Laughs and Lessons: Grandma's visiting, music fun and more!

This week has been fun! Last Sunday, we had our annual parish pancake breakfast after Mass. We had fun talking with a local family that we've been getting to know better. Then that evening we went over to a friend's house for dinner. The kids had a good time playing with their children. Mary calls their daughter, "her best friend." I think that's so sweet! Philip loves their house, because they have a lot of trucks, which he remembered from our last visit there almost a year ago. Hahaha! We know what Philip loves!

Mary has really been having a lot of fun playing and practicing her piano. All of a sudden she has really taken an interest in practicing and play (which I think I might have mentioned last time).
Here is a video of her playing.

Mary really wants to play violin. I always joke with moms whose children are learning violin, that hearing their children practice will be their penance for the next few years. hahaha! I did let Mary do some violin last week, but I am urging her to put more effort into the piano for now... Here is a video her doing some pizzicato practice...

Philip is starting to really read now!!! It's a lot of fun to sit down with him now and help him learn to sound out short vowel words. I just realized I have only one picture of him from these past two weeks. This is really sad. I'm going to have to work on this. I don't want him to be the "middle child" in the way people always refer to the "middle child." LOL

We (Mary, Philip and I) discovered something that makes Thomas really laugh this week. I put Thomas in an empty laundry basket while I was doing laundry to see what he'd do. Then I stuck my finger in an out of the little holes on the sides of the basket. He thought it was SO FUNNY. So, Mary and Philip quickly came to get in on the fun and play with Thomas. I got a video of it. :)

Yesterday was a wonderful day! Our good friends' baby was born last Sunday and yesterday she was baptized. It was a beautiful baptism. It was done in the Latin Rite, which I really, really like and appreciate.

Here is a picture of me and our newly baptized goddaughter, Catherine. She is SOOO small! Well, she's not really that small. She's an average sized baby... but I have giant babies, so she seems SO tiny to me. :)