A little heads up for my pals who are childless but wish to be otherwise, struggling with infertility, or in the adoption wait — I will be gushing about parenthood in this post, so you may want to skip if your heart is feeling tender. You are in my prayers. <3
We are nearly 8 months into being parents and loving every moment of focusing on our little man. (Hence, the lack of posts here!) It is everything I thought it would be, just as beautiful and just as challenging. In some ways, I feel as if all our pain from struggling grow our family was warranted because being a parent and loving Sam really is as wonderful as I imagined it to be. He truly is the little baby love of our lives.
Maybe it was the years waiting to become parents or maybe it was growing up surrounded by little sisters and my Mom’s daycare, but I have found I was relatively prepared for parenthood. So far at least. I expected the hard stuff. The extreme lack of sleep in the early months and someone needing me 24/7. I prayed unceasingly for that honor. What I’ve been blown away by is the level of joy. The joy I feel when he smiles at me or snuggles up close to sleep or gives me a big wet kiss. The excitement in our house when he hits another developmental milestone. I’m a bit afraid Sam is going to think he hung the moon the way we hang on his every action/sound and react as if he just found a cure for world hunger. Humility is a virtue we can teach when he’s older, right?
On Easter morning as I was sitting in Mass listening to the Homily and watching Mark snuggle Sam, I thought my heart would burst with joy. This handsome, holy man and this adorable, joyful baby are my family. I know my family is 100% an unmerited gift, just like the redemption offered by our Savior, and I am so so thankful. I hope I never take either for granted.
I’ve tried a few recipes recently that I really enjoyed and thought you might like to try. The first was Maple Sausage Balls from Shay over at Mix & Match Mama. I may have shared these before, but we really like them and so did all our Easter guests. They are very easy to make and best of all they’re very easy to freeze after cooking and pull out a few at a time when you are making breakfast throughout the week.
For breakfast on Easter, I made the Blueberry French Toast that Heather from A Catholic Mom’s Life shared on her recent YouTube video. As she mentions in her video, this is not a healthy breakfast, but it was perfect for celebrating the biggest feast day in our Church. Highly recommend.
I also attempted to make a Lamb Cake for our family’s Easter dinner, in keeping with the tradition my husband’s Nana started. The cake looked cute, but did not taste wonderful.
I attempted a pound cake recipe for the first time and something about it was off. That didn’t stop me me from enjoying the leftovers, but it did not taste like what I expected for a pound cake. I used the recipe from my Williams Sonoma Baking cookbook, but will probably try one online with lots of reviews next time. Good thing I have a full year to try to get it right before next Easter!