Baby's Gender Predictions.....

We have our 20-week ultrasound this coming Wednesday (and will hopefully be able to find out the baby's gender) so anyone wanting to make predictions, now is your chance. If right, you get bragging rights for the rest of this child's life! :)

Here are the ones I know for now, but you may change your mind up until Tuesday....

BOY: Chris, Pops, Ray, A/G Pat,

GIRL: Stacy, Luke, Sweetie, Clark, Abbey, Allison, Scott, Christa, Catherine, Boston Mary, Meg

(I should add, by the way----just for those of you who may give me some mother's intuition credit----I thought Luke and Caleb were both girls but Chris was right both times!)

Maralyn is born!!

Here are Scott and Liz on Easter Sunday looking wonderfully pregnant.
And here's little Maralyn today on her birthday!
Congratulations, Liz & Scott!! We can't wait to meet "Neice #9!!"

Easter

Sunday morning we woke up to snow. It didn't stick, but the boys were fascinated watching it fall.
The Easter bunny brought Mama, Daddy, and the new baby some gum; and Luke and Caleb each got new shirts, a rosary, and a chocolate sucker.


We went to Mass, came home for lunch and naps, then went to dinner at some friends' house. Here we are at Regents Park watching Luke, the egg-finding master, find yet another.

We are Catholic

After about 5 years of talking about it, and 7 months of attending "classes," we converted to Catholicism at the Easter Vigil at St. Gregory and Augustine Church. It was a beautiful night service and was a happy beginning to a new life of discovering what the Catholic Church is all about. We have been under the INCREDIBLE guidance of a wonderful priest, Father John Saward, and I know we will miss him when we move back to the US. But, he has given us a great start and his enthusiasm has been contagious. I feel humbled and welcomed and grateful to be part of a church that has such history that ties itself all the way back to St. Peter, such strong beliefs about how we are to live our lives and practice what we say we believe, such multi-cultural members, such a worldly presence, and a church that places such importance on the physical---be that the Eucharist, the acts of confession and penance, or missions projects.

I don't have any pictures of the Easter Vigil service, but I will be getting some pictures of the church soon.

NCAA tournament

Hanging out and watching the games on the internet....

(They only actually sat still like this for about 20 seconds.)

Scott & Nealey in Oxford

After a few days in London, Scott & Nealey came to stay with us Wednesday and Thursday before they headed out to Dublin. Here we are walking into an old church in a tiny town near Oxford.
Our boys, in the pulpit. You can guess Luke had plenty to say....
A cute picture after tea and scones in Woodstock.
Scott & Nealey in Woodstock.
Caleb and Luke (and us too, of course!) had a blast hanging out with them.

As they were leaving this morning, Luke was making sure he understood their plans. Here was the basic conversation:
Luke: So, you're going to Ireland and you're taking my daddy.
Scott: Yes, we're going to Ireland, but no, your dad is just driving us to the train station and then he'll come back to you.
Luke: Oh....
Scott: And then we'll go to Birmingham.
Mom translates: That's in Alabama, Luke.
Luke: Oh, so I can see you this summer in Alabama!!
Scott: Exactly. And we can't wait to see you and play with you again.
Luke: Yea, hmmm.....okay, but I want to play with Sweetie, Nana, and Pops first, okay?
Scott (laughing): Yes, after you play with them you come see us.

Scott & Nealey in London

We had a nice day in London with Scott & Nealey. Here we are eating at Sergio's pizza place on the way to the British Museum.
Our little knick-offs....

Big brother reigning the little one back in...

Good-bye to Faimon, Christa, & Austin

These pictures are all blurry.....probably because SOMEBODY'S children kept running around and around the room :) so hopefully I can replace them with the ones Christa took with her camera. Faimon, Christa, & Austin head for Louisiana in about a week's time. They've been in Oxford 5 years and we were lucky to meet them half way through our first year. We will certainly miss them!!
Christa, Michelle, and Judah
Greg, Tori, Christa, & Austin

A Big Day

We had the grand masterpiece printed this morning. 3 copies---one for each of the 2 examiners who will read it and one for Chris.
Chris then took them to be soft bound, and will pick them up Tuesday and turn them in to the university.
The mastermind and his masterpiece.

Goof-offs before bed

Dress up day at school

On Monday of this week, Luke came home very excited saying that Thursday was "dress up day." It's National Book Week in England so all children everywhere (apparently) dress up at some point this week as their favorite character from a book. Now, Luke is a book worm---loved by librarians from Crozet, VA all the way to Oxford, England and has "read" at least a million books (or so it seems to me) and who did he have to dress up as? Batman, of course!

So, here we are Monday afternoon trying on the suit to see if it's up to the standard of wearing out and to school. As you can see, it needed some work----that's tape keeping the chest part connected to the cape part.
Caleb, of course, had to join in the fun.
After some of this domestic goddess's finesse, the costume was ready (see how proud I am of having gotten out a needle and thread?! Imagine if I actually ironed something!!). Here's Luke (very tired) at the end of the nursery day with his teacher, Elaine, aka Peter Pan.
Luke and Luka (a neighbor and classmate from Japan) who are very happy their names are so similar.
Luke and Emily, aka Cinderella. Her dad and I got a good laugh about just how tired and out of it these 2 were.....it was like the let down at the end of prom. I don't know about Emily, but Luke had been up since 5 AM talking about getting his costume on and getting to school for the big "dress up day." He took a nice hour and a half nap once we got home! What a big day!!

I would've liked to get some pictures of Luke with the other boys but I couldn't corral them. There were at least 3 Batmen that I saw, 1 Spiderman, a pirate, a vampire, and a power ranger.