Lucia's Baptism in Pictures

On June 14th, our little Lucy was baptized as a child of God! My entire family came to Erie for the event and it was so wonderful to have everyone in one place - all 11 brothers and sisters along with their spouses and children. We felt very loved to be surrounded by so many members of our family as we welcomed Lucy into the church.

Matthew and Emma were very excited to help me dress Lucy in her baptismal gown. In fact, Matthew was very involved for the entire baptism. He wanted to stand front and center to get a good view of the action. I thought he was an absolute angel during the entire baptism. Then, while perusing the photos afterwards, I found that he had been making faces the entire time. Little boys!

Lucy herself was in a rotten mood that morning - I think she was a bit overwhelmed by the amount of attention she was receiving. She certainly did not want to be baptized. In fact, she cried throughout 90% of the ritual - complete with nonstop quivering of her lower lip. However, once it was all over and done with, I brought her back home and she slept for most of the afternoon. Getting baptized is such an exhausting affair.

Emma was a bit of a nomad during the baptism, wandering from person-to-person. 

We asked Patrick and Jennifer O'Mahoney to be Lucy's godparents. Jen was my roommate at Notre Dame and we attended her and Pat's beautiful wedding a couple years ago as a family. Pat and Paul have since struck up a friendship over their mutual love of engineering and beer. They are wonderful people and awesome friends and we feel honored to have them as extended members of our family!

Our good family friend Father Nick baptized Lucy. The stole he wore for her baptism had previously belonged to blessed Pope Paul VI - how very fitting to have a relic from the author of Humanae Vitae present for the occasion!

Family photos are getting too ridiculously large. It's fantastic. You just have to accept the fact that you're never going to get everyone smiling and not-blinking at the same time.

Obviously, Matthew was so over all this photo-taking!

Immediately after the baptism, we had a casual cook-out at our house. Paul, Pat, and some other friends grilled some brats and dogs. The girls and I had prepared a bunch of salads that morning - broccoli salad, macaroni salad, and strawberry spinach salad. Catherine brought an amazing homemade salsa and Maria contributed a refreshing watermelon. For dessert, there was a bunch of cookies, brownies, and a huge coconut cake (my favorite cake!). I only managed to snap a picture of the cake before we headed to the church. It was a 12-inch monstrosity of butter and sugar. About 80% of it disappeared at the party and the rest went to work with Paul for his co-workers to fight over.

Good thing I made that cake before my oven exploded. But that's another story.

If you would like a copy of the Coconut Cream Cake, email me and I'll send it to you. It requires a bit of planning ahead and quite a few steps, but is overall a very easy cake to make. I first had this cake at a restaurant and we loved it so much that I asked the pastry chef for the recipe and he emailed it to me! It's been my favorite cake ever since. If you're a fan of coconut, you'll love it.