessor" mysteries for me because it goes a long way in explaining the world and our state of affairs today. It's like the quiet part of the song by Boston before the song bursts out in Long Time. Where is Jesus? Where are all the Holy Angels and Saints?

We do not share in the resurrection of Jesus as of yet, not in it's fullness. It has been a very hard mystery for me to understand. But knowing a little bit more and understanding this has helped. So today we savor the quiet and wait in great hope and anticipation for the future. Today can be a tremendous salve for those who suffer from depression if the mystery is entered into with a gentle childlike spirit. We should all have the expression of awe and wonder like the picture of Sarah below, especially during Mass. That's my goal.

Tectors and Nados

All children are sensitive little souls. Sarah is afraid of loud noises amongst other things. Sarah's middle name is Therese (after St. Therese, the little flower). Sarah could live on marshmellows and is very much a gentle little soul, very much like a butterfly.

Once our smoke detectors were low on batteries and beeped periodically, of course at 2 am. We have ours interconnected so if one goes off they all go off. They would announce, "Low battery." Sarah recalls the 'terrifying' incident every now and then and says the 'tectors' said "Beep! I need a battery!" When she was invited into our neighbors house she stopped suddenly at there front door for there as one of those montstrous 'tectors' inside their living room facing their front door. Sarah would have none of that.

A month ago the morning news reported possible storms for the afternoon with a slight chance of severe weather, with an even slighter chance of isolated tornados. Later when the kids had come home from school and wanted to play outside, Sarah would not let them because we were going to get nados.

OK now my point. I've always wanted to write a nice little childrens' book that deals with stuff that is scary for kids and link it to faith in Jesus and how we all have guardian angels to protect us and call the book Tectors and Nados.

The picture above is of Sarah at our local Childrens' Museum. The look on her face is as they say, priceless.

The Swings

Here are Mary in pink, Sarah in orange and Nicole pushing the other two. I've got hundreds of pictures of my kids by now, but this one stuck out. So I thought I'd share it. Click on the picture to see what I mean.