Madeline's Professional Pics

These are the pics the professional photographer captured of Madeline at Mass for her First Holy Communion. I love how they turned out!

I especially love this one. Madeline was so surprised and said she didn't even notice the photographer taking pictures of her. Every time we go to Mass Madeline likes to follow along with all the Scripture readings and to sing the Psalms. I love that the photographer captured that!

Madeline's First Holy Communion

This past Saturday Madeline received her First Holy Communion, and it was a beautiful celebration! Both of Madeline's grandparents and her Godfather flew in for the special occasion. 

Along with Madeline, all of my other students from this year also made their First Holy Communion. 

Don't they all look so pretty and handsome!?

We had many family and friends attend, which made it that much more special for Madeline. Here she is with our Oom Folly (my mom's brother) and Tante Patty. They drove out from Houston with Tante Xenia and Oom George (pictured below). So happy they all made it out!

My friend from high school, Erica, who just moved out here to Austin from CA came with her family. Along with several of our neighbors and friends from around town (unfortunately I didn't get pics of everyone). We appreciate them all making it out!

And here's our baby girl, back home after Mass at Church.

I told everyone to bring their kids swimsuits. So they could jump on the trampoline and run through the sprinklers in our backyard. Here are Madeline and Sara. 

It was a fun after party with yummy food and good company!

Thanks to all who came and who sent something special to Madeline for this wonderful celebration. She truly felt all of your love and prayers!

Busy Saturday

This Saturday marked the day for James' last soccer match of the season. SMAYSO put on a big tournament that day, had bounce houses at the soccer field and face painting. So it was a fun way for the kids to end the season. We brought along James' best buddy, Aaron, so he could see James play and join in on the fun festivities too. 

The kids all got medals from the league after their last game that day. One of the other parents bought them all plastic trophies, and I personalized them with their names. Here they are with their coach (a Texas State University student) and James is 2 over from the coach. The coach was about 6'6", so he looked like a giant to the kids.

This was James' last goal he made, too fast for my camera. The ball is already in the net and James' is standing next to the goal post posing for me to take a pic, and I think he was also debating and thinking about doing his celebratory booty shaking dance. LOL

As the volunteer team Mom, I got the kids these soccer cupcakes from Sam's Club and brought them pizza. I enjoyed being the team Mom which consisted of putting together a snack schedule and sending out email and reminders to parents. Many of the parents expressed their appreciation to me. I was glad to do it and give of my time. It was great getting to know all of these families. We had a fun season. And I think we'll be signing James up again, Madeline too next time.

After the soccer tournament one of Madeline's best friends, Ashleigh, was making her First Holy Communion. So we headed to Mass to see her receive this most special and holy Sacrament. She looked so beautiful in her dress and veil.

Here are all the Communicants from that evening. Every child looked so nice. It really was a special evening.  Madeline will make her First Communion in less than 2 weeks!

And here is Ashleigh with her parents, Victor and Melisa. The Medina family has really become great friends of ours and we were happy we could be there that evening to celebrate with them!

Pinterest & TinyPrints

So who is still NOT on Pinterest? Really!? You should be. I love being able to pin ideas from the web onto my virtual pin boards. And I love that when I click on them, they take me right back to the website I  found them on! Awesomeness. So over Christmas we received tons of really cute photo cards from family and friends that used TinyPrints. I loved the quality of these cards, and the layout graphics were what I liked too. So I got to thinking, I couldn't possibly order our Christmas cards through them. With our 105+ mailing list it would just be too expensive. But I could possibly use them for Madeline's First Holy Communion invitations/announcements coming up in a few months. I'm not planning on mailing them out to everyone, just people who are local and could possibly attend and then immediate family. I already started a pin board for Communion dress ideas, so I've added to it with TinyPrints invites too!

So many cute invites!

These are my 2 favorite dresses I've found. I'm going to let Madeline look at all the dresses I've pinned and then pick her favorite. I want something simple, modest and not too many embellishments since she will be wearing my mom's vintage chapel mantilla veil 

(don't want it to clash). 

So all you Pinsters (a.k.a. A pinning gangster), which one of your boards do you seem to add pins to the most?

Photo from Eli's 1st Holy Communion

The religious ed coordinator at Sacred Heart Catholic Church was thoughtful to send us a link of the professional photographer, Plum Perfect Pictures, of our Godson's First Holy Communion from last week.


Click here to see a photo of Elias receiving the Eucharist at his First Holy Communion.

*Figured out how to copy the photo from the photographers website, so here it is.




In search of a special gift for our Godson, we found these neat "Prayer Box" necklace pendants. They each have latches on them that open up, so you could put a tiny scroll inside. On Elias' scroll we wrote:


"May God bless you today and watch over your life Dear Godson...May He warm your world always with His unchanging love.
Thinking of you on your First Communion Day"


Love, Uncle Steve & Aunty Melissa




We received a call and voice message from Eli letting us know how much he liked his necklace. We hope he wears it close to his heart and knows that he will always be prayed for, God bless you Elias.

A Prayer for Our Godson

1 Corinthians 11:23-26 (New American Standard Bible)
The Lord's Supper

23For (A)I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you, that (B)the Lord Jesus in the night in which He was betrayed took bread;
24and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, "This is My body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of Me."
25In the same way He took (C)the cup also after supper, saying, "This cup is the (D)new covenant in My blood; do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me."
26For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death (E)until He comes.

Today our nephew/Godson, Elias will be receiving the Sacrament of First Holy Communion at Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Medford, Oregon. These sacraments are seen as special ways in which the saving grace and the presence of God come to us. For Catholics Sacraments have a Scriptural command to do it and a Scriptural promise from God that comes with doing it in faith. So this is a very special day for Eli! We ask that you say a prayer for him.

"May God bless you today and watch over your life Dear Godson...May He warm your world always with His unchanging love.

Thinking of you on your First Communion Day"
Love, Uncle Steve & Aunty Melissa

We will be sure to update the blog post with photos of the lil man on his special day once we receive them.