The Comedy of Baptism

{My own baptism gown - and now, all three girls have been baptized in it as well}

{she slept the entire time}

Although the title of this post is a bit misleading, the story of Josie's Baptism quite literally lasts for eleven weeks.

{our friends, the Spies, were kind enough to be our proxy godparents for the blessed event}

With each child, I have found an increasing desire to have our tiny babes baptized as soon as reasonably possible. After all, there really is no good reason to deny them the graces that God so earnestly wants all His children to have. And so, having spent the past two years working within the parish in various ministries and programs, I wanted to make sure that we had a clear path to Josie's official welcome into God's family. Before she was born, her godparents were chosen and all paperwork was filed. This allowed us to focus on the beauty of the sacrament. The final installment in the baptism process was figuring out the 'party' angle of it; the reception. After much deliberation we decided that the importance of the sacrament outweighed the party angle considering it would take longer to plan due to invites, location, food, etc.

We had the devil knocked out of her on August 28.

{Ashley and baby sister sharing a tender moment}

That's where the story gets interesting.

{family friend, Amy, and Jonathan with Josie}

Let me back up just a tad and explain this relationship. Brittany is a friend I met through a group that Ashley used to participate in, Challenge. I don't remember her role at the time, but we met a couple of times at {for lack of a better word} "executive board" meeting for this group. I found out through friendly chat that she had a passion for photography too. Nothing draws me like a moth to the light than photography or my kids or my Faith. We compared notes on equipment and talked about actions among other things. I always lament the fact that when family events come up, I'm typically behind the camera which, don't get me wrong, I love for the most part. But once in a while, momma needs to get in a coupla frames, ya dig? ;)

{Andrew being his usual self at church - adorable with just a pinch of sneaky}

So, we were chatting on FB one day and I mentioned when the baptism would be and Brittany most graciously offered to come photograph our blessed event.

A week or so passed and she posted the thumbnails on her website and sent me a picture to post on Facebook. I was so excited to see the pictures that I could hardly wait for the disc to arrive in the mail. Life happened and it took a while for the first disc to get mailed out. I was so excited to know it would arrive in the mail soon! The day it arrived I opened up the disc all ready to upload the pics and realized that it had not traveled well...at all. The disc was completely damaged. I had a disc mailer that I stamped and mailed via UPS - it did not arrive. We waited and waited for it to arrive and it never did.

It became a running joke.

This evening, in a surprise, Brittany was in town and stopped by to hand deliver the disc - complete with bubble wrap.

!!!SQUEE!!!

{Deacon Richard with Josie - of the six children baptized that day, she was the youngest}

{"I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit"}

Eleven weeks in the making and the pictures are finally and safely uploaded and ready for me to share.

{A very good friend, Theresa, who has become one of my many mentors of the Faith}

I want to send out a big THANK YOU to Brittany for her persistence when it seemed like this photo exchange would never happen. :)

{The oil of catachumens is placed on her chest using the sign of the cross to anoint her}

{The oil of chrism is placed on her forehead}